tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66339914019650166922024-03-13T22:46:37.933-04:00Selene Castrovilla's BlogSharing my truths with the world, and helping others find theirs.Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-55401044423772613852012-03-26T07:00:00.004-04:002012-03-26T07:00:00.504-04:00Method to my Madness Monday: Fear of Lying<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>"...not only does Isadora Wing, like Erica Jong, write poetry but she writes Ms. Jong’s poetry, two samples of which are in this book.”</strong></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>-John Updike, on Erica Jong’s thinly veiled auto-biographical protagonist in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fear of Flying<o:p></o:p></i></strong></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">A while back my ex-husband asked me what the subject of my work in progress was.</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I thought for a moment. “Well, I guess it’s about my life.”</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">“Your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">life</i>? Isn’t that a little presumptuous?”</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">“I think it would be presumptuous for someone else to write about my life,” I told him.</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">“I mean, aren’t you too young for that? Don’t people write about their lives at the end of them?”</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">But before I could say anything more, my younger son piped in, “How could you write a book at the end of your life? Wouldn’t you be dead?”</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Most writers write about their lives. Some admit to it, and that is called nonfiction. Some don’t, and they produce novels.</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Now, I don’t mean that my novel is exactly about me. That’s the beauty of a novel. But I draw on myself and my experiences. I can’t help it. I know myself so well, and I’ve had such interesting experiences. It’s like God ordained that I write it all down.</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">But the problem is what to admit to. </span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">When my novel comes out and you read it, if there’s something shocking, it didn’t really happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">If you know me and you think you recognize someone in the book, you’re wrong.</span><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Have I covered myself enough?</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The truth fascinates me so much that I can’t ignore it. Every moment of my life is a study in human nature. If I didn’t write about myself, I’d have to follow someone else around, because you can’t make this stuff up. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it’s so strange that we often have to label it f'iction.' I think in fact that the deepest truths are in fiction. Does that make sense?</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Erica Jong is so obviously Isadora Wing that I could tell after reading the opening and then scanning her bio on the back cover. They went to the same schools and received the same degrees. They both married Asian men. Give me a break. And the more you delve, the more clues there are - even to the point of the poetry John Updike pointed out.</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Another funny thing (if you find any of this funny) is that I always felt my current novel is my generation’s <em>Fear of Flying</em>. I thought this without knowing anything about <em>Fear of Flying </em>and certainly never having read it. I just had this certainty in my heart. Then, when I came across <em>Fear of Flying</em> at Goodwill (they always have an excellent book selection, which I don’t know is a good or bad sign for literature.) I of course picked it up and started reading it right there, leaning against a clothes rack. Yes! It is, as I suspected from the title, a coming of age story about a woman. It is fearless (despite the title) and fresh, as John Updike wrote in his review, and even though it is now dated and we can laugh at some of the terms (there are analysts everywhere, for example), the wit and ideas Ms. Jong put forth are so honest that the book remains relevant all these years later.</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I would like to write to Erica Jong and thank her for paving my way – even though I was nearly finished writing my novel when I encountered her book, it rallied me so very much. However, someone told me she’s dead. I will check into that further.</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Anyway, the point I wanted to make for today is that good fiction always contains truth, and that truth of course comes from the writer’s heart. So whether or not we realize it (or admit it) we authors have all put something of ourselves into our novels. Unless we’ve written work for hire. Or <em>Twilight</em>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-9617782948966779432012-02-27T12:24:00.000-05:002012-02-27T12:24:41.480-05:00Je voudrais un croissant, s'il vous plait.I was going to call my minister just now. I haven’t spoken to her in years, nor have I set foot in her church, but I know she’d speak with me as though no time had passed. That’s what ministers like her do.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">But I realized, I’m not having a crisis in faith. I’m having a crisis in people.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Having my mom and my aunt pass away has been difficult enough. Writing a semi-autobiographical book and facing my life – including my dad, the only one left, who was a pathetic father and who I am now in charge of because he sits paralyzed in a nursing home – makes everything worse.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Why do people think writing about things is cathartic? Is it cathartic to open a vein and bleed out? That’s what this process feels like. I do get satisfaction from writing well, but not from the act of getting it “all out.” Frankly, I feel like I may puke. But I write on. It’s my mission. This much I know, because every time I’ve tried to veer off my path the universe has plopped me right back on it, sometimes kicking and screaming. I don’t fight it anymore. I just write.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The behavior of some people has been utterly appalling¸ and unfortunately it continues to be. There’s a pain in my heart and it’s been put there by humanity (which is not an appropriate name for many of the inhuman occupants of this planet.) Near the end of her diary, Anne Frank wrote that she still believed people were good at heart. Then they put her to death in a concentration camp. What is that?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Still, I write. It’s my job. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself right now, other than write. My plan is to move to <st1:place>Europe</st1:place> eventually, where at least if someone is unkind I probably won’t understand them. It’s the benefit of being a hermit without actually being one. The country will probably be <st1:country-region><st1:place>France</st1:place></st1:country-region>, because I studied French for about eight years, so I can successfully order a croissant. And yet, I can never get what they are saying in conversations because they speak so fast. Perfect.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Until then, what will I do? Where will I go? I don’t know. I have a house I can’t deal with, plus my mother’s house which I really can’t deal with. The few people I can count on for support have problems (and lives) of their own. The people I ought to be able to count on, I can’t.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Maybe this turmoil is part of grief. Or maybe I just see things more clearly now. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Or maybe this isn’t turmoil at all – just a turning point.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">By the way, lest you think I’m despairing of life – I’m not. I feel grateful to be alive, to have my children and the people I can truly call “friends.” It’s the “others” I can’t reconcile. Like an innocent, I still don’t understand why people hurt each other, and why they throw good love away. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Silly me.</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-11830318245972873402012-02-13T10:26:00.000-05:002012-02-13T10:26:25.037-05:00Method to my Madness Monday: Writing Through the Pain<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-align: justify;"> Several years ago, author Susan Taylor Brown gave me a magnet which said: “Write where it hurts. Find the courage to create.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have it on my refrigerator. It did indeed help me find the strength to write “Saved by the Music” – largely autobiographical.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the wake of my aunt and my mom passing away, I am still writing where it hurts. But my question is: Where doesn’t it hurt?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Grief is like an ocean with no land in sight. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Writing isn’t hard now.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But writing cohesively is.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I sat yesterday writing notes about the rest of my latest novel. Scribbles are my version of an outline. (If I were in school I would get a failing outline grade. Also a failing penmanship grade – sigh.) </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These are only tentative plans, and yet I couldn’t get a grip on them. The littlest plot choices had me stumped. Then I got mad at myself for my hesitance¸ and poof! I got on board the “I suck” express train. Last stop: Despair.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then I did something different. Instead of wallowing, I went to the gym. Thank goodness for my son, who goes religiously. He makes me want to go, too.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On that bouncing elliptical I was able to make some plot decisions. They might change – and probably will – but I couldn’t move forward without them. I need order in my writing life, all the more now because I don’t have much in my day to day life.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So that’s me, writing through the pain. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The secret to writing is that there is no secret. No formula. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ultimately, however you get something to the page is the right path. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The tricky part is that paths change. Sometimes there’s a downed tree in the way, or maybe even an avalanche occurred. We writers have to be ready to find an alternate route – and we have to make sure we don’t get hit or buried.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like Winston Churchill advised, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-7112422606271665862012-02-10T10:54:00.000-05:002012-02-10T10:54:50.906-05:00Things to Say to a Dead Mom<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> My mom is on my kitchen table, cremation no. 91739 (I accidentally spelled it “creamation”, but there’s nothing creamy about it) performed on <st1:date day="2" month="2" year="2012">February 2, 2012</st1:date> by Long island Cremation Co., Inc. (another business I couldn’t imagine owning. I feel like it’s one of those operations passed down through generations, fathers grooming their sons to burn and box bodies. Lucky boys.) </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I put her next to my Aunt Olga for the night. I figured I’d give them a chance to catch up on things. Last time they saw each other it was Thanksgiving, about three years ago. Our dinner was like a scene in a black comedy. My mother was going on and on to my aunt, who was too polite to tell her that she had no idea who she was.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Today we’re bringing Mom to the cemetery where her parents are. The cemetary people are going to insert her in the ground next to them. I think she’d like that. She adored her parents, particularly her dad. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ve got her next to the computer right now. I just had a conversation with her (albeit one-sided.)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now, her soul isn’t in that box, I know, but still I felt compelled to say something to her remains while I had them.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Writers are always looking for climatic moments.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I put my left hand on her box, and my right hand on my aunt’s box for support, and I asked my mom if she loved me.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was no answer.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But I know my mom did love me. It just wasn’t a traditional love. It was a love often smothered in her issues. You know how you can use a pillow for rest¸ or to kill someone? That was my mother.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She had no idea of what she was doing. I told I knew that.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I told my mom that I forgave her.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I told her I love her, and I appreciate the things she did for me.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I kissed my index finger and planted in on her box.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There’s something about physical remains that are so, well...physical.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You can talk to someone’s spirit anytime –I believe –but there’s something extra poignant about having that box there to hone in on. A focal point, if nothing else.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another thing I look for as a writer is a focal point in a scene. It’s like an anchor.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Life begets writing, and writing begets life.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My aunt once told me, “Each man is the sum total of everything that has happened to him.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> True. </span>I might add: “Each man is also the sum total of all the relationships he’s had.” </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My relationship with my mom is (was?) complicated and sometimes dark, but in the end it comes down to this simple fact: we loved each other.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It takes death to bring things down to the bone.</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-22578671707600505502012-02-09T09:51:00.000-05:002012-02-09T09:51:50.016-05:00Grief: It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore I've always been awkward with death.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not that anyone copes well –though maybe they do. Like Grandma Mazur in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books. A wake is a social event for Gramdma – not to be missed. Of course that’s fiction, but I wonder, does anyone handle death with ease? (Morticians do, of course. How do they feel when someone close dies? And how to they manage to confront man’s mortality every day, and "pretty up" what remains? They are either the most well-adjusted people in the world, or the most f---ed up.)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Faced with the passing of friends’ loved ones through the years, I’d been unable to deal with wakes (are they called wakes because they’re in the wake of lives?) and Shiva calls. I just couldn’t bear the sorrow – theirs, and mine. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ve always felt a universal empathy, which either helps me be a writer or is the reason I’m a writer – or both. But when it comes to living, it’s a problem, because I feel everyone’s pain. I absolutely avoid the news for this reason.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And death has been the worst. I do believe the end of a life is not the end of a soul, but it’s the pain of those left behind I can’t take.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My neighbor Harriet died a few years ago. They sat Shiva right across the street from me. I couldn’t go. I just couldn’t. About a year later I summoned up to write a note to her husband and leave it on his door. I apologized for not paying a call. I explained that I didn’t handle death well. I told him I loved Harriet – and I did. I closed it with this: “Harriet tried her hardest to be a good person and help people, and you can’t ask for more than that.” It was the truth. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My friend’s husband died suddenly at work, leaving her with two young children and another on the way. She was, understandably, consumed with grief. I told her, “You have to remember the love you shared, and you have to believe that he’s in a better place.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She stopped weeping for a moment, looked at me and said, “I don’t care about all that. I just want my husband back.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And I got that. And I didn’t know what to say.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I still don’t.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There is nothing to say when someone dies. I mean, there are lots of things to say, but none of them will do a thing to console those left behind. It's our friendship and love that comforts them, I realize now. It's what we don’t say. That’s another reason why it’s so hard for me to deal with death. I’m a writer. I rely on words. If words can’t be counted on, what then?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> But the grief has been the heart of my problem. The </span>grief that surged up like a tidal wave, threatening to drown me. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The grief is what held me at bay, unable to effectively be present during those times of loss.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s a relief to know that I’m better at my own grieving than at comforting others. Perhaps because I write about my life, I’ve given great thought to the day I’d lose my mother. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Still, it was a shock. Isn’t death always the last thing expected? Even if she was eighty-one, clearly suffering from the early stages of dementia (which I knew too well from my Aunt Olga.) Despite these factors, I never thought the police would have to break down my mother’s door to find her in bed (not expecting to die anytime soon, she hadn’t given me a key, and I’d never thought to ask for one.)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And it was a sucker punch, this loss. Coming on the heels of losing my aunt.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But I’m okay. Handling it much better than the previous deaths I’d been exposed to. I guess death has become more familiar. Maybe that’s the morticians’ secret. Familiarity.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have my mom’s cat. The poor thing looks to be about twenty years old, bowlegged and all spine. She yowls incessantly and follows me everywhere. She’s hideously mean to my other felines, who take up a Halloween "black cat" defensive stance which I'd never seen in person before. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have my mom’s things. Her favorite scarf. The pictures she carried of my sons. The meticulous notes she took while watching Dr. Oz. The tutu I wore when I was six, which was hanging in her bedroom. Her many, many papers I’m sorting through.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have to deal with the things she left behind. Everything.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I hear her voice, asking the questions she always posed. She had so many questions. I only hope she’s got some clarity now.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was raised without religion, but I know this is not the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard not knowing just what this is, and what we are in relation to our dead. I guess that’s where the faith comes in. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The faith that was never instilled in me.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Death is, among other things, a lesson in faith. Death and faith are both so vague;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>both so muddied by our frenzied, fruitless attempts to explain and complicate them. Untampered with, they are simple. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They are calm.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m trying to follow their lead.</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-28216410569149512152012-01-27T12:29:00.000-05:002012-01-27T12:29:29.654-05:00Larry Dane Brimner: A Notable Author<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Congratulations to Larry Dane Brimner!</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">His book</span> </span><span style="color: #ff1418;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em>Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Conner</em> <span style="color: #20124d;">is a 2012 ALA Notable Book <em>and</em> a 2012 Sibert Honor Book!</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-size: large;">To commemorate these honors, I am re-posting my interview with Larry from last week:</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>oday I'm honored to feature an interview with the fabulous Larry Dane Brimner, author of 157 books, fiction and nonfiction. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cpFhHe9qIA0/TxmFdR_mHbI/AAAAAAAAAkE/IwUm11deuoY/s1600/Larry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cpFhHe9qIA0/TxmFdR_mHbI/AAAAAAAAAkE/IwUm11deuoY/s1600/Larry.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
His latest book is <em><span style="color: #ff1418;">Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Connor. </span></em><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--9yuizH7UQQ/TxmFkMiPY2I/AAAAAAAAAkM/Ugms0-0fztU/s1600/Black+%2526+White.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--9yuizH7UQQ/TxmFkMiPY2I/AAAAAAAAAkM/Ugms0-0fztU/s1600/Black+%2526+White.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: #ff1418;">Here are excerpts from two reviews:</span></em><br />
<br />
<em>"A fascinating look at one of the most crucial places and periods in the civil rights movement through two polar opposites." Kirkus STARRED review</em><br />
<br />
"With a spacious design that includes archival pictures and primary source documents on almost every page, this accessible photo-essay recounts the events in three sections that focus first on the Preacher ('Fred'), then on the Commissioner ('Bull'), and finally, on their confrontation." <em>Booklist</em> STARRED review<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SGwe6ZL2_kM/TxmFrQXMWlI/AAAAAAAAAkU/g99LIP4_wOg/s1600/Birmingham+Sunday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SGwe6ZL2_kM/TxmFrQXMWlI/AAAAAAAAAkU/g99LIP4_wOg/s1600/Birmingham+Sunday.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2JcGAtwGB0/TxmFxfMjrJI/AAAAAAAAAkc/_IPKksF_jGA/s1600/we+are+one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2JcGAtwGB0/TxmFxfMjrJI/AAAAAAAAAkc/_IPKksF_jGA/s1600/we+are+one.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Larry's previous two books on the civil rights movement garnered many awards!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Visit <a href="http://www.brimner.com/">www.Brimner.com</a> for more information about Larry and his books!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Thank you, Larry, for taking the time to answer my questions!</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<strong><br />
</strong><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I heard you speak about your rocky start getting published (if I recall correctly, you kept submitting manuscripts and it never occurred for you to revise them). Please tell us about your journey.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Your recollection is partially correct. (Don’t worry. Senior moments happen to all of us.) I was published pretty much right out of the gate, but in poetry and, rather quickly after that, the newspaper and magazine markets. My first work, poetry, was submitted by a graduate school professor of mine without my knowledge. He’d encouraged me to submit my work on my own, but I was too shy, too insecure, too fill-in-the-blank. When those first poems were accepted, however, I was hooked on publication. After I started teaching, I continued to write, giving myself an hour or two every evening after school and BEFORE grading student work, to pursue my own writing. I had long been attracted to middle-grade and picture book fiction, and that’s what I wrote: bad middle-grade and picture book fiction. I collected two large Xerox boxes full of rejections. Eventually, though, the form rejections turned into personal rejections. One of those was for a middle-grade novel I’d written and submitted to Clarion. Jim Giblin, whom I knew from SCBW (there was no “I” in those days), wrote a rather detailed editorial letter, but ultimately rejected the piece. If I had known then what I know now, I would have (I should have) rewritten it and re-submitted it. I didn’t however and because Jim retired a few years later, I never had the opportunity of working with him which was something I always wanted to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You made the jump to writing about American history fairly recently. What perked your interest? What specifically led you to Bayard Rustin? How did you get started in your research? Tell us about that initial spark, and what followed.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">It’s actually incorrect to say that my interest in American history is fairly recent. Each of those sports books I wrote back in the 1980s had a chapter of history. It wasn’t the same sort of history that I write today, but it was history nonetheless. History has always been an interest. What triggered my interest in the civil rights movement was a footnote at the bottom of a magazine article I happened to be reading about Rosa Parks. In a font size that was almost small enough to require a magnifying glass, the footnote indicated that ten years before Rosa Parks took her stand on that Montgomery bus a </span><br />
<span style="color: #4bacc6; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: #274e13;">gentleman named Bayard Rustin also had refused to move to the back of the bus. I wondered why one name was familiar to me and the other totally unknown. I first did an internet search that provided me </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="color: #274e13;">with</span> a little more detail and directed me to a couple of books for adults about him. I was simply blown away by how strategic he was to the movement. I knew I had to write about him, whether it ever got published or not. Before taking the project to Calkins Creek, I actually shared it with a couple of other publishers. One of the editors expressed interest in my writing, but not in a book about Bayard Rustin. She said something akin this: “We’re not in the business of publishing books about people that nobody has ever heard of.” Silly me! I thought that was one of the reasons for writing nonfiction—to shed light. The other editor said they already had a black history book on their scheduled list. Both of these rejections were beneficial to me because I ended up sending it to Carolyn Yoder at Calkins Creek. The rest, as is sometimes said, is history. Carolyn and I worked for perhaps a year on the book. It was the first time I’d ever been so involved in a book’s production, from revisions (more than I care to remember) to design. It came out to starred reviews and was named the Norman A. Sugarman Biography Award and Jane Addams Children’s Book Award winner. So much for a book about somebody that nobody’s ever heard of!</span><br />
<br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Did you have an idea about all three Calkins Creek books when you started writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We Are One</i>? Or did things you found researching the first lead to the next, and the next? Tell us about the process of discovering how you wanted to write these three books. Are there more to come in this vein? What are you working on now?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">I was just happy that Carolyn and Calkins Creek liked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We Are One</i> and that it garnered respectable reviews. Just prior to finishing work on it, though, I found a librarian’s call—I believe in an <st1:stockticker>ALA</st1:stockticker> or IRA journal—for biographies of the four little girls who were killed in a Birmingham church blast during the civil rights era. Although the civil rights movement took place during my youth and both of my parents were born and raised in Birmingham, I was largely unaware of the movement. I grew up in Alaska and California, and Birmingham and the events there may as well have been on another planet. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i> came out of those two things: a librarian’s call and a desire to rectify my lack of knowledge about the civil rights movement. It was out of research for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i> that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black & White</i> sprang. Long before I finished the first of these latter two titles, I knew what I wanted to write next, and Carolyn was game. There likely will be more books in this vein, but I want to turn to a couple of other topics that have been nagging to be written. But because I hate to waste creative energy writing about them here and would rather spend that energy on the actual projects, I’ll just say that other things are in the works. (I’ve been called a “tease” often. Me. Can you imagine?)<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You say the original pitch for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black & White</i> was quite different from the finished product. Tell us a bit about the evolution process.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">You are right about that! At the Highlights Foundation Writers’ Workshop at Chautauqua, where I was on faculty every other year, Carolyn and I discussed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black & White</i> over coffee one morning. In my mind’s eye, I saw it as another 48-page book complimentary in design to the previous two titles. I jokingly referred to the bunch as my “trilogy.” I liked the idea of a 48-page book because as a former teacher, I realized my high school boys would go to the library and pick the skinniest titles on the shelves to read. I liked the idea of “tricking” them into reading a skinny book that was simply oozing with information. Well, I was the one to get tricked. What started as a biography of the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth turned into so much more. I realized fairly early on in the process of researching and writing that I wasn’t going to be able to write about Fred Shuttlesworth without writing about Eugene “Bull” Connor, Fred’s nemesis. That led to the realization that I was going to have to explain their symbiotic relationship right up to and through the children’s crusade of 1963. I was worried about telling Carolyn that my little book had grown…and grown…and grown. In fact, I didn’t say anything to her until I delivered the manuscript and, yes, it was delivered late because it was much more involved than I ever anticipated. (To Carolyn’s credit and my relief, she never nagged me about missing the deadline.) Writing it proved emotionally draining. There were days when I’d sit for eight hours in front of the keyboard and type only one sentence that I was happy with. On other days I’d nearly weep and want to quit. When I sent the manuscript to Carolyn electronically, I attached a note that said only, “It’s a little longer than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i>.” She called finally and asked me how much longer, and I said, “Oh, about two and a half times as long.” The finished book, as you know, runs 112 pages.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Please describe the processes you follow for writing fiction versus nonfiction. Which is harder for you? Do you prefer one more?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">I’m not sure there’s a “process” for either frankly, at least not one that would make sense to your readers. With fiction, once I have an idea sketched in my head of major plot movements, I simply sit down, try to find a writing zone, and write. I’m always looking ahead and thinking how I can complicate my lead character’s life and still end up at that place I think I’m heading. Sometimes I get there and sometimes I don’t. As you know, I tried the Beta version of Scrivener for Windows thinking it would help me organize my thoughts. The results were disastrous. Every file on my computer and thumb drive was wiped clean. I was able to recover everything, but only after I deleted the Beta version. I now have the final version of Scrivener loaded on my computer (with no horrible effects) but haven’t actually used it. I still write a chapter or section, print it out, review it, and then sketch out the next chapter or section. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;"><span style="color: #274e13;">With nonfiction, I need to research and read a lot BEFORE I sit down to write. I read to find “the story” among the facts. I’m also looking for that WOW! moment that will serve as my door into the story that I’ve unearthed. Finding those, I sit down and write with all my research around me in neat little piles on the floor.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">I’m not sure than one genre is harder than the other. Both fiction and nonfiction are hard. Heck, writing is hard! I like fiction because it’s all in my head. I like nonfiction because it’s fun to see if I can find an interesting story among the facts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You shed light on little-known members of the civil rights movement. Why do you think it is that some people in history become so famous, while some remain obscure?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Let me talk specifically about Bayard Rustin, Rosa Parks, and Fred Shuttlesworth. Rustin remained obscure because there was an orchestrated effort to keep him in the background. He was vital to the civil rights movement, managing Martin Luther King’s rise on the world stage. But he was openly gay and proud. Leaders in the movement were fearful that if his sexuality were found out, it might derail the movement. Rustin didn’t mind working behind the scenes. Rosa Parks is another example. Many people think that her case led to the Supreme Court decision that outlawed Jim Crow seating on buses. Not true. Her arrest galvanized Montgomery’s black community into the largest racial protest in history up until that time, but her case didn’t change the law. It never reached the Supreme Court. The case that decided bus segregation was Browder v. Gayle. One of the plaintiffs in the Browder case was Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old who had become pregnant without the benefit of marriage. Leaders and lawyers alike felt that an unwed mother was simply too scandalous. They believed that it fed into every negative stereotype of the black community. Mrs. Parks, however, was a respectable, hard-working seamstress. After the Browder case was decided, it was easy for leaders to tie Mrs. Parks to the Supreme Court decision, and she gained fame for something she didn’t actually do. Finally, it was Fred Shuttlesworth who pleaded with King to come to Birmingham. King was given the Nobel Peace Prize largely for work that he and Shuttlesworth did in in that city, but Shuttlesworth did most of the work. Shuttlesworth had been peacefully protesting in Birmingham for a full decade before King ever agreed to go to that city in the spring of 1963. King won the Nobel Prize, I believe, because he was the voice of the movement, the face of the movement. He was an articulate speaker, much more so than was Shuttlesworth. Many think that great prize should have gone to Shuttlesworth, and I would be among them. But it was King who received the prize and the glory. This is not to say that King and Parks shouldn’t be remembered, for they should be. It is simply to say that their reputations were built upon the shoulders of others and those are the people that fill my books.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">As a writer, have you accomplished all you set out to do? Do you have more goals to achieve? Is there a subject burning inside you, begging to be written?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">I have been able to make my living as a writer for more than twenty-five years. That’s something, given that writing is always described as a career one cannot make a living at. That said, I will also admit that I haven’t accomplished all that I’d like. I haven’t written the book I’d like someday to write. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i> came close to being that book. But even with 157 books under my belt, I still feel as if I’ve somehow failed. So, yes, I still have goals. Among them is returning to chapter-book fiction…if nonfiction ideas would stop pestering me long enough to do it.</span> </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">With publishing in turmoil, do you have any advice for aspiring authors?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Yes. Look for the nearest exit. No, seriously, it seems that publishing has always been in turmoil. It was when I started nearly forty years ago and it still is. This is selling or that isn’t selling. Kids aren’t reading. School budgets have been slashed. Independent booksellers have all but disappeared. The chain bookstores only feature Disney titles, or Scholastic. Publishers are merging and shrinking their lists. Staff editors have been replaced by freelance editors. Print books are dead and e-books are rising. And yet, books are still being published by publishers, whether in print form or e-book form. There is still a hunger for the written word. There is still a need for information. There is still a yearning to read a great story. We as writers have to be willing to evolve with the technology, but a reading audience still exists. My advice to aspiring writers is to write the story in their heart—whether that story is fiction or nonfiction. Polish that story until it can’t be polished any further. Then submit it and don’t give up on it. I read an article on Facebook the other day about a woman who struggled with her writing and finally turned to self-publishing her story as an e-book. Now she has more than $2 million in sales, and contracts with traditional print publishers. That should serve as inspiration to all of us, aspiring and old-hands alike.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Your first writing successes were poems. Would you share one of your poems with us?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Usually, my poetry is just for me and one or two friends. But for you, anything. I was going to share one from early on about laundromats and two-martini lunches, but darned if I can find it. Periodically, I go on these cleaning sprees where everything that isn’t nailed down gets sent to the landfill. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">One Hot Hound<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">High noon in August,<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">One hot hound and sprinkler meet—<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">So cool, conversing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What is the greatest thing about being a writer?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Gosh, there are so many great things about being a writer that it’s difficult to nail down. As someone who suffers from crippling shyness, I like the fact that I’m my own boss, can set my own schedule, and can work alone. I can go to work in my underwear if I want and I don’t have to shave. But those aren’t the greatest things. The greatest thing is thinking that maybe someone somewhere is reading what I’ve written, and it is making that person think or bringing tears to that person’s eyes or making that person laugh out loud. Maybe. Just maybe.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What is the greatest compliment you’ve received as a writer?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">A reviewer once said of my writing—I can’t remember the title—that I make it look effortless. I’d say that is tied with the father who said that his daughter slept with one of my picture books (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Country Bear’s Good Neighbor</i>) under her pillow every night.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What is your favorite quote?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Well, I have two. Each inspires me, but for different reasons. One tells me to try again, while the other reminds me that editors aren’t infallible gods. Both are posted over my computer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” –M.A. Radmacher<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: #274e13;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">“Larry, please bare with me.” –an unnamed children’s book editor (unnamed because she is a legend in the business and still very much alive and working)<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What are three words to describe you?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Driven. Quiet. Kind.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What do you want on your tombstone (real, not pizza)?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #274e13;">Since I don’t plan on a tombstone, I’ve never thought about it. But if you insist, then something like: He tried to make a difference in the lives of children. Or maybe: The end. That’s all he wrote.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Larry's bio:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><span style="color: blue;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4bacc6;"><h3><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">The Early Years</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: blue;"></span></div><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>L</strong>arry Dane Brimner spent his early childhood exploring Alaska's Kodiak Island. He traces his love of reading to that time in his life. Since there was no television reception and only sporadic radio reception, entertainment came in the form of books and stories. Reading and making up stories was a part of day-to-day family life. Raised in a traditional Southern family--his parents hail from Birmingham, Alabama--telling falsehoods was frowned upon but <em>embellishment</em> was encouraged. Larry experienced his first writing successes--mostly in the genre of poetry--while still an undergraduate in college, but he began to focus on writing for young people during his twenty-year teaching career. Now a full-time writer and author of more than 150 books for young readers, Larry lives in San Diego, California.</span></span><br />
<h3><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">The Writing Years</span></h3><br />
</span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>L</strong>arry made his debut in children's books with the publication of <em>BMX Freestyle</em> (Watts) in 1987. Readers responded by naming it an International Reading Association (IRA) Children's Choice book for 1988. Subsequent books have also proven popular with their targeted audience, having garnered nominations for several young reader awards. <em>Max and Felix</em> was a nominee for the Kentucky Bluegrass Award; <em>Elliot Fry's Good-bye,</em> a nominee for Maryland's Black-Eyed Susan Picture Book Award; and <em>Merry Christmas, Old Armadillo,</em> a nominee for Alabama's Children's Choice Award and named to the Kansas Reading Circle. Another sports title, <em>Snowboarding,</em> was named a Children's Choice book for 1998 by the IRA/CBC, while <em>The Official M&M's Book of the Millennium</em> was named a Children's Choice book for 2000. A project about a skateboard-riding, fish-taco-eating cat called <em>Cat on Wheels</em> was nominated for the 2002 Michigan Readers' Choice Award. <em>The Littlest Wolf</em> (HarperCollins, 2002), which was translated into Japanese, was named an IRA/CBC Children's Choice book. It also received the Oppenheim Gold Medal for Best Book 2002, won the San Diego Books Award (2002), was a 2004 Great Lakes' Great Books (Michigan) Honor Book, and was a 2005 nominee for the Arkansas Diamond Award. <em>Subway: The Story of Tunnels, Tubes, and Tracks</em> (Boyds Mills Press, 2004) was a Junior Library Guild selection and is a PBS TeacherSource recommended book for Science and Mechanical Technology. More recently, <em>We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin</em> (Calkins Creek, 2007) won the Norman A. Sugarman Biography Award and the Jane Addams Book Award. His <em>Birmingham Sunday</em> (Calkins Creek, 2010) received starred reviews from <em>Kirkus</em> and <em>School Library Journal.</em></span></span>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-72747731940031027972012-01-25T14:42:00.000-05:002012-01-25T14:42:49.137-05:00Hokey Pokey Wednesday: Quotes to Dance By<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.<br />
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. <br />
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.<br />
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.<br />
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.<br />
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. <br />
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” <br />
― <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/838305.Mother_Teresa"><span style="color: blue;">Mother Teresa</span></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">On this Hokey Pokey Wednesday, I’m not going to say much – just put in some quotes that I hope will inspire and lift you as much as they do me. Because as I do this dance of life today, I need to be inspired and lifted. Maybe you do, too.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">At any rate, it couldn’t hurt.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Enjoy!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">And smile :)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="body1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> <br />
</span><span class="bodybold1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/dalailama108820.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Dalai Lama</strong></span></a><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
<br />
<br />
</span><span class="body1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> <br />
</span><span class="bodybold1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mahatmagan134822.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Mahatma Gandhi</strong></span></a><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="bodybold1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
<br />
</span><span class="body1"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">A jug fills drop by drop.</span></span></span> <br />
<span class="bodybold1"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/buddha379713.html"><strong><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;">Buddha</span></strong></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="body1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> <br />
</span><span class="bodybold1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/confucius104254.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Confucius</strong></span></a><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
<br />
<br />
</span><span class="body1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> <br />
</span><span class="bodybold1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid396567.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Henry David Thoreau</strong></span></a><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
<br />
<br />
</span><span class="body1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Always do what you are afraid to do.</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> <br />
</span><span class="bodybold1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/ralphwaldo125380.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong></span></a><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span class="body1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> <br />
</span><span class="bodybold1"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/mahatmagan150710.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Mahatma Gandhi</strong></span></a><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></strong></span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
<br />
Okay, back to dancing! Left foot in, left foot out. Let's turn ourselves about.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black;">That's what it's all about.</span></div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-14084903836078077052012-01-24T22:59:00.001-05:002012-01-24T22:59:52.199-05:00Tightrope Tuesday: Credit for Time Served?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So how am I handling parenting during this writing season?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Pretty well, actually.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I have learned to pace myself a little bit more on this fifth novel, and to forgive myself if I don’t get as much done in a day as I’d wanted. I make a scene a goal for a sitting, instead of a certain word or page count. This way, if I need to take care of something for one of my sons, at least I accomplished a goal before I walked away from the computer.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-25RbicHmXLs/Tx95tKYVqUI/AAAAAAAAAlU/V2rLNIZP4Bc/s1600/keyboard+with+caution+tape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-25RbicHmXLs/Tx95tKYVqUI/AAAAAAAAAlU/V2rLNIZP4Bc/s1600/keyboard+with+caution+tape.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s helpful that my older son is seventeen, and very independent. There are certain things I need to do for him, but on the whole he can carry on very well. My younger son is in middle school – a place where they had to expand the lost and found into the rear of the auditorium because they have so many unclaimed items. In other words, he needs guidance to stay on track.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> In the past, my biggest problem was freaking out about everything. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I've realized, if I just relax, I can get everything done. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p>And I’m doing it!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p> </o:p>I’ve even been going to the gym – rare when I’m deep in a novel. My older son goes religiously, and I go with him. A parenting perk! I keep having thoughts on the elliptical. Sometimes I halt and head to the front desk for a scrap to write them down. Other times I run the lines over and over in my head like Jack Nicholson typing in <em>The Shining</em> so I can get through my two miles without forgetting them.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Lhd3u2ljUY/Tx953iFsd2I/AAAAAAAAAlc/d9_BEIZ3sWo/s1600/Jack+Nicolson+typewriter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Lhd3u2ljUY/Tx953iFsd2I/AAAAAAAAAlc/d9_BEIZ3sWo/s1600/Jack+Nicolson+typewriter.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I've been to hockey games. I've dealt with stomach aches and doctor visits. I didn't flip when my younger son got in my car with a surprise gift of eight fish swimming in a Chinese soup container from a friend's mom. I’ve even done some food shopping with relatively good humor!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s all about state of mind. Serenity, baby. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Don’t ask me how I got it, but it’s here. Maybe it has something to do with time served. Having parented for so many years, and completed four novels, perhaps I’ve become convinced that I can in fact do both those things well. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bTzQz8F2gmA/Tx971t7ehTI/AAAAAAAAAlk/6vzdJrFY42I/s1600/Learning+from+experience.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bTzQz8F2gmA/Tx971t7ehTI/AAAAAAAAAlk/6vzdJrFY42I/s1600/Learning+from+experience.bmp" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Or maybe something inside me realized that all that angst was taking moments from the writing and parenting. I have so much more time now!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Remember “The Redbook Juggler?” The woman who can handle career, parenting, housekeeping and romancing her man? (Kind of like the woman in the old Enjoli perfume commercial – bringing home the bacon, frying it in a pan, and never, ever letting her husband forget he’s a man.) I always thought I’d drop the balls – not just one, but all of them. It’s no fun juggling in constant fear! Now, I feel great. I’m doing it! I’m juggling!!!</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">It may be my writing season – but parenting is always in season.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-39708537739423720082012-01-23T12:24:00.001-05:002012-01-23T12:53:24.574-05:00Method to my Madness Monday: My Writing SeasonStephen King said that you should write a novel in a season.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Yeah, I get that.</div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You need to stay in that flow. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Up until now, I’ve written every novel in a period of about three months. The first two – <em>Saved By the Music </em>and <em>The Girl Next Door</em> – I wrote together in three months. (Not recommended – but good for a jolt to your writing process – akin to jumping into the ocean during winter.) </div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The thing is: when you’re feeling it, you’re feeling it. You have to go with it. The more you stop, the more time you have to waste getting started again. Warming up...and even remembering what the heck you were getting at when you walked away. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e7jkikj0sts/Tx2VLiZC_fI/AAAAAAAAAkk/2LgTR4nrcnA/s1600/DSCN2914.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e7jkikj0sts/Tx2VLiZC_fI/AAAAAAAAAkk/2LgTR4nrcnA/s320/DSCN2914.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sampling of my latest notes. (Scrivener doesn't work for me.) <br />
Can you imagine trying to figure this out months or even years later?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">If you stay away from your WIP for awhile, you have to figure out what points you already made, what you still have to work in...and you have to get to the heart of your purpose all over again.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This current novel is in its fifth year – but not really. I wrote what I thought was the novel five years ago – but it turned out to be the bones of the novel. It was the true grit of it – the deep emotion. But I had the structure all wrong – and I had to find a cohesive path for the character to feel all those emotions.<br />
<br />
<br />
I had to put some flesh on those bones - and pack some fat in between, too.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It took me the interim years to work up the nerve to do this. Piecing those bones together had been so painful!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">As I’ve said before, this is my most ambitious endeavor timeline-wise. My other novels take place in a period of months. This novel has a forty year span. It’s almost as hard figuring out what to leave out as it is to write it.</div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So I took out the draft and I went over it and I rearranged and cut and added – and now I’m in the home stretch.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Finally, this draft, I’m writing my novel within a season.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Feels good!</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">And who am to contradict a master? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ne2Okvbo30g/Tx2WA3QolYI/AAAAAAAAAks/C0G9c2sow7Y/s1600/Stephen+King+On+Writing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ne2Okvbo30g/Tx2WA3QolYI/AAAAAAAAAks/C0G9c2sow7Y/s1600/Stephen+King+On+Writing.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Read this book if you haven't. <br />
You really can learn from a master - and his story of writing CARRIE is awesome!<br />
Quite an inspiration!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-77814556099452201432012-01-20T07:00:00.004-05:002012-01-20T10:21:00.630-05:00Guest Blog Friday: Author Larry Dane Brimner<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>oday I'm honored to feature an interview with the fabulous Larry Dane Brimner, author of 157 books, fiction and nonfiction. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cpFhHe9qIA0/TxmFdR_mHbI/AAAAAAAAAkE/IwUm11deuoY/s1600/Larry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cpFhHe9qIA0/TxmFdR_mHbI/AAAAAAAAAkE/IwUm11deuoY/s1600/Larry.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
His latest book is <em><span style="color: #ff1418;">Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Connor. </span></em><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--9yuizH7UQQ/TxmFkMiPY2I/AAAAAAAAAkM/Ugms0-0fztU/s1600/Black+%2526+White.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--9yuizH7UQQ/TxmFkMiPY2I/AAAAAAAAAkM/Ugms0-0fztU/s1600/Black+%2526+White.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: #ff1418;">Here are excerpts from two reviews:</span></em><br />
<br />
<em>"A fascinating look at one of the most crucial places and periods in the civil rights movement through two polar opposites." Kirkus STARRED review</em><br />
<br />
"With a spacious design that includes archival pictures and primary source documents on almost every page, this accessible photo-essay recounts the events in three sections that focus first on the Preacher ('Fred'), then on the Commissioner ('Bull'), and finally, on their confrontation." <em>Booklist</em> STARRED review<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SGwe6ZL2_kM/TxmFrQXMWlI/AAAAAAAAAkU/g99LIP4_wOg/s1600/Birmingham+Sunday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SGwe6ZL2_kM/TxmFrQXMWlI/AAAAAAAAAkU/g99LIP4_wOg/s1600/Birmingham+Sunday.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2JcGAtwGB0/TxmFxfMjrJI/AAAAAAAAAkc/_IPKksF_jGA/s1600/we+are+one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2JcGAtwGB0/TxmFxfMjrJI/AAAAAAAAAkc/_IPKksF_jGA/s1600/we+are+one.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Larry's previous two books on the civil rights movement garnered many awards!<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Visit <a href="http://www.brimner.com/">www.Brimner.com</a> for more information about Larry and his books!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Thank you, Larry, for taking the time to answer my questions!</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<strong><br />
</strong><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I heard you speak about your rocky start getting published (if I recall correctly, you kept submitting manuscripts and it never occurred for you to revise them). Please tell us about your journey.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Your recollection is partially correct. (Don’t worry. Senior moments happen to all of us.) I was published pretty much right out of the gate, but in poetry and, rather quickly after that, the newspaper and magazine markets. My first work, poetry, was submitted by a graduate school professor of mine without my knowledge. He’d encouraged me to submit my work on my own, but I was too shy, too insecure, too fill-in-the-blank. When those first poems were accepted, however, I was hooked on publication. After I started teaching, I continued to write, giving myself an hour or two every evening after school and BEFORE grading student work, to pursue my own writing. I had long been attracted to middle-grade and picture book fiction, and that’s what I wrote: bad middle-grade and picture book fiction. I collected two large Xerox boxes full of rejections. Eventually, though, the form rejections turned into personal rejections. One of those was for a middle-grade novel I’d written and submitted to Clarion. Jim Giblin, whom I knew from SCBW (there was no “I” in those days), wrote a rather detailed editorial letter, but ultimately rejected the piece. If I had known then what I know now, I would have (I should have) rewritten it and re-submitted it. I didn’t however and because Jim retired a few years later, I never had the opportunity of working with him which was something I always wanted to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You made the jump to writing about American history fairly recently. What perked your interest? What specifically led you to Bayard Rustin? How did you get started in your research? Tell us about that initial spark, and what followed.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">It’s actually incorrect to say that my interest in American history is fairly recent. Each of those sports books I wrote back in the 1980s had a chapter of history. It wasn’t the same sort of history that I write today, but it was history nonetheless. History has always been an interest. What triggered my interest in the civil rights movement was a footnote at the bottom of a magazine article I happened to be reading about Rosa Parks. In a font size that was almost small enough to require a magnifying glass, the footnote indicated that ten years before Rosa Parks took her stand on that Montgomery bus a gentleman named Bayard Rustin also had refused to move to the back of the bus. I wondered why one name was familiar to me and the other totally unknown. I first did an internet search that provided me with a little more detail and directed me to a couple of books for adults about him. I was simply blown away by how strategic he was to the movement. I knew I had to write about him, whether it ever got published or not. Before taking the project to Calkins Creek, I actually shared it with a couple of other publishers. One of the editors expressed interest in my writing, but not in a book about Bayard Rustin. She said something akin this: “We’re not in the business of publishing books about people that nobody has ever heard of.” Silly me! I thought that was one of the reasons for writing nonfiction—to shed light. The other editor said they already had a black history book on their scheduled list. Both of these rejections were beneficial to me because I ended up sending it to Carolyn Yoder at Calkins Creek. The rest, as is sometimes said, is history. Carolyn and I worked for perhaps a year on the book. It was the first time I’d ever been so involved in a book’s production, from revisions (more than I care to remember) to design. It came out to starred reviews and was named the Norman A. Sugarman Biography Award and Jane Addams Children’s Book Award winner. So much for a book about somebody that nobody’s ever heard of</span>!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Did you have an idea about all three Calkins Creek books when you started writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We Are One</i>? Or did things you found researching the first lead to the next, and the next? Tell us about the process of discovering how you wanted to write these three books. Are there more to come in this vein? What are you working on now?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">I was just happy that Carolyn and Calkins Creek liked <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We Are One</i> and that it garnered respectable reviews. Just prior to finishing work on it, though, I found a librarian’s call—I believe in an </span><st1:stockticker><span style="color: #4bacc6;">ALA</span></st1:stockticker><span style="color: #4bacc6;"> or IRA journal—for biographies of the four little girls who were killed in a Birmingham church blast during the civil rights era. Although the civil rights movement took place during my youth and both of my parents were born and raised in Birmingham, I was largely unaware of the movement. I grew up in Alaska and California, and Birmingham and the events there may as well have been on another planet. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i> came out of those two things: a librarian’s call and a desire to rectify my lack of knowledge about the civil rights movement. It was out of research for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i> that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black & White</i> sprang. Long before I finished the first of these latter two titles, I knew what I wanted to write next, and Carolyn was game. There likely will be more books in this vein, but I want to turn to a couple of other topics that have been nagging to be written. But because I hate to waste creative energy writing about them here and would rather spend that energy on the actual projects, I’ll just say that other things are in the works. (I’ve been called a “tease” often. Me. Can you imagine?)<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You say the original pitch for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black & White</i> was quite different from the finished product. Tell us a bit about the evolution process.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">You are right about that! At the Highlights Foundation Writers’ Workshop at Chautauqua, where I was on faculty every other year, Carolyn and I discussed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black & White</i> over coffee one morning. In my mind’s eye, I saw it as another 48-page book complimentary in design to the previous two titles. I jokingly referred to the bunch as my “trilogy.” I liked the idea of a 48-page book because as a former teacher, I realized my high school boys would go to the library and pick the skinniest titles on the shelves to read. I liked the idea of “tricking” them into reading a skinny book that was simply oozing with information. Well, I was the one to get tricked. What started as a biography of the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth turned into so much more. I realized fairly early on in the process of researching and writing that I wasn’t going to be able to write about Fred Shuttlesworth without writing about Eugene “Bull” Connor, Fred’s nemesis. That led to the realization that I was going to have to explain their symbiotic relationship right up to and through the children’s crusade of 1963. I was worried about telling Carolyn that my little book had grown…and grown…and grown. In fact, I didn’t say anything to her until I delivered the manuscript and, yes, it was delivered late because it was much more involved than I ever anticipated. (To Carolyn’s credit and my relief, she never nagged me about missing the deadline.) Writing it proved emotionally draining. There were days when I’d sit for eight hours in front of the keyboard and type only one sentence that I was happy with. On other days I’d nearly weep and want to quit. When I sent the manuscript to Carolyn electronically, I attached a note that said only, “It’s a little longer than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i>.” She called finally and asked me how much longer, and I said, “Oh, about two and a half times as long.” The finished book, as you know, runs 112 pages.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Please describe the processes you follow for writing fiction versus nonfiction. Which is harder for you? Do you prefer one more?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">I’m not sure there’s a “process” for either frankly, at least not one that would make sense to your readers. With fiction, once I have an idea sketched in my head of major plot movements, I simply sit down, try to find a writing zone, and write. I’m always looking ahead and thinking how I can complicate my lead character’s life and still end up at that place I think I’m heading. Sometimes I get there and sometimes I don’t. As you know, I tried the Beta version of Scrivener for Windows thinking it would help me organize my thoughts. The results were disastrous. Every file on my computer and thumb drive was wiped clean. I was able to recover everything, but only after I deleted the Beta version. I now have the final version of Scrivener loaded on my computer (with no horrible effects) but haven’t actually used it. I still write a chapter or section, print it out, review it, and then sketch out the next chapter or section. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">With nonfiction, I need to research and read a lot BEFORE I sit down to write. I read to find “the story” among the facts. I’m also looking for that WOW! moment that will serve as my door into the story that I’ve unearthed. Finding those, I sit down and write with all my research around me in neat little piles on the floor. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">I’m not sure than one genre is harder than the other. Both fiction and nonfiction are hard. Heck, writing is hard! I like fiction because it’s all in my head. I like nonfiction because it’s fun to see if I can find an interesting story among the facts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You shed light on little-known members of the civil rights movement. Why do you think it is that some people in history become so famous, while some remain obscure?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Let me talk specifically about Bayard Rustin, Rosa Parks, and Fred Shuttlesworth. Rustin remained obscure because there was an orchestrated effort to keep him in the background. He was vital to the civil rights movement, managing Martin Luther King’s rise on the world stage. But he was openly gay and proud. Leaders in the movement were fearful that if his sexuality were found out, it might derail the movement. Rustin didn’t mind working behind the scenes. Rosa Parks is another example. Many people think that her case led to the Supreme Court decision that outlawed Jim Crow seating on buses. Not true. Her arrest galvanized Montgomery’s black community into the largest racial protest in history up until that time, but her case didn’t change the law. It never reached the Supreme Court. The case that decided bus segregation was Browder v. Gayle. One of the plaintiffs in the Browder case was Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old who had become pregnant without the benefit of marriage. Leaders and lawyers alike felt that an unwed mother was simply too scandalous. They believed that it fed into every negative stereotype of the black community. Mrs. Parks, however, was a respectable, hard-working seamstress. After the Browder case was decided, it was easy for leaders to tie Mrs. Parks to the Supreme Court decision, and she gained fame for something she didn’t actually do. Finally, it was Fred Shuttlesworth who pleaded with King to come to Birmingham. King was given the Nobel Peace Prize largely for work that he and Shuttlesworth did in in that city, but Shuttlesworth did most of the work. Shuttlesworth had been peacefully protesting in Birmingham for a full decade before King ever agreed to go to that city in the spring of 1963. King won the Nobel Prize, I believe, because he was the voice of the movement, the face of the movement. He was an articulate speaker, much more so than was Shuttlesworth. Many think that great prize should have gone to Shuttlesworth, and I would be among them. But it was King who received the prize and the glory. This is not to say that King and Parks shouldn’t be remembered, for they should be. It is simply to say that their reputations were built upon the shoulders of others and those are the people that fill my books.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">As a writer, have you accomplished all you set out to do? Do you have more goals to achieve? Is there a subject burning inside you, begging to be written?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">I have been able to make my living as a writer for more than twenty-five years. That’s something, given that writing is always described as a career one cannot make a living at. That said, I will also admit that I haven’t accomplished all that I’d like. I haven’t written the book I’d like someday to write. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Birmingham Sunday</i> came close to being that book. But even with 157 books under my belt, I still feel as if I’ve somehow failed. So, yes, I still have goals. Among them is returning to chapter-book fiction…if nonfiction ideas would stop pestering me long enough to do it.</span> </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">With publishing in turmoil, do you have any advice for aspiring authors?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Yes. Look for the nearest exit. No, seriously, it seems that publishing has always been in turmoil. It was when I started nearly forty years ago and it still is. This is selling or that isn’t selling. Kids aren’t reading. School budgets have been slashed. Independent booksellers have all but disappeared. The chain bookstores only feature Disney titles, or Scholastic. Publishers are merging and shrinking their lists. Staff editors have been replaced by freelance editors. Print books are dead and e-books are rising. And yet, books are still being published by publishers, whether in print form or e-book form. There is still a hunger for the written word. There is still a need for information. There is still a yearning to read a great story. We as writers have to be willing to evolve with the technology, but a reading audience still exists. My advice to aspiring writers is to write the story in their heart—whether that story is fiction or nonfiction. Polish that story until it can’t be polished any further. Then submit it and don’t give up on it. I read an article on Facebook the other day about a woman who struggled with her writing and finally turned to self-publishing her story as an e-book. Now she has more than $2 million in sales, and contracts with traditional print publishers. That should serve as inspiration to all of us, aspiring and old-hands alike.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Your first writing successes were poems. Would you share one of your poems with us?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Usually, my poetry is just for me and one or two friends. But for you, anything. I was going to share one from early on about laundromats and two-martini lunches, but darned if I can find it. Periodically, I go on these cleaning sprees where everything that isn’t nailed down gets sent to the landfill. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">One Hot Hound<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">High noon in August,<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">One hot hound and sprinkler meet—<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">So cool, conversing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What is the greatest thing about being a writer?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Gosh, there are so many great things about being a writer that it’s difficult to nail down. As someone who suffers from crippling shyness, I like the fact that I’m my own boss, can set my own schedule, and can work alone. I can go to work in my underwear if I want and I don’t have to shave. But those aren’t the greatest things. The greatest thing is thinking that maybe someone somewhere is reading what I’ve written, and it is making that person think or bringing tears to that person’s eyes or making that person laugh out loud. Maybe. Just maybe.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What is the greatest compliment you’ve received as a writer?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">A reviewer once said of my writing—I can’t remember the title—that I make it look effortless. I’d say that is tied with the father who said that his daughter slept with one of my picture books (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Country Bear’s Good Neighbor</i>) under her pillow every night.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What is your favorite quote?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Well, I have two. Each inspires me, but for different reasons. One tells me to try again, while the other reminds me that editors aren’t infallible gods. Both are posted over my computer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” –M.A. Radmacher<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">“Larry, please bare with me.” –an unnamed children’s book editor (unnamed because she is a legend in the business and still very much alive and working)<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What are three words to describe you?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Driven. Quiet. Kind.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What do you want on your tombstone (real, not pizza)?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Since I don’t plan on a tombstone, I’ve never thought about it. But if you insist, then something like: He tried to make a difference in the lives of children. Or maybe: The end. That’s all he wrote.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #4bacc6;">Larry's bio:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="color: #4bacc6;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4bacc6;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4bacc6;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #4bacc6;"><h3><span style="font-size: medium;">The Early Years</span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff4040;"><strong>L</strong></span>arry Dane Brimner spent his early childhood exploring Alaska's Kodiak Island. He traces his love of reading to that time in his life. Since there was no television reception and only sporadic radio reception, entertainment came in the form of books and stories. Reading and making up stories was a part of day-to-day family life. Raised in a traditional Southern family--his parents hail from Birmingham, Alabama--telling falsehoods was frowned upon but <em>embellishment</em> was encouraged. Larry experienced his first writing successes--mostly in the genre of poetry--while still an undergraduate in college, but he began to focus on writing for young people during his twenty-year teaching career. Now a full-time writer and author of more than 150 books for young readers, Larry lives in San Diego, California.</span><br />
<br />
<h3><span style="font-size: medium;">The Writing Years</span></h3><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff4040;"><strong>L</strong></span>arry made his debut in children's books with the publication of <em>BMX Freestyle</em> (Watts) in 1987. Readers responded by naming it an International Reading Association (IRA) Children's Choice book for 1988. Subsequent books have also proven popular with their targeted audience, having garnered nominations for several young reader awards. <em>Max and Felix</em> was a nominee for the Kentucky Bluegrass Award; <em>Elliot Fry's Good-bye,</em> a nominee for Maryland's Black-Eyed Susan Picture Book Award; and <em>Merry Christmas, Old Armadillo,</em> a nominee for Alabama's Children's Choice Award and named to the Kansas Reading Circle. Another sports title, <em>Snowboarding,</em> was named a Children's Choice book for 1998 by the IRA/CBC, while <em>The Official M&M's Book of the Millennium</em> was named a Children's Choice book for 2000. A project about a skateboard-riding, fish-taco-eating cat called <em>Cat on Wheels</em> was nominated for the 2002 Michigan Readers' Choice Award. <em>The Littlest Wolf</em> (HarperCollins, 2002), which was translated into Japanese, was named an IRA/CBC Children's Choice book. It also received the Oppenheim Gold Medal for Best Book 2002, won the San Diego Books Award (2002), was a 2004 Great Lakes' Great Books (Michigan) Honor Book, and was a 2005 nominee for the Arkansas Diamond Award. <em>Subway: The Story of Tunnels, Tubes, and Tracks</em> (Boyds Mills Press, 2004) was a Junior Library Guild selection and is a PBS TeacherSource recommended book for Science and Mechanical Technology. More recently, <em>We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin</em> (Calkins Creek, 2007) won the Norman A. Sugarman Biography Award and the Jane Addams Book Award. His <em>Birmingham Sunday</em> (Calkins Creek, 2010) received starred reviews from <em>Kirkus</em> and <em>School Library Journal.</em></span><br />
</span>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-2961177239692531192012-01-18T23:48:00.000-05:002012-01-18T23:48:44.788-05:00Hokey Pokey Wednesday: Poking Through the AshesI slept with my aunt's ashes last night.<br />
<br />
They're in the box the crematorium sent, which is now resting in a paisley, purple decorative box people usually use for photos. My purple prayer beads rest on top.<br />
<br />
I don't have much to say tonight. I miss my aunt terribly. <br />
<br />
And I keep writing...<br />
<br />
Life comes down to ashes. We have to do what matters to us. We have to leave our mark - like my aunt did, with her barge. And we have to laugh.<br />
<br />
I'm good with that first part. I'm dedicated to my craft. But laughing is hard for me sometimes. Melancholy is my default emotion. <br />
<br />
I have to remind myself that it's not my only one.<br />
<br />
Happiness is a choice. Sometimes it's not an easy one. My aunt was happy, and happy with her choices. There's no reason to mourn her when she lived the life she imagined - just like Thoreau urged! <br />
<br />
But I do mourn her. I guess that's natural. I've never dealt well with death (does anyone?) My neighbor died and it took me about a year to finally write a note to her husband expressing my sorrow, because I just couldn't deal with it. And yet, I'm sure our souls live on. So what is there to be sad about?<br />
<br />
I don't know. I just am. I guess this is what they call grief. Another label. You know how I feel about those.<br />
<br />
My aunt played in the orchestra of a Broadway show called "No, No, Nanette." I used to listen to the album endlessly. There was a song in the show called, "I Want to Be Happy." The words went like this:<br />
<br />
"I want to be happy, but I can't be happy, 'til I make you happy too. When skies are grey and they say you are blue, I'll send the sun shining through. 'Cause I want to be happy, but I can't be happy, 'til I make you happy too!"<br />
<br />
Although she had to play this song, my aunt didn't subscribe to its message. She said that we are all responsible for our own happiness, and anything else makes us emotional hostages. (My aunt was dramatic.) So I will do my best to honor her by making myself happy. <br />
<br />
It really is a choice - that begins with a smile.<br />
<br />
I'm smiling now.Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-66254963100849367282012-01-17T22:39:00.000-05:002012-01-17T22:39:01.213-05:00Tightrope Tuesday: Brimming with Words and Trying to Relate<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The college applications are in (except for CUNY schools, due 2/1) and we’ve moved onto the financial aid stage. I’ve filled out the federal form, but I’m confused about the <st1:stockticker>CSS</st1:stockticker> profile from the College Board (AKA: Highway Robbers.) Is it necessary, and why? It is expensive, or course – because it they could, the College Board would charge you for the air you breathe while taking the SATs. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I’m also moving towards the end of my latest novel. An exciting time, but also hard because when I’m in that zone, it’s hard to think about anything else. Imagine trying to live in two worlds at once. Something’s going to suffer.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Then there’s my younger son, Casey. I feel like I should be giving him more attention. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I took the kids to see <st1:stockticker>RENT</st1:stockticker> recently, and Casey loved it (yea!) This, after he practically had to be shanghaied to go. We’re going to watch the movie this weekend. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">And I took him shoe shopping.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Other than that, Casey prefers to be with his friends – either on-line or in person. I guess this is normal, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m doing something wrong. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">With Michael, it’s so easy. We can laugh at anything together. We both love Hard Core Pawn, and have a plan to journey to <st1:city><st1:place>Detroit</st1:place></st1:city> (the heart of <st1:city><st1:place>Detroit</st1:place></st1:city>’s 8 Mile, to be exact) to see American Jewelry and Loan in person. I want to meet Les Gold, the owner. I don’t even know why, but I do. I just love that show. And the great thing is, Michael’s down for it, too. We want to bring things to sell, and we’ve got a plan. We have to bring them all in separately, because if you bring it all together you get an offer for the lot, which is never enough.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">These are the things we talk about. What do you talk about with your kids?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Casey, on the other hand, would never be up for a road trip to <st1:city><st1:place>Detroit</st1:place></st1:city>. He wouldn’t even entertain such a discussion. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My kids are so different.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s not that I don’t relate with Casey, but the relating seems to come in dribs and drabs, while it’s always there with Michael. But I do have a rapport with Casey – and he knows he can always talk to me, no judgments.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What can I do but take it day by day? I’m not complaining – I’m just unloading my brain, and possibly not very coherently, I’m afraid.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s hard to walk this tightrope of parenthood – and even harder with all these novel thoughts brimming from my soul.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">But I’m grateful for everything.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-67063548955247209772012-01-16T13:48:00.000-05:002012-01-16T13:48:15.640-05:00Method to my Madness Monday: Ripping the Labels From Literature<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span> have long felt that labels hurt humanity. I feel the same about books.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I had a Facebook message conversation with a reader recently. She mentioned that she reads both adult literature and young adult literature. I remarked that before there was a “YA” category, literature was just “literature.” And frankly, I think we were better off.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em>The Catcher in the <st1:city><st1:place>Rye</st1:place></st1:city></em> strictly a young adult novel? Is <em>The Member of the Wedding</em>? <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em>? <em>Jane Eyre</em>? You get the idea...So many of our great novels feature a young protagonist, and with good reason. Coming of age is perhaps the most difficult and important thing we do in our lives. And yes –young people should read them. But so should older people. Not only because we’re still struggling with the lessons and experiences of our youth (we are) –but more importantly, because these books are about humanity. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">We should always read books about the human condition.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Literature is literature. It doesn’t matter if it’s about a teenager or an old woman. What matters is if it’s well-written. Period.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Most people who read <em>The Old Man and the Sea</em> are not old men, and are not on the sea. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">None of us will ever live near <st1:place><em><st1:placename>Wuthering</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Heights</st1:placetype></em></st1:place>. (In place or in time.)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">To say a reader need be in similar circumstances to the characters in a novel is absurd. One of the most glorious things a book can do is take us to a different world. And why would we want to segregate ourselves to books in our "comfort zone?" If we are white, should we only read books about white people? If we are women, should we never pick up books about men?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">One of my favorite books is <em>As I Lay Dying</em>. I’ve never experienced a lifestyle like any of those people’s (thankfully) – and I wouldn’t want to know them in person. They were all pretty horrible. But I felt their pain. They were human. So human. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">To attach a YA label to a literary novel is a disservice to the book and to its potential readers. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Literature has enough problems in this country. It doesn’t need this extra handicap.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When people ask me what I do, I say, “I’m a writer.” </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Of course, they ask, “What do you write?”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I say, “I’m a novelist, and I also write about the American Revolution.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I don’t say “I write teen novels” – because though the protagonists are teens, and teens can relate to them, so can everyone older. I wrote the books in my late thirties, and somehow I managed to relate. Go figure.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Nor do I say that I write “picture books” about the American Revolution. Because that puts me in <em>The Cat in the Hat</em> category automatically. My books are illustrated, but they are not for the kindergarten crowd. My publisher deems them for “ten and up” –and “up” has no limits. Adults love my books, because they are well-written and well-researched, and they show a human side to the revolution not often revealed.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My WIP features a forty year old woman, but it goes back in time and follows her childhood. Can children alone relate to the youngest years? Can teens alone relate to the teen years? Should we chop up the book and market it to different audiences? </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">But we live in a marketing society, and the labels are piling up. I can’t fight them – I can only write on, and pray that my books find their way into the hands that need them. Because good literature is something needed –to enrich our souls, and to remind us that we are not alone.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Maybe we could use one more label: “human books.” </div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-52724967351660011582012-01-13T14:42:00.000-05:002012-01-13T14:42:46.218-05:00Guest Blog Friday: Illustrator Amal<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>oday I'm hosting a different point of view.<br />
<br />
My friend Amal is an illustrator of children's books, editorial pages, and portraits. <br />
You can see from her work how talented she is. Please visit her blog and website for more about her (info. below). <br />
<br />
She also has a good sense of humor, as you'll see here.<br />
<br />
Welcome Amal!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The human face is fascinating. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of <br />
portraiture, mostly for people I’m at least slightly familiar <br />
with or know to be the day’s model. But before getting into anything lengthy</span><br />
<img alt="1.jpg" height="208" src="http://mail.aol.com/35138-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=31118481&folder=NewMail&partId=6" title="1.jpg" width="420" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I need to begin the morning with coffee and a good read-- <br />
<i>The Fugitive Finder</i>. Full of unfamiliar faces, some hard and some kind, I'm given the opportunity to discover what my Long Island neighbors are up to then proceed to do one or two quick sketches of them. It's a warm-up exercise I've gotten addicted to.<br />
Their crimes range from local burglaries and DUIs to violent assaults and grand larceny. </span><br />
<img alt="2.jpg" height="234" src="http://mail.aol.com/35138-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=31118481&folder=NewMail&partId=5" title="2.jpg" width="420" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While<i> Fugitive Finder </i>photographs are crude they still provide some sense of individual personality. But if you've ever tried to match the person wanted with a particular crime, you'll find it's near impossible. This got me thinking about how neatly any face might fit into the front page of that highly coveted periodical I snatch every fourth Sunday while exiting Guinta Meat Farms.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><img alt="FF_Amal copy.jpg" height="420" src="http://mail.aol.com/35138-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=31118481&folder=NewMail&partId=4" title="FF_Amal copy.jpg" width="312" /></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you’re like me, you’ll shake hands with nearly anyone, <br />
even those who claim to be members of highly organized gangs <br />
of illustrators and writers. <br />
<br />
The painting below is the original from which the 6th district police<br />
found a good likeness of October’s most wanted. Back issues available<br />
at any police station.</span><br />
<img alt="13.2_Karzai copy.jpg" src="http://mail.aol.com/35138-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=31118481&folder=NewMail&partId=3" title="13.2_Karzai copy.jpg" /><br />
<span style="color: #006600;"> Self Portrait of Artist in Studio, pastel</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: darkmagenta; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span>Amal - Illustrator </span><span></span>(female, pronounced 'amal'gamation)<br />
<a href="http://amalimages.blogspot.com/" style="color: #333399;" target="_blank">Blog:amalimages.blogspot.com</a><br style="color: #6666cc;" /><br style="color: #6666cc;" /><span style="color: #6666cc;"><a href="http://amalillustration.com/" target="_blank">Website: amalillustration.com</a></span></span>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-42917371019515641392012-01-12T22:51:00.000-05:002012-01-12T22:51:30.126-05:00Winner of Quote Contest Announced!<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>hanks to everyone who entered my contest last week. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on Cervantes' quote, "All in good time."<br />
<br />
I guess the bottom line is: All in good time! <br />
(This frustrating truth may be one reason why liquor stores have such great business despite the economy.)<br />
<br />
The winner - drawn randomly from the entrants - is:<br />
Sarah Butland!!!<br />
<br />
Sarah wins a signed copy of my novel <em>The Girl Next Door</em>.<br />
<br />
Congratulations, and please e-mail me (<a href="mailto:Ldymcbeth@aol.com">Ldymcbeth@aol.com</a>) with your details, Sarah!<br />
<br />
Stay tuned for a new contest next week, everyone!Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-60122263134889972142012-01-11T21:39:00.000-05:002012-01-11T21:39:17.956-05:00Hokey Pokey Wednesday: On Heading Down the Aisle<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In a stunning reversal of opinion, I’m now in favor of marriage.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4xLtztVbRV4/Tw5E-hDj9zI/AAAAAAAAAis/ftYxVyOnA2w/s1600/marriage+holding+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4xLtztVbRV4/Tw5E-hDj9zI/AAAAAAAAAis/ftYxVyOnA2w/s1600/marriage+holding+hands.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In the past, the thing that most upset me about marriage was the coldness of the institution – the contractualness of it. I was all about “love.” How dare a contract be involved!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Now, I’m all about marriage <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">because</i> it’s a business agreement. Why shouldn’t there be a contract? It doesn’t mean love isn’t involved. It just means that both people are investing into something. There are obligations – and consequences if the contract is broken. As well there should be!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So</i> many people are living together now. Remember the expression, “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” I’m going to straight out say that this hurts women more than men. They are the ones giving more away; they are the ones generally more hurt financially and emotionally than men if the relationship breaks up (I know there are exceptions, but let’s face it, the world is what it is.) </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s only getting worse, with girls younger and younger throwing themselves on guys and asking for nothing in exchange. Perhaps living together will be passé one day. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It comes down to self-worth. Women need to value themselves more – and I include myself in this statement. We deserve the protection and validation of marriage. Yes, I dare say “validation,” because it’s an acknowledgement of our importance <em>and</em> a genuine commitment. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-71uXUU-NFsc/Tw5FKTqLy4I/AAAAAAAAAi0/H4SuH0jXi9k/s1600/wedding+rings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-71uXUU-NFsc/Tw5FKTqLy4I/AAAAAAAAAi0/H4SuH0jXi9k/s1600/wedding+rings.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">There is of course a place for love in marriage. But the more important part of marriage is the guarantee of the contract. Many people think nothing of breaking their marriage vows, which is all the more reason for a contract – and a pre-nup!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Yes, everyone should have a pre-nup! Why not? It’s absolutely rational, and necessary.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I thought I was against marriage, but I was really against the misuse of marriage. I’ve come to realize that marriage isn’t the problem: it’s the people who rush into marriage and then think nothing of cheating, or dumping their partner. But there are good marriages – they just don’t get attention because <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> thrives on gossip. A solid marriage does not make for titillating gossip. How <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dull</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I do still maintain that it's too easy to get married. You should have to do as much paperwork to get married as you do to get divorced. No one would jump into a frivolous marriage if that were the case!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So, to recap, I now declare that marriage is a good thing. As is the protection that a marriage contract provides. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">What can I say? It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gKQYJYYsyRQ/Tw5FTPZVGUI/AAAAAAAAAi8/yF_aQr2qJ7s/s1600/will+you+marry+me+chaulk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gKQYJYYsyRQ/Tw5FTPZVGUI/AAAAAAAAAi8/yF_aQr2qJ7s/s1600/will+you+marry+me+chaulk.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-85854755407371695282012-01-10T07:00:00.045-05:002012-01-10T07:00:05.903-05:00Tightrope Tuesday: Teaching my Kids about Politics & CompassionHere’s what I tell my kids about politics: Vote for the candidate with the most compassion. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nliKgrUfLW4/Twu4yrXY_7I/AAAAAAAAAh8/JcqHRE6OJCI/s1600/Heart+shaped+Earth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nliKgrUfLW4/Twu4yrXY_7I/AAAAAAAAAh8/JcqHRE6OJCI/s1600/Heart+shaped+Earth.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Not that there’s much compassion in politics.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Today is the <st1:state><st1:place>New Hampshire</st1:place></st1:state> primary. In my first year at NYU, I spent the winter break sleeping on a floor of some <st1:place><st1:city>Nashua</st1:city>, <st1:state>New Hampshire</st1:state></st1:place> family, campaigning door to door for Gary Hart. (This was his first run – no Donna Rice until four years later.) I remember patches of the adventure, like being driven up from <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state> by the grandson of FAO Schwarz, who liked to drive on empty to see how far he could get. <o:p> </o:p></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I remember meeting Gary Hart at a rally, and getting his signature on the back of a peeled Heineken label I had in my purse.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JTXUPfRFx6k/Twu7Hvuq1HI/AAAAAAAAAiU/5iv_uh0Q2p0/s1600/Gary+Hart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JTXUPfRFx6k/Twu7Hvuq1HI/AAAAAAAAAiU/5iv_uh0Q2p0/s1600/Gary+Hart.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gary Hart: I was way into this guy. Don't remember why...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I also met George McGovern in a diner. He had bushy eyebrows.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p>I</o:p> remember someone literally holding me back when I attempted to cross the street in the middle of the block instead of at the light. “You could’ve been killed!” he exclaimed, though there wasn’t a car in sight. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I remember meeting a cute, sweet guy named Mark who went to <st1:place>Rutgers</st1:place>. I think he liked me – he stuck around in <st1:state><st1:place>New Hampshire</st1:place></st1:state> longer than he intended because I was staying – but unfortunately I was obsessed with an NYU classmate named Gus who turned out to be bisexual, but still not interested in me. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I remember the snow – sooo much!!! </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I remember everyone saying that Walter Mondale’s people put sugar in our gas tanks.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This is all to say that I remember little, human things – but nothing about the day to day, door to door campaigning. I think I blocked it out.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I remember the night we won. WE <st1:stockticker>WON</st1:stockticker>!!! Earlier that day I’d been selected to monitor the signing-in process at a polling place (we’ve all learned how necessary THAT is), but someone asked me for ID. I was two months shy of eighteen, so out on the snow I went, to spend hours waiting for my pickup (no cell phones back then, dearies.) I developed a fever, and stayed in the campaign office while everyone partied the night away with Senator Hart. Sometime during the evening, as I lay slumped on the floor, I hallucinated a conversation with Senator Ernest Hollings of <st1:state><st1:place>South Carolina</st1:place></st1:state>. At least, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t there. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--RytX21lDXQ/Twu8ryG4AqI/AAAAAAAAAic/h7q6u6Lq8as/s1600/Sen.+Ernest+Hollings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--RytX21lDXQ/Twu8ryG4AqI/AAAAAAAAAic/h7q6u6Lq8as/s1600/Sen.+Ernest+Hollings.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sen. Ernest Hollings, another democratic candidate that year: I enjoyed my hallucination of him. Nice guy, though conservative.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In the morning, my fever broke – but I’d been forgotten. The bus was leaving for <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state> without me. Thankfully a thirteen-year-old prodigy who was a student at <st1:city><st1:place>Columbia</st1:place></st1:city> demanded that they hold the bus while he looked for me. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This was my thanks for slaving away and sleeping on a strange family’s floor for a month.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My disillusionment became complete when Gary Hart conceded the nomination to Walter Mondale to form “party unity.” No way – that guy had people who put sugar in our gas tanks! </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In my first election, this was who I had left to vote for. Because the Republican choice was worse.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My son Michael is seventeen. He gets to vote in November. He has no aspirations to campaign for anyone. Perhaps he is dissuaded by my experiences, but more likely he wouldn’t do it anyway. He’s got other passions on his mind. Thank goodness! If I could go back in time I wouldn’t work for any politician, ever. They’re not worth the effort. I vote, and I share my opinions with anyone who wants to hear them (I always have an opinion) – and that’s enough. Politicians will always break your heart, because they are politicians.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I’ve told Michael and his brother a fair amount about politics, because I want them to question everything they hear. I took Michael to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fahrenheit 911</i> when it came out, but he was a little young to get it. Perhaps another viewing is in order. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UJTHum8Z2Fk/Twu5r5qhQnI/AAAAAAAAAiM/EU8EtHGD2jI/s1600/Fahrenheit+911.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UJTHum8Z2Fk/Twu5r5qhQnI/AAAAAAAAAiM/EU8EtHGD2jI/s1600/Fahrenheit+911.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I want my kids to know what’s going on, and to care. I want them to see reason, which often is forgotten in politics.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I don’t tell them to be democrats, though I am. They of course can choose what party they want. And it’s not like I’ve ruled out voting for a republican. I always check out both candidates, and vote for the one with most heart.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I’ve never voted for a republican.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I would be surprised if my kids were republicans, and I would be sad. But I would still love them.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In the end, all I can offer my kids is exposure to the process, and my honest opinion. I can’t imagine the American public voting for a guy who strapped his dog to the roof of his minivan and drove to <st1:country-region><st1:place>Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>. But I couldn’t imagine them re-electing Bush after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fahrenheit 911</i>. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I tell my kids, nothing is certain.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Perhaps that’s the best lesson politics can offer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ImBK1EVPwmY/Twu4_d7tRmI/AAAAAAAAAiE/O1A-EfI000g/s1600/Dalai+Lama+quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ImBK1EVPwmY/Twu4_d7tRmI/AAAAAAAAAiE/O1A-EfI000g/s1600/Dalai+Lama+quote.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-15179770927892223862012-01-09T01:03:00.000-05:002012-01-09T01:03:37.313-05:00Method to my Madness Monday: The Things I've Left Behind<span style="font-size: x-large;">M</span>y latest novel is in some ways my greatest challenge. Is this because it’s deeply personal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No. I’ve written novels like that before. One of them was so emotionally close that it nearly killed me.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Okay, this book is not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>challenging – thankfully. But it <em>is</em> my biggest test plot-wise, and in its overall breadth, if that makes any sense. My novels thus far have covered a very limited period of time. One of them covered a summer. Another spanned ten months, the other two – maybe a year. This novel covers forty years of a life. Talk about an epic journey!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">A lot of scenes are required in a book like this. I’ve been told a novel must be in at least 80% scene. Problem: scenes take up more room than summary/telling. With so much space being occupied by extra scenes in this revision (because of the 80% rule), it sadly followed that some plot points needed to be dropped – or the endeavor would be 1,000 pages long!</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Have you read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Things They Carried</i>? (You should.) In the midst of writing this novel, I’m mourning for the things I’ve left behind.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WFBxp-LTctA/TwqC5ZfgYMI/AAAAAAAAAh0/rfdAXRf8kNg/s1600/broken+heart+with+sad+guy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WFBxp-LTctA/TwqC5ZfgYMI/AAAAAAAAAh0/rfdAXRf8kNg/s1600/broken+heart+with+sad+guy.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The first thing to go was the most poignant love affair the character experienced. Why? First, because it was too much of a diversion from the main theme of the book. Second, because it required too much of a set-up and explanation – for which there was just no room! </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The second thing to go was a set of secondary characters who were quite amusing and animated, but they also took up too much room for the limited amount of time they were part of my character’s life. I couldn't justify building up a personal trainer (pardon the pun) who would only be around for a few years, or a shrink who was present for a few months. In real life we gain insight from many people we encounter. In fiction, it’s richer and more satisfying to meld these people into one strong secondary character, who will act as the main character's “go to” for the bulk of the story. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The third thing to go was a collection of funny and poignant scenes that did not pull their weight in yanking the plot forward. They were well-written and satisfying and I hope to publish them in a collection of short stories, because they hold up on their own – but in this novel they were like boulders strapped around the plot’s waist, weighing it down.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So many pages have been cut – valiant, fallen soldiers who fought the good fight but made the ultimate sacrifice for the cause. Writing a novel is in fact like dodging bullets on a battlefield, but they’re the ultimate friendly-fire because the sharp shooter aiming at you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> you. This is impossible to fathom if you’re not a writer. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s hard to fathom even if you are one.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My Aunt Olga the violinist once told me an amusing musician’s break-up line: “I love you darling, but the season is over.” </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The same may be said to the things I’ve left behind.</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-8228859394529109502012-01-07T21:09:00.000-05:002012-01-07T21:09:18.990-05:00Revolutionary Saturday: A Celebration!<span style="font-size: x-large;">L</span>et this first Revolutionary Saturday of 2012 be about celebration!<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">First, I want to celebrate my upcoming picture book, <em><st1:city><st1:place>Alliance</st1:place></st1:city>!</em> It’s about the incredible friendship between Washington and Lafayette. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I had the privilege of seeing the artist’s sketches last week. How magical to see what my words inspired! This will be my third picture book, but the excitement is still palpable. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Second, I want to celebrate curious minds. This book sprang from the question I kept asking myself while doing research for my first two Revolutionary War books: Why is this French guy always hanging around?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In the primary sources I consulted, <st1:city><st1:place>Lafayette</st1:place></st1:city> was often mentioned as being present, but no one really explained how he got there or what he was up to.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">From that question came the essential question of the book: How did two such different people form such an attachment? </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">To me, exploring relationships is a paramount part of writing, whether the setting is the Revolutionary War, or this afternoon.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Third, I want to celebrate revolutionary people: then and now. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><st1:city><st1:place>Lafayette</st1:place></st1:city> left his cozy and safe aristocratic lifestyle in <st1:country-region><st1:place>France</st1:place></st1:country-region> to help us fight for freedom. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You know by now how I feel about <st1:state><st1:place>Washington</st1:place></st1:state>: without his brilliance – and his ability to see past his disadvantages – we wouldn’t be a country.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Lafayette and Washington deserve a celebration. And so do all the revolutionary people in the world today: The people who refuse to be told how to think and feel. The people who create, add beauty and defend truth. You know who you are. And if you aren’t one of those people yet, it’s not too late. Celebrate life by sharing yourself with the world in your unique way. Be revolutionary!!!</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-66199265806171758192012-01-06T14:22:00.000-05:002012-01-06T14:22:09.806-05:00Guest Blogger Orel Protopopescu Discusses Gender in Writing and her Eclectic Journey<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span>oday I welcome my dear friend and mentor, Orel Protopopescu. Orel was one of the few people who took me seriously in the beginning of my endeavor to become a professional writer, taking the time to scrutinize my work and show me how to make it better. I will always be grateful to her!<br />
<br />
Orel's words are luminous and thoughtful. When I'm feeling stagnant I read over one of her poems for inspiration. Orel creates a whole world on a page. She can make you laugh; she can make you cry. Most of all, she'll make you feel.<br />
<br />
Welcome, Orel:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v20wOtXcCiI/TwdC2E0tsaI/AAAAAAAAAgs/r_A2zselYsg/s1600/orel+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v20wOtXcCiI/TwdC2E0tsaI/AAAAAAAAAgs/r_A2zselYsg/s1600/orel+photo.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">As a writer of children’s books, I wonder why many editors urge us to write more books for boys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Didn’t I, as a young girl, see myself in Huck Finn?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I traveled down the <st1:state><st1:place>Mississippi</st1:place></st1:state> with him and Jim, the runaway slave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t need to be a boy to share a boy’s adventures, joys and fears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was enough to be human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now I hear that boys refuse to read girls’ books, demanding heroes who are decidedly male.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V0x5wTY8H60/TwdDJojd_xI/AAAAAAAAAg0/mwn-rUt5Jvc/s1600/boy+reading+a+book.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V0x5wTY8H60/TwdDJojd_xI/AAAAAAAAAg0/mwn-rUt5Jvc/s1600/boy+reading+a+book.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Are we gender-stereotyping books? Left to their own devices, will kids read anything? </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>That has not been my experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember doing a presentation of my first picture book, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Since Lulu Learned the Cancan</i></b> (illustrated by Sandra Forrest and reappearing this year as an app from Auryn, Inc.) in an elementary school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its heroine, an ostrich who favors frilly dresses, kicks up a ruckus wherever she goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lulu may act like a tomboy, giving some powerfully dangerous kicks, but doesn’t dress like one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the assembly, a very assertive little boy gave me a thumbs up and said, “You did good!”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EECHcfllDTw/TwdEHhucG-I/AAAAAAAAAg8/ZJvMZVGjGg0/s1600/Lulu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EECHcfllDTw/TwdEHhucG-I/AAAAAAAAAg8/ZJvMZVGjGg0/s1600/Lulu.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">One hopes to do good whenever one writes for any child or adult, of any age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, when I wrote my second picture book, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Perilous Pit</i></b> (a NY Times <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ten Best-Illustrated</i> book, illustrated by Jacqueline Chwast, to be granted a second life, very soon, as an app from Auryn, Inc.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was criticized by some adults for casting a little boy as my hero, Daredevil Danny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He ends up riding a skateboard out to sea, all because of a carelessly thrown peach pit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why not Daredevil Denise? a psychologist asked me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was I trying to perpetuate the stereotype that girls were less adventurous than boys?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ycOEIFfbA4E/TwdE1lx-rrI/AAAAAAAAAhE/Urk99FxS_5c/s1600/The+Perilous+Pit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ycOEIFfbA4E/TwdE1lx-rrI/AAAAAAAAAhE/Urk99FxS_5c/s1600/The+Perilous+Pit.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Does it matter if the protagonist is Danny or Denise?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In my next published picture book, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Two Sticks</i></b> (illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf and also slated for imminent appdom) my heroine, Maybelle, discovers the joys of making music with live crocodiles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It never occurred to me to make this one a boy’s book, since it was based on a dream I had when I was small, a girl’s book from a young girl’s dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was Maybelle to be shunned as second rate by boys barely old enough to read?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4n1tC2Czrhk/TwdFtNAE1TI/AAAAAAAAAhM/svvW78jWXaU/s1600/Two+Sticks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4n1tC2Czrhk/TwdFtNAE1TI/AAAAAAAAAhM/svvW78jWXaU/s1600/Two+Sticks.png" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I haven’t been able to take a poll on that one, but the pendulum shifted again, back to a so-called boy’s book, when my next picture book, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thelonious Mouse</i></b>, also illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf, was published by FSG in 2011. Again, I wasn’t trying to write for boys when I created this feisty, scat-singing mouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Girls can be rambunctious, too, as we all know and hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was simply attracted to the way Thelonious rhymes with melodious, the visual assonance with the word “mouse,” coupled with my desire to pay homage to the genius of Thelonious Monk, the great jazz pianist and composer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His name was the source of my inspiration and it’s not a girl’s name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I expected that all children, boys and girls, could identify with my slick-tongued mouse whose music grew from everything around him, even his arch-nemesis, Fat Cat.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k8IigdRtcPA/TwdF9MJO0KI/AAAAAAAAAhU/7wUWC98zHGY/s1600/Thelonious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k8IigdRtcPA/TwdF9MJO0KI/AAAAAAAAAhU/7wUWC98zHGY/s1600/Thelonious.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So it has been gratifying to hear that a book for ages 4 and up has inspired a three-year-old to say that he wants to write books about “Fat Cat” when he grows up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My character has already sunk some sharp claws into his imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This little boy didn’t seem to be concerned that Fat Cat was a girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what of Thelonious himself, that rascally mouse with a knack for turning insult into musical, mousical art?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am still hoping to hear from some little girls who can identify.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My writing is somewhat eccentric, I suppose, because I write whatever I am moved to write, without regard for the market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I write for children and for adults, for all the children and adults in each of us, whether latent or emerging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes they write to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Most recently, I was touched by emails from readers of my chapbook of poems for adults, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What Remains</i></b>, published in 2011 by Finishing Line Press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uCE0462YmKk/TwdGTZU5HmI/AAAAAAAAAhc/qo5v5nzONj0/s1600/what+remains.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uCE0462YmKk/TwdGTZU5HmI/AAAAAAAAAhc/qo5v5nzONj0/s1600/what+remains.png" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>This little book, I’ve learned, has traveled by plane to <st1:place><st1:city>Hong Kong</st1:city>, <st1:state>Berlin</st1:state></st1:place>, <st1:city><st1:place>Paris</st1:place></st1:city>, <st1:city><st1:place>London</st1:place></st1:city>, <st1:city><st1:place>San Diego</st1:place></st1:city>, and to the edge of the <st1:place>Blue Ridge Mountains</st1:place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everywhere, readers tell me that they recognize themselves in my words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My family, theirs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My emotions, their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grown men and women had to stop reading, moved to tears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could not ask for more gratifying news, except, perhaps, to hear that Lulu made a little boy laugh to see such sport, as he kicked up his own flat heels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><st1:city><st1:place>Orel</st1:place></st1:city> Protopopescu</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">About <st1:city><st1:place>Orel</st1:place></st1:city>:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Orel Protopopescu, children’s author and poet, has been published by major houses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>A Thousand Peaks, Poems from </i></b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>China</i></b></st1:place></st1:country-region> (with Siyu Liu) was selected for the New York Public Library’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Books for the Teen Age, 2003</i></b> list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Two Sticks</i></b> is on Bank Street College of Education’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Best Children’s Books of the Year 2008</i></b> list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thelonious Mouse</i></b> (FSG, 2011) was praised by reviewers in Booklist, Kirkus, and SLJ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has completed a novel for young adults and is working on an inter-active poetry app currently in production by Actialuna in <st1:place><st1:city>Paris</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>France</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Her poetry has appeared in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Spoon</i></b><i> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">River Poetry Review</b></i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, <i>Long Island Quarterly</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oberon Poetry Magazine</i></b>, as well as in the anthology, <b>PAUMANOK, Poems and Pictures of </b><st1:place><b>Long Island</b></st1:place><b>,</b> published by Cross-Cultural Communications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She won honorable mentions in the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oberon</i></b> contests judged by Louis Simpson (2006) and Daniel Thomas Moran (2007) and was awarded first prize in Oberon’s 2010 contest judged by L. S. Asekoff for the poem, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Listening to<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> My Favorite Things</i> from the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Best of John Coltrane</i></b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of her poetry for children appears in her book for teachers, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">METAPHORS & SIMILES YOU CAN EAT And 12 More Poetry Writing Lessons</i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>(Scholastic Professional Books, 2003). </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">A gifted and nurturing teacher, <st1:city><st1:place>Orel</st1:place></st1:city> conducts writing workshops for students and teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a former student, Christine Slatest, now a 7<sup>th</sup> grade English teacher, said, “My interest in writing poetry began in Mrs. Protopopescu’s workshops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her visits to my elementary school changed my life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Check out her website: www.OrelProtopopescu.com</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-40153109319886149852012-01-05T16:50:00.000-05:002012-01-05T16:50:47.603-05:00Quote Contest Thursday!<span style="font-size: x-large;">H</span>ere's a quickie, because I'm on the run:<br />
<br />
Cervantes wrote: "All in good time."<br />
<br />
What do you think of that? How does it make you feel? Do you believe it? Do you feel your time is past due? What then?<br />
<br />
E-mail your thoughts to <a href="mailto:Ldymcbeth@aol.com">Ldymcbeth@aol.com</a> and you could win a signed copy of The Girl Next Door. I will choose one winner at random, from all entries (from anywhere.)<br />
<br />
Deadline: Saturday at midnight.Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-1566171974474516552012-01-04T21:57:00.001-05:002012-01-04T21:57:58.597-05:00Hokey Pokey Wednesday: Living My Day, Living My Life<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span> sometimes buy greeting cards and display them in my kitchen. One of my favorites says: “How you live your day is how you live your life.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s so easy to get bogged down in the wrong things. To stare around the room and think about all the improvements to be made. And the cleaning that needs to be done.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I read a line in Writer’s Digest many years ago that said something like, “The dishes will still be there later.” The article said you must writing first, and everything else after.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I make sure to write every morning – even if it’s just a few lines, or editing something I’ve already done. But I have to work on the rest of my day. Sometimes I get all melancholy and weepy. What good does that do? Sometimes I go out on errands that never seem to end. It’s ridiculous. What I need to do is force myself into a writing schedule of a few hours a day, at least. I’m a writer, for heaven’s sake. I have to “go to the office.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Another card I bought recently is Joseph Campbell’s quote, “Follow your bliss, and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” (paraphrased.)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I’ve already had this experience – I must keep on my path! I can’t control much in my life, but I can control my production of writing. And I can count my blessings.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I have to go now – I’m in Starbuck’s and they close at 10. I need to post thing and go home. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I need to write.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">That’s how I plan to live my life from now on.</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-9358011105154840822012-01-03T14:40:00.000-05:002012-01-03T14:40:33.719-05:00Tightrope Tuesday: Another Year of Parenting Without A Net<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>nother year of being a mom is underway. And I can’t help thinking: somehow this parenting thing eludes me. I always feel like I should be doing something more for or with my kids, and yet the tug to write is so strong as well...</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The other night they wanted me to carve pomegranates. Tearing myself away from my manuscript to paw at seeds and splatter crimson everywhere was not thrilling, and I let my kids know it. They laughed. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some mothers manage to fulfill their kids’ requests with a big smile. I can’t help wonder: is it genuine, or Zanax-induced?</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My son Michael made a little comment about my perpetual menu options the other night. “We know it’s either going to be steak, chicken or fish,” he said.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Excuse me, but this isn’t the diner,” I told him. “You’re lucky you get that. Besides, sometimes I make tacos.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What does he want? Doesn’t he know how hard it is for me to deal with meals at all when I’m in the middle of a novel? On Saturday night it took me an hour of wandering through the supermarket even though I had a list of only four things to buy, because I literally couldn’t focus. I kept running lines through my head.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Living in two worlds is like constantly juggling. And when I leave the literary world for awhile, it takes me that much longer to reacquaint myself with the characters – let alone write something quality. Sometimes I forget plot points, or if I’ve tackled something yet. So the bottom line is, I don’t want to cook or shop AT <st1:stockticker>ALL</st1:stockticker>. That doesn’t mean I don’t love my kids. I just wish they could fend for themselves.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I do what I need to do. I’m just not going to be researching any recipes. It’s only dinner. Eat it and more on.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I love spending time with my kids. But I like to do fun things with them. You know, like those “Disney Dads?” Yeah, I get that. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So what I need to do is get famous and wealthy enough so I can hire a chef and housekeeper, so we can just have fun when I’m not writing.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Until then, I’ll cook and do the laundry and do marginal cleaning, but there’s no service with a smile here. Just can’t do it – I’m not a Stepford wife. I’m not a wife AT <st1:stockticker>ALL</st1:stockticker>!!! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But I am a mother, and I must be doing something of a decent job because my kids are interesting and funny and I’m proud to know and be affiliated with them. And when we sit down to dinner – I do smile and enjoy myself. I wish we could just cut to the chase. </div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-3904654255060873862012-01-02T22:53:00.000-05:002012-01-02T22:53:11.790-05:00Discussing Dialogue<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span> few weeks ago I wrote about the opening scene in my novel, which I'd changed to ground more in scene. You may recall, I was quite excited. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">But apparently just because something is in scene and written well does not guarantee that it can do the job.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In this opening, my protagonist was having a conversation with a sleeping man, telling him she loved him, and ruminating about the problems of their relationship while he snored loudly. I submitted it for critique by a very reliable, well-respected writer. She wrote back, “You are telling, not showing that M is an unsatisfying relationship for Luna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just see him sleeping and then gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So her dissatisfaction and therefore everything she tells us subsequently, is unearned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all we know he’s prince charming and she’s just a complainer.” </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When I shared this with my friend Pascale she said of my critiquer, “Oh, please. Has she met a man?”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Be that as it may, apparently the information needs to be verified.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My critiquer said all I needed to do was use a different scene in which there is an exchange of dialogue.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This is a lesson I’ve been taught before, and ignored. At a writing conference a few years ago I read the same scene, and a famous writer said, “How about some dialogue?”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I said, “The guy’s sleeping.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">She said, “What if this were a movie?”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I said, “It’s not a movie. It’s a novel.”</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I thought I’d added enough dialogue when I created lines for my protagonist to say to her sleeping lover. And when I had him snore back in response, I thought it was funny. I still do. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I don’t feel completely wrong here. I should be able to have a scene with a sleeping man if I want to. My protagonist does a great job creating the angst, which is another major ingredient to get that plot moving. I’ve read internal books – and this isn’t completely internal¸ plus it’s only one scene. It’s an entertaining scene anyway. But I can recognize when the fight is futile, so I’ve changed it to a scene when both parties are awake. I hope to use the sleeping stuff elsewhere, because it’s good.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I still think you can create a dynamic scene with little or no dialogue (as I did in every scene of my picture book BY THE SWORD), but apparently I’m alone in this line of thinking. “Show don’t tell” actually means “show interaction between characters, ” I’ve just learned. We’ll need to let James Joyce and Virginia Woolf know asap. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Yes, we must kill our darlings. Sometimes, the reasons are obvious. And sometimes, the hardest times, we must abort a perfectly viable literary fetus. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You have to do what you have to do, and move on. If you want to be published, that is.</div>Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6633991401965016692.post-25487872289530784242011-12-31T20:28:00.000-05:002011-12-31T20:28:29.408-05:00Revolutionary Saturday: A Toast to Our Allies and Accomplishments<span style="font-size: x-large;">B</span>onjour mes amis!<br />
<br />
At the end of the year we reflect on our friendships and wish each other good tidings. I thought this would be a great time to remember our French allies in the American Revolution: we couldn't have won without them! <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jHpbhXWmF8s/Tv-z8WKk-uI/AAAAAAAAAgA/ebmMlIrnuwg/s1600/Ben+Franklin+in+France.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jHpbhXWmF8s/Tv-z8WKk-uI/AAAAAAAAAgA/ebmMlIrnuwg/s1600/Ben+Franklin+in+France.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ben Franklin in France, seeking support and recruits</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
It is also a time to celebrate our accomplishments. I've recently received the rough sketches for my book on the unlikely and touching friendship between George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7o4usx2qba0/Tv-0PES4NFI/AAAAAAAAAgM/DG5QcX2eJ7Y/s1600/Lafayette+and+Washington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7o4usx2qba0/Tv-0PES4NFI/AAAAAAAAAgM/DG5QcX2eJ7Y/s1600/Lafayette+and+Washington.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
It's called <em>Alliance!</em> Zut alors, I can't wait to share it with you!!!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GfJ5fDdDb-U/Tv-1nck80bI/AAAAAAAAAgk/0LyBPpg77Yw/s1600/Laf+and+Wash+at+Valley+Forge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GfJ5fDdDb-U/Tv-1nck80bI/AAAAAAAAAgk/0LyBPpg77Yw/s1600/Laf+and+Wash+at+Valley+Forge.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
So let's toast our successes, and our friends. Particularly the unlikely ones, who we'd never thought we'd have. Let's drink to serendipity and the power of faith and love. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
If an impulsive, bubbling teen Frenchman could bond with a middle-aged American general who had little tolerance for anyone - but most especially foreigners - there's hope for anyone to get along. <br />
<br />
Mais, oui!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eMbcZ1zn8Ks/Tv-0vzhPzoI/AAAAAAAAAgY/LxvEksKStDU/s1600/Laf+and+Wash+statue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eMbcZ1zn8Ks/Tv-0vzhPzoI/AAAAAAAAAgY/LxvEksKStDU/s1600/Laf+and+Wash+statue.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Their friendship was solid!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
A toast to you, and to me. May our friendship be long and prosper.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year!!! Cheers!!!!Selene Castrovillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15767739590856072023noreply@blogger.com0