My Best Day (OK, Four Best Days)

 I am blessed to be able to count many best days in my life, but this is a writing blog. Let's narrow it down to the writing related ones.

There was the day I got the phone call telling me that Viking was buying my first book, My Best Friend. I was at my parents'. Dad went out to the liquor store at 10 in the morning and bought a bottle of Moet Chandon, which we consumed right then. (Mom was a teetotaler. Besides, she was at work.)

Six years later, a different editor called to tell me that My Best Friend had won the Ezra Jack Keats Award. My daughter was getting ready for her figure skating lesson. 

"I can't find my tights," she screamed from downstairs. "Where's my GAP sweatshirt?"

"Look in the dryer," I yelled back as my editor babbled something about "award" and "My Best Friend"and "Ezra Jack Keats." I think I said "Well, that's great but I have to get my kid to skating right now. Send me an email." (I was talking on a landline, and didn't have a cell phone.)

I was halfway to the skating rink before the editor's words registered. The Ezra Jack Keat Award? I had been a librarian; I knew what that was. A big picture book award!  

One blessing is that both my parents were alive to share in my publishing success. The best day I ever spent with my mom was my first school visit/book signing in Oxford, Mississippi. The day began with a book discussion with an AP English class at Oxford High School, then a signing at Square Books Jr., just across Courthouse Square from its parent store, Square Books. I knew not to expect a bunch of people at a book signing. It was for my first published book, Yankee Girl. First time authors don't draw crowds. Heck, I didn't even know anybody who lived in Oxford. Or so I thought.

The first person in the door was a high school friend I hadn't seen in over 30 years. She was a local doctor, had seen the ad about my appearance, and wondered if it was me. She was followed by a pair of librarian friends from my first job, two hours away in Corinth, Ms. Then two carloads of teachers from the rural Tennessee junior-senior high school where I had taught for eight years. I was bowled over that my good friends had driven three hours on mostly two lane country roads to be there. All the while, people introduced themselves to Mom, wanting to know more about the events in Yankee Girl. 

I remember the trip home from Oxford as one of those blissful Mississippi April evenings of pink skies and soft breezes. Mom was never one to seek the spotlight, but she glowed with the experience of sharing our family's story with a group of my friends. A Best Day for us both.

The fourth Best Day was when my dad invited me to speak to his Retired FBI Agents group about Yankee Girl. The book is based on my family's moving to Mississippi in the summer of 1964, Freedom Summer. My dad was one of 500 FBI Agents assigned to the "Mississippi Burning" case of three missing civil rights workers. Their bodies had been found in their burned out station wagon, buried in an earthen dam, right before my family arrived. I was ten, and between worrying that the Russians would nuke us, or the Ku Klux Klan would firebomb our house, I never thought I'd live to see eleven.

Dad is on my right with the brass bowl over his head

The FBI has a culture all its own. The agents (all male at the time)were never to speak of their work outside the office. Dad was always getting middle of the night phone calls to come into work. We never knew why, although a couple of times we could hear why; bombs going off within a mile or two of the house. Dad would be sent out of town for weeks and months at a time and we wouldn't know where. If there was an emergency, we were to "call the office" and they would get in touch with him. If Dad was ten minutes late coming home from work, Mom would pace the driveway until she saw his car. We worried he'd be shot or kidnapped or have his car bombed.

Although there were other "Agent Kids" my age, almost all of them went to Catholic school. There was one other "AK" in my school, but we were in different classes, lived in different neighborhoods...and he was a boy. The local kids were either distantly polite ("Southern manners") or out and out ugly, calling me names, telling me to "go back up North where you belong." It was a lonely time.

Back to the Retired Agents meeting. About half the group were from the original 500 agents of 1964. They listened as I read parts of the book that dealt with the fear and loneliness I experienced. When I finished, there was a long, long silence.

Uh-oh, I thought. This was a bad idea.

Then slowly the men started clapping, louder and louder, and the ones who could, stood up. One by one they came over to me, with tears in their eyes.

"I didn't know my kids were scared," they said. "We thought we had kept what we did a secret."

"We didn't know our kids were being bullied.  They never said anything to us."

Of course we didn't. We knew our parents were dealing with life and death stuff. Being called a "damn Yankee" or a "N-word lover" was small potatoes in comparison. 

One man took my hands and said, "My daughter is about your age. I'm going home right now and calling her and apologizing for not being aware of what was going on with her while we were working."

My dad was a quiet man, perfect for an FBI agent. I adored him, but if we spoke three sentences in a week, it was a big deal. He spoke only when necessary. That's just the way he was. That day on the way home from the meeting, for the first and only time in my life, he said, "I'm proud of you."

Another Best Day.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

And They All Live Happily Ever After ...Not! Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

 Has this ever happened to you? You've invested hours, days, weeks of your precious reading time in the Novel of the Season. The writing is wonderful, the plot a page turner. The characters have become like members of your family. The  book resides in your brain when you've not reading. This is the best book ever until...

Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am... it's over. It's over and you feel cheated. What a terrible ending! Maybe it was ludicrous, given the 400 previous pages. Maybe you didn't see it coming...and not in a good way. Maybe the writer got tired and looked for the nearest exit ramp.

Endings are your final impression of a book. A sucky ending is not likely encourage you to read another book by that author. And we authors do like return readers. (So do publishers.)

One of the reasons I became a writer was the awful endings of books as I read as a kid. The books available to me in the 60's were primarily written in the 50's and 40's, the Era of Perpetually Happy Endings. No names mentioned, but there were a couple of "teen romance" writers whose plain but brilliant female main character always landed her dream boat by the last page. If Dreamboat had discovered the inner beauty of Plain Jane, I would've been happy, but that's not what happened. In every single book, Jane suddenly became a curvaceous beauty, with a perfect complexion and shimmering hair. I can't tell you the number of times 10-year-old me threw a book across the room, yelling, "Real life isn't like that!" I vowed to myself I'd become a writer of books with Real Life endings.

The first Real Life ending I encountered (although I didn't realize it) was Charlotte's Web when I was 8. I cried for days (one of the few books that have made me cry.) I didn't really think very much about why E.B White chose to end his book that way, until I was in the Vermont College MFA program. Someone on the faculty--if only I could remember who--said, "Endings should be inevitable." Light bulbs! Fireworks! Lightening! Yes! But the lecturer was still talking, "Inevitable doesn't need to be predictable. The ending should be organic to what has come before." Ding ding ding! In two minutes, I learned the secret of a good ending.

Now all I had to do was write one.  

There are people who don't write without an outline, complete with ending. I'm not one of those people. I know the beginning, I know some of what happens in the middle...but the end? The end is always as much of a surprise to me as I hope it is to the reader. If I have to think hard, then the end is neither inevitable or organic. It's just an ending.

In writing both of my middle grade novels, Yankee Girl and Jimmy's Stars, I thought I had the end firmly in mind and then... In Yankee Girl, several new characters came out of nowhere, jumped in the scene and took it to another place all together, with me, racing behind, trying to keep up. Jimmy's Stars had my main character remember something from chapter one--something I had forgotten--that ended the story for me. Organically. Inevitably.

Picture books are a little easier to end, because the story isn't as complicated. However, I had no idea how to end First Grade Stinks. I didn't so much write that one, as take dictation. My daughter came home from school every day with a new complaint about first grade. Why wasn't it cool, like kindergarten? I couldn't use reality here, because my daughter and her first grade teacher never came to terms. I had to let that one "germinate" in the computer files for a year as I contemplated what my character... wanted from first grade...and what she really needed. What she needed was a new attitude. Once she found that...the ending came all in a rush. Happily-ever-after-but with a twist of reality.

Not all my readers appreciate my endings. I've lost count of the kids who've asked  "Why did such and such have to happen?  That was so sad!"   I ask them, "So what would the story be if that thing didn't happen?" The answer is usually, "Well then Ellie/Alice Ann/Lily would be happy." 

"OK, now tell me your version of the story," I say. The young reader starts to retell the story until the troubling plot point. They fumble around for a minute, before saying "And they all lived happily ever after." Pause. "That's not a very good story, my way, is it?" Nope. (No conflict, no story...but that's a different post.) How the character (and author) handle and resolve conflict realistically makes a satisfying ending.

 I'm sure there are kids all over the world, throwing my books across the room, yelling, "What a dumb ending!" But I'll bet they don't say "Real life isn't like that."

And they always ask about a sequel.

P.S. Indulge me a minute. This is my daughter, on the first day of kindergarten, and the same daughter, heading off to her first week of teaching her own Pre-K class. I could not be prouder of her. She also uses "extra story time" as a class reward. If you're a picture book writer and you're my friend, your books are in her classroom library.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

10 Years and the Long Road

Happy 10th Blogiversary to Teaching Authors. Ten years? Already? Blogs come and go, but we're still here, because you ... our faithful followers...are still here. Thank you for reading and commenting and supporting us through this...oh wow...decade!

Before proceeding, a reminder that our current giveaway deadline has been extended to Tuesday, May 7.  We are giving away a copy of The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by author and editor, Cheryl B. Klein. Check Carmela's March 29th post for details and how to enter.

For the Blogiversary, each Teaching Authors is choosing a favorite past post to share. Mine is a letter to my younger writer self.  I've kept journals my whole life, as a reminder of who I was and the long, long road to becoming a published author. I won my first writing contest when I was a sophomore in high school. I knew then that whatever else I would do to support myself, writing would always be my true love. Sometimes I need a little reminder of why I write. Or even that I can write.

15...the journey begins

This post from four years ago reminds me how far I've come...and that the journey is not yet over. I'm in a place where a lot of you are...first, taking care of elderly parents and a high maintenance adolescent; now struggling through the labyrinth of a complicated estate while keeping my college student focused from 200 miles away. What gets shifted to the bottom of the to-do list is my well-being as a human. Rereading the original post has me itching to return to WIP's I left when I "took a break"several years ago.  I hope this trip back to Sept. 2015 will stir memories of your own writer's journey, evaluate where you are, and to find the courage to keep on writing.

If you'll forgive me the indulgence, two of my books have had milestone "birthdays" since my last post. A Tree For Emmy celebrated 10 years in print in March, while Yankee Girl hit 15 years in print in April. (A double digit anniversary!) I am blessed and humbled to have had two books still in print after all these years. Thank you, readers and friends, who keep us children's writers in business.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

The Great Agent Hunt: Eight Lessons Learned.

     I am fortunate.  In the past fifteen years, I've sold and published a dozen books, more or less. (Let's not talk about the one I sold five years ago and has yet to be published.) When I say I sold them, I mean exactly that. I do not have an agent.

     I would love to have an agent to take over the time consuming details of submission and contracts. A writer without an agent doesn't have a snowball's chance in July of getting any meaningful changes to a contract.

    In my search for the Right Agent, I've submitted and schmoozed and networked for ten years...and I still don't have an agent.

     Why not?

    It's a combination of personal taste (the agent's) and your potential to make the agent buckets of bucks. I've been told I'm too "literary" as opposed to a book that could become a cartoon series, complete with action figures.  I write historical fiction, which is a "hard sell." (At least the agents I queried felt that way.) Many agents do not like representing picture book authors who are not also illustrators. Guess who writes picture books but is not an illustrator?

    Let me tell you about my Quest for the Perfect Agent, and the lessons I learned.

    Lesson One:  It's harder to publish without an agent than it was in 2000.

    When I sold My Best Friend in 2001, there were still a number of major publishers who would read slush pile (unagented) submissions. This number has dwindled considerably over the years. I publish with three different houses; only one of them still takes unsolicited manuscripts.

     My Best Friend won two major picture book text awards. I've lost count of the number of reading lists and college courses that use this book.  Not too shabby for a book published eleven years ago. Today, it might never be read by an editor at all, without an agent pitching it.

At the Zolotow Awards for My Best Friend. I'm standing between Gretchen Will Mayo, and TA JoAnn Early Macken.

       Lesson Two:  Having a publishing track record does not guarantee you an agent.

      I sold my second book, Yankee Girl to another publisher after it was turned down by the company who bought My Best Friend.  Yankee Girl received a lot of attention for a first novel.  Publisher's Weekly made me one of their "Flying Start" authors. There were some starred reviews, as well as some not so stellar ones. In fact several library systems and schools banned the book.  It was long-listed as an ALA Notable Book, was an Outstanding Social Studies book, and nominated for a dozen state book awards.  The first printing sold out in six weeks, which is a rarity.

     With all this attention, I some how thought that an agent would arrive on my doorstep with balloons, roses and one of those giant cardboard checks, and a contract. Obviously I had seen too many Publisher's Clearing House ads.

      Lesson Three:  Literary agents don't recruit. You have to go looking for them.

      Once I stopped imagining hordes of agents clamoring for my attention, I began The Great Agent Hunt.  I queried, I pitched, I struck out.

      Lesson Four:  Agents' slush piles are not the same as an editor's slush pile.

      Sometimes, if you're lucky, an editor might say, "This book isn't right for us, but I like your style. Feel free to send me anything else you write.

      There are no second chances with agents. Send your most polished pitch/manuscript because once an agent has rejected you, you can't pitch to them again. They have already formed their opinion as to whether you are "their kind of author."

      After a solid year of trying, I had a long list of agents who had decided I was not their kind of author.

      Lesson Five: Agents rarely sign clients from the slush pile.

      After re-reading Guide to Literary Agents, I learned the vast majority of agents will only read pitches/queries/manuscripts "recommended by a current client of the agent."  I had lots of friends with agents, who all generously recommended me to their agencies.

     I submitted my next novel to Joe Agent the hip-hop-happening Rock Star of children's agents, recommended by multiple friends who were clients.

He read the first three chapters, then called me.

     "This is great!" he enthused so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear.  "Send me the rest, tout suite!"

    I dropped the phone and dashed down to Fed Ex with the remaining 250 pages. Overnighting the manuscript to New York cost me forty dollars. But who cared? I was going to be in Joe Rock Star's world.

   A week later, Joe RS called me back. I trembled as I answered the phone.

  "I gotta tell you, I was really disappointed with the rest of the book," he said.

     I stopped trembling.  At the end of an hour, I learned I'm too literary, nobody likes historical fiction and he didn't care that my first two books were successful. So much for the Rock Star.

     I was afraid to the submit to the next friend-recommended agent. If Joe had been The Rock Star, Josephine Agent was a Multimedia Superstar/Agent. She represented adult best sellers, and Newbery winners.  Her books were optioned for movies. I sent my pitch.

    Another phone call. In a five minute monologue, this woman rattled off her credentials.  Another request for the book "And I mean I want it on my desk tomorrow."

   Another Forty bucks to Fed Ex.  Then I waited.  And waited. I tried to contact her. Email, snail mail.  I even tried calling her. Whoever answered her phone had never heard of me, or my book, and no, Josephine was too busy to talk to this person who said she sent a book.  I never heard word one from Josephine, her agency or any of their minions.

    Lesson Five:  All agents are not created equal.

    Anyone can say they are an agent. I had a friend who found an agent in an LA bar. The "agent" was really an unemployed actor with no publishing experience at all. Fairy tales can come true. My friend's book became a best-seller and was optioned for a movie (that was never made.)  If this guy had not been my husband's life-long friend, I would not have believed any of it.  Until I saw the book on the New York Times bestsellers. I would say the whole thing never happened.

    Another friend mentioned her agent. After so much querying, I knew who was who at the agencies.  Her agent was unfamiliar to me.  My friend couldn't tell me what writers she represented or how many books she had sold.

    I looked up Unfamiliar Agent on the website Predators & Editors which used to call out the fakes, frauds and phonies in the publishing world. (Alas, this site is no longer operational, for lack of some to maintain the site. Please, someone, volunteer!) Sure enough, my friend's "agent" was on the Predator's list.  It gave her address as someplace like Pocatello, Idaho. Anyone with a cell phone can work anywhere, but most successful agents live near a major publishing center--NYC, LA, Boston.

    The coup de grace came when my friend told me she had been with this "agent" for five years, with nary a sale to show for it. Or even rejection letters. Just the "word" of this person that books had been submitted and rejected.

    Um...thanks but no thanks.

     Lesson Six:  Don't "marry" the first agent who asks you.

     You wouldn't marry the first person who asks you on a date. OK, maybe you did, but you didn't do it after the first date, right? And you asked questions, lots of questions before you said yes? You did, didn't you?

     An agent is your literary spouse. You're making a commitment "till death do you part." Or you decide, for whatever reason, this relationship just isn't working out. However, just like marriage, dissolving the partnership does not erase the past. Your ex-agent will continue to collect 15% of the royalties for the books he represented. The thrill is gone, but agent's payments are forever.

     Lesson Seven:  Agents work for you, not the other way around.

     Some of my friends go through agents like Kleenex. These authors didn't ask the right questions beforehand. Your agent should be compatible with your work style and expectations.  Here are some questions to consider.

     Will the agent represent a book he doesn't personally like?  The answer is usually no; it's hard to sell something you aren't totally sold on yourself. At this point, your agent has become another layer of possible rejection before an editor even sees the book.

     Does the agent help with revisions, or do they simply send out the book as received?

     How many clients do they handle and who are they? (There is no such thing as "literary confidentiality.) What books have they sold recently?

    How many times will your book be submitted, before the agent decides it's unsellable?
Some authors are unpleasantly surprised when their agent submits to three "big box publishers" and considers the job done. Why? Because smaller publishers offer smaller advances, which means a smaller 15% for the agent. It's not worth their time.

    Do you like and trust this person?  It's tough being "married" to someone you don't even like. And you would sure want to trust someone who is handling your money.

    Lesson Eight:  Don't give up hope.

    If you really, really want an agent (and I do) don't give up the hunt. I did, temporarily, but I'm ready to get back in the game. My WIP will be finished sometime next year.  There just has to an agent somewhere who loves historical fiction, and wouldn't mind representing picture book texts, no illustrations. As the Michael Buble song goes, "I just haven't met you yet."

And when I do, you will be the first to know.

Don't forget to sign up for our our current book giveaway for a copy of the latest CWIM.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Congratulations! It’s a First Draft!

(Carmela, here. While you'll see my byline under this post title on our website, the following was written by Mary Ann.)

Giving birth to a 400-page first draft was a lot more work than giving birth to an eight-pound daughter. (OK…she was a planned C-section, but still…) Just as your “real” work as a parent begins at the end of nine months of gestation, the serious work of revision begins when you have spilled your original vision on the page for months and months.

I wrote the first draft of YANKEE GIRL (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) during a year in the Vermont College MFA Writing program. Happy was the day I popped that pile of paper in the mail to my new advisor. My previous two mentors had focused on grinding out that draft.  No one had really discussed “revision” because “it wasn’t time yet.”  I couldn’t imagine how much revision that could be.  I had 400 pages.  Well, maybe it was a little long…

“This little baby needs to lose some weight,” said my new mentor, strumming his fingers atop my proud effort. Gee, that is a pretty tall manuscript I thought.

“How much?” I asked.

My mentor turned to the last page.  “Four hundred pages,” he said.  “I think it needs to be half this size. Let’s shoot for losing two hundred pages.”

What?? How was I supposed to do that? It was like being told to lose half your body weight, when you thought maybe you had twenty pounds to lose.

“Go back through this and cut every character, scene and description that does not move this book to its logical conclusion.”

Now was the time to listen to my Inner Critic.  Inner Critics can be a pain in the laptop during a first draft.  I had mostly told mine to shut up and get lost. If I hadn’t, I would never have gotten that draft done. If I was in a plot hole, I would write my way out of it.  But that method of getting past writer’s block left me with characters that appeared and disappeared, scenes that didn’t “move the story along” and my favorite fault, detouring up dead-end alleys and cul-de-sacs of description.

I love to write description. In re-reading that first draft though, I had forgotten how much I dislike reading paragraph after paragraph of anyone’s descriptions, let alone my own.

At this point, I didn’t know there would be at least four more revision drafts to come. I just needed to get through this one.  Step one…reading through the whole manuscript without changing anything. If something struck me as needing change, I flagged it and read on. I did not begin to cut (and cut) until after I had finished that first reading.

Once something strikes me as unnecessary or not working, I usually know what to do when I reach the pick-and-shovel stage of revision. If I don’t, I flag it again and leave it for my next pass. Relieving the pressure to fix everything right then and there, kept me going.

After not having read the ms for about six weeks, it was easier to see what my mentor had meant about it being “overweight.” (Digression: Never revise as soon as you finish that first draft.  Give it and you time to “breathe.”)  If I was unsure if something was “deadwood” (usually a description I just loved), I asked myself “If I had to pay a thousand dollars to keep this in the story, would I?” The answer was always no.  Chopping out those beloved bits is known as “killing the darlings”…passages that serve no purpose but you think you might be able to sneak them past your Inner Critic. Listen to Inner Critic, because you will only have to do it later when your editor (or mentor or critique group) points out the lingering “darling.”

Six months later, when it was time to change mentors, I had a slimmer manuscript.  It wasn’t quite the two hundred pages my mentor had envisioned, but it was one hundred fifty pages lighter.  I’d learned to enjoy revision, replacing the almost right word, with the exactly right word.  I combined or cut characters. I got a feel for pacing the action.

I liked revision.

It’s a good thing I did, because there would be many more revisions to come.

Best of luck with however many revisions it takes.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Inspiration is a blast from the past

     I find inspiration in real life. Rummaging through flea markets and antique stores, examining the jumbled pieces of other peoples' lives sets my story radar pinging. How did these odds and ends come to rest, unwanted by their "families," in a junk store? A story begins simmering in the back of my brain.

    I am addicted to old family pictures. I gaze at the walls of other people's houses, memorizing family portraits. My mother practically raised me at estate sales and junk stores. I was not allowed to touch anything, but I could ask all the questions I wanted. What was this metal thing used for? Who wore shoes that buttoned up the sides? Did you have a doll like this when you were a little girl?

   The two people who encouraged my curiosity in the past would be surprised to learn I consider them the fairy godmothers of my writing.  Those two people were my Grandmother Rodman and my mom, both natural born storytellers.

The couple in the middle are my Rodman grandparents

      Although her father had been a country schoolmaster, my Grandmother Rodman's education ended at 11. However, she loved to read and never stopped learning through out her very long life (she lived to be 97). Her childhood was positively Dickensian; orphaned at 11, she lived with an "evil stepfather" and numerous half-siblings. Her older brothers had gone off to "seek their fortunes" and escape their abusive stepfather.  Murder, the county poor farm, setting off on her own at 15 to make her way in the world...all these elements were part of my grandmother's story.  As a young mother she survived the most deadly tornado in U.S. history. She told "The Storm Story" when few people talked about tragedies.  My grandmother made sense of her own life by telling the stories, over and over, always in an undramatic, matter of fact voice.

     She knew which details would make her story real for a little listener...the taste of homemade peanut brittle, the mustard color of a funnel cloud so enormous it blocked the sky, the stiff, slick material of her mother's "Sunday dress." Her stories were peopled with characters named Country and Myrtle and Ardell.  She evoked the sound of their voices, the way they stood and moved, the little quirks that made those long-dead people come alive. She was economical with her words, as she brought the events to the climax, never once saying "Oh I forgot to say that..."

   Not only could my grandmother put names to the family photos she kept in a big silk stationary box under her bed, she could spin stories about every one of them. She also told me about my father growing up in small-town, Depression-era,  Southern Illinois. My father did not tell me his own boyhood until very recently.  Learning what kind of little boy he had been, helped me understand my sometimes puzzling, taciturn dad.

Mom on the far right, her brother Jimmy and sister Agnes

   My mother would be shocked to learn that she inspired me. I was a sickly kid and missed a lot of school. Mom entertained me with stories of her childhood, first on a small family farm and then helping her mother run a Pittsburgh boarding house during the Depression. The middle child of eight, her stories seemed exciting and exotic, better than any library book. Mom prefaced her stories with, "Now times were different when I was a little. We probably shouldn't have done some of this stuff then, and you aren't to do it now. If you do, I will stop telling you stories." That was threat enough to keep me from trying some of the stunts of Mom and her family.  My uncles' trapeze in the farm's apple orchard. The Great Silverware War of Easter 1932. Their beloved maiden aunt who taught them to play poker. The first story I ever wrote at age seven was about Mom moving from to town after the bank took the farm.  My 11-year-old mother and her sister rode a streetcar back to their old home, to gather whatever they had could of what was left behind. (No, I'm not telling you what they took...I'm still working on this story.)

   Mom was a one-woman show. She imitated voices, created sound effects and even acted out the events when her vocabulary failed her.  Ironically, she considered herself shy and disliked speaking in public. Writing anything, such as a letter, was a laborious process that would go through several drafts before she would write on her good linen stationary with a fountain pen.  Since Mom wrote to at least some of her family every week, that was a lot of moaning and groaning and crumpled up notebook paper. (I learned the pain and value of revision early!)`

    Jimmy's Stars began when I found a WWII two-star service flag in a box lot of china I bought at an auction. I knew from photos that Mom's family had a four-star flag in the window of the boarding house (three for my uncles and one for Mom who was a WAVE). Looking at that flag, I heard my mother's voice recounting life on the Homefront, the terror of receiving a telegram, the peculiarity of wartime rationing. With those stories as a foundation,Jimmy's Stars was the fastest I've ever written anything...18 months. (That included lightening striking my computer and wiping out the unbacked-up first five chapters.)

  Yankee Girl is based on my own childhood stories I told my daughter. I am currently working on two books that are based on Grandmother Rodman tales.
                                                                                                             
    I'm sure that neither my grandmother or mother knew they would inspire my own books. Their stories taught me the beauty and drama of everyday life. This sense of wonder in what seems ordinary to us, I try to pass on to my own students. Over the years, they have told me about grandparents who wandered in the rubble of WWII Europe, orphaned and homeless. Of their parents as children, in refugee camps, fleeing Asia by boat. One girl's family escaped the Holocaust by immigrating to Cuba... and then fled Cuba after the Revolution. My hope is that these tales will live on in my students' writing.  I think the best gift you can give a child is a family story.

     I was blessed to be descended from two of the best storytellers ever. Thanks, Meemaw.  Thanks, Mom.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Libraries--Better Than Ever

     On our first date, my husband-to-be asked what I did for a living.  I told him I was a school librarian.  "Well there's a profession that will be obsolete in twenty years," he chuckled. I did not chuckle. I did marry him and twenty five years later I am still waiting for his prediction to come true.

   OK, I admit that twenty five years ago I never dreamed that I would have a phone that could help me find my way around the zillion streets of Atlanta named "Peachtree."  Or a device that could download hundreds of books, cutting down considerably on overweight luggage fees. My 1989 school library had computers, but they were little more than fancy typewriters. Who knew that entering the right search words on my jazzy little laptop could find pictures of the battleships my father-in-law served on in WWII?  Or the history of the long demolished amusement park of my childhood, the genesis of The Roller Coaster Kid?  Yes, Craig was right...I could access all that information without setting foot in a library.

    But yet there are still libraries. In my neck of the woods, it appears that most people are there for free computer time and to check out videos. If I am there, it is to do research. Guess what? Not everything is available on the Internet. At least not for free.  When I wrote Jimmy's Stars and Yankee Girl I spent months reading newspapers from WWII and the 1960's....on microfilm machines.  While there are a good number of old periodicals available online these days, they never seem to be the ones I need or there is a hefty fee to join a database.  All the branch libraries in my immediate area were built in the last 15 years and don't have microfilm machines. But if I need one, all I have to do is go downtown to the main library.

   The library is a source of professional literature such as Library Journal or Publisher's Weekly. Usually they are kept in the librarians' work area, but they have always let me read them on the premises if I ask.  There are also databases and reference materials that I can't find anywhere else...at least not for free.

    I have had the good fortune to have worked in a university library which gave me access to all
kinds of information not found in a public library. My library allowed the public to use the collection for a nominal yearly fee. As an employee I had free reign, but even if I hadn't, I would have paid the fee.  It's something to investigate.

     I could go on forever about the information that you will find only in a library....but why tell you?  Check it out yourself. By the way, my husband has had to finally admit that libraries and librarians are not obsolete or likely to become so any time soon.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Getting It Right

    First off, a big Teaching Authors welcome to our latest TA, Carla McClafferty. Not only did Carla and I meet and bond some fifteen years ago at an SCBWI retreat in Arkansas, we once shared an editor. Greetings, old friend, and welcome aboard. For the next couple of posts we are going to be talking about your genre, non-fiction, and what it shares with fiction.

    I have always wanted to be a Carla-sort of writer, a non-fiction writer. "Write what you love" is one of those things writing teachers (like me) tell their students. I love non-fiction. My "adult" reading consists almost entirely of biographies and history. If I read two adult novels a year, that's a big deal for me.

   So why don't I write non-fiction for children?  The reasons are endless, so I'll boil it down to one.  I just can't stick to the facts.

    Both of my novels, Yankee Girl and Jimmy's Stars began life as memoirs. YG was about my life, JS about my mother's family. Because they both took place in other times and places...Mississippi 1964 and Pittsburgh 1943...I did a boatload of research to make sure I had the details right. For the World War II world of Jimmy's Stars, I made a timeline of what battles occurred where and when between September 1943 and September 1944, and when news of those battles reached the States.  I compiled a radio schedule for the Pittsburgh stations. I studied streetcar routes. I poured over the various rationing schedules for gasoline, food, clothing.

    You would think that Yankee Girl would not require quite so much research, since after all, this was based on my own elementary school years.  I even had my 5th and 6th grade diaries. Still....do you remember what week the Beatles' "I Feel Fine" reached number one on the charts?  Neither did I.  Since the main character is a huge Beatles fan, there is at least one reference to a Beatles' song in every chapter. In addition, this the height of the Civil Rights Movement (the Selma March to Montgomery occurs about three quarters of the way through YG). I had to know exactly what date  this protest or that bombing occurred.  I remembered that these things had happened but that wasn't enough. I had to know exactly when. I spent a dismal five months in the microfilm room of the Jackson Mississippi library, going through a year's worth of newspapers, reliving a sad and scary time.

    By now you are thinking, "Well, with all this research, why didn't she just go ahead an write those memoirs?"  Good question. All I can say is that my mind refuses to march in a straight line . Yes the facts are there, because they are part of the story.  But once I start writing, my "real" character refuses to stick to their own "real" story.  I start thinking "but wouldn't it be more interesting if this happened instead?  Or if her best friend was this kind of person?"  Before I know it, I am off on a completely different story than I had first intended. The only thing that remains the same is the structure of historical fact and detail that makes the story "real" for me (and hopefully for the reader as well.)

    I am just beginning to write contemporary fiction for young people and guess what?  There is no less research involved.  Next month I will have a story in a YA anthology called Things I'll Never Say. 
I live in Georgia.  My main characters live in Georgia.  I have lived here for fourteen years.  Yet, for a 3,000 word story here are just a few story points I needed to find out to make the story real:  price of admission to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, driving times between different towns, the academic school year of Emory University, the most popular spring break towns with Georgia teens...well, you get the point.

    My point?  Getting the details right is one of the ingredients for making a story real.  Editors care about details. I spent weeks nattering back and forth with my Yankee Girl editor over the dates of those Beatles songs.  Readers care.  I had an adult write me that if the mother in Yankee Girl used a steam iron, then she didn't also need to sprinkle her clothes before ironing. I was a little miffed that someone could read a 225 page book and this is what she chose to write me. It never occurred to me look up that sprinkling/steam iron detail.  That's the way my mom always ironed. (I still probably need to look that up.)

    I once read a Big Time Award Winning Book that took place in a state where I had lived and knew very well.  This author had placed four major cities within an hours drive of each other. In reality, they were in different corners of the state and hours away from each other.  Whatever affection I had for the book died right then. Good grief, anybody could look at an atlas (this was pre-Internet) and see where those cities were.  I later read an interview by the author and discovered that she had never visited that state (or apparently done any research) but she "knew" somebody who "used" to live there. That was one of those moments when you want to scream and throw the book across the room.

   That was the moment when I decided that for me, getting the details "right." Facts are front and center of a non-fiction, but they are no less important in fiction.

     Now about that steam iron....

  Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Hitting the Target Without Really Trying

     The question I am most asked by parents is "What is the reading level of your books?"

     I am currently teaching an adult class on writing for children.  The first question I am usually asked by those students is "How do you write at an appropriate reading difficulty for an age group?"

    Those questions are not as easy to answer as you might think.

     Carmela's Friday post stated that in reaching "reluctant readers" a writer should simply write whatever they are passionate about and the readers will follow.  I have most certainly found this to be true.

     When I first began writing, "targeting" a group, or writing with a specific grade level vocabulary never crossed my mind.  Thanks to years and years of working in children's library service, I have read thousands and thousands of children's books for all ages.  When I write, my brain goes into "child mode."  That's just the way I write, period.  My normal style involves short sentences and short paragraphs using simple words.

     I was not aware of my writing style, until my then elementary school-aged daughter introduced me to "Accelerated Reader."  This was the program her school used for "pleasure" reading. (I am not sure how pleasurable it was since it was required.)  Only books on the Accelerated Reader program were counted for the reading grade.  Books had point values, based on complexity of language and interest level.

    I was thrilled to learn that all my books were on the Accelerated Reader list, which increased the likelihood of their purchase by a school library. However, I was puzzled to learn that my middle grade books, Yankee Girl and Jimmy's Stars, were not being read by the fourth and fifth graders, my intended audience.

     The mystery was solved when one of my daughter's friends told me how much she liked Jimmy's Stars "even though it doesn't have many points."  A trip to the school library informed me that both of the books had a point value of 3.  For comparison, anything written by J.K. Rowling had a point value of upwards of 7.  That particular year, my daughter was supposed to read 7 points worth every six weeks.  How could I compete with Harry Potter?

     A little digging into the mysteries of Accelerated Reader yielded the information that while my middle grade books had a third grade reading level, their content was appropriate for upper fifth grade and sixth grade students.  Considering that the subjects of those books were Civil Rights Era Mississippi and the ravages of World War II, I thought that was a fair evaluation.

     Then parents began to ask me that troublesome reading level question.  This was often prefaced with something like, "My daughter is in second grade but she reads on a fourth grade level. She should be able to read your books, right?"

     I found myself in the strange position of talking down my own books. While the child in question would be able to read and recognize the words I had written, would they be able to understand the events in the book?  It had never occurred to me that a seven-year-old might read those books.  Tough things happen in them:  racial prejudice, death, violence.  Although I didn't "target" my writing, I didn't think anyone under ten would be reading them.  I started hedging my answers by telling parents they could buy the book but perhaps they should put it away until their child was older.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.  No matter what I said, some parents completely missed the fact that some "low reading level" material might contain concepts too mature or sophisticated for a first grader who was "a really good reader."

     What did I learn from this experience?  Did this cause me to become a cautious, self-censoring writer?  Do I now write in a more complex style?

     No.

     I write what I am passionate about.  I write for my inner eleven-year-old.  It's the best that I can do.  It's all any of us can do.

     Don't forget to enter our latest book giveaway for a chance to win a copy of the 2015 Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market.  See Carmela's post for details.

     The giveaway ends Oct 31.

     Best of luck,  Mary Ann

I Wonder What Happened to Todd: A Bullies Tale

     October is Anti-Bullying Month, a campaign I did not know existed until I was asked to blog about it.  These days bullying has so many more outlets (thinking here of the many, many ways to cyberbully) that it appears to have reached epidemic proportions.

     When I was growing up, each school year brought a new teacher and a new set of classroom scourges, the Bully Boy and his female counterpart, Mean Girl. Although they were equal opportunity bad guys, picking on whoever struck their fancy, their favorite target was always the Class Goat (usually male.)  As a ten-year-old I wondered how those things were decided. Was there a committee who decided who was going to be the bully and who the bullied?

     If you have read my book Yankee Girl, you know my history of being the Class Goat, although at the time I didn't think of myself that way. As an adult I can see that Mean Girls are bullies the same as the boy in my second grade class who had a nasty habit of throwing bricks at recess. However, I wasn't the only Class Goat in fifth and sixth grades.  There was Todd (not his real name).

    On the days when people weren't putting chewed gum on my bus seat, calling me names (none of which can I mention here) or "accidentally" dropping their lunch trays on me, there was Todd to abuse.  What happened to me was subtle enough to be done in front of a teacher and passed off as an "oopsy" if caught. Todd was just plain tortured.  We waited for the teacher to leave the room to work over Todd.

   I say "we" because while I didn't actively participate, I did nothing to stop it either. Part of me knew that standing up for Todd wouldn't do any good.  If anyone had less status than Todd, it was me. The other part of me was secretly releived that I had the day off as The Goat.

    Even though Todd lived in my neighborhood, I never saw him outside. He was too terrified to show himself except for his morning sprint to the bus stop, where the name calling and book throwing began the minute he got on.  At the time there was a weird little pull toy that was advertised incessantly on TV, called Odd Ogg. The jungle went "Odd Ogg, Odd Ogg, half turtle and half frog." It wasn't too hard to turn that into "Odd Todd, Odd Todd, Half turtle and half frog."

   Todd was one of the smaller boys in the class.  When the teacher stepped out of the room for a "minute," leaving one of us in charge, (big mistake) that was the signal for our favorite game, "Hide the Todd." Our classrooms had an abundance of cabinets and closets and cubbyholes, just the right size to stash an undersized ten year old. Todd was curled, crumpled and crushed into the supply closet, the teacher's coat closet or under the sink in the back of the room.  In a classroom of forty students, Todd was rarely missed when the teacher came back. On the rare occasions that she noticed that his desk (last one, last row) was empty, she would call "Todd, stop wasting our time with your silly hiding games."  Sometimes Todd didn't reappear until it was time for him to get on the bus ...for more abuse.

     Some time during the summer between sixth and seventh grades, Todd disappeared. I never discovered what happened to him. I don't remember a "For Sale" sign in his yard. Maybe he changed to private school. Maybe he just stopped going to s tool. (Mississippi did not have a mandatory school attendance law at the time, so legally, no one could make you go to school.) I am sorry to say that no one missed Todd or wondered where he went, except for me. I wasn't a junior high humanitarian. My concern was real, but selfish.  With Todd gone, I was the new Fulltime Class Goat for seventh and eighth grades.  All I can say about that was I was too big to shove in a locker and junior high storage space was all under lock-and-key. Still, junior high bullies, particularly Mean Girls, are quite skilled at psychological warfare.

    I got rid of most of my Mean Girl demons by writing Yankee Girl. However, enough fear remained that I did not go ito any of my class reunions until this past year, for fear of running into the real life counterpart of my fictional character, Saranne.  She had continued to make me her favorite target until the day we graduated from high school.  I was relieved when I didn't see her at the reunion.  I later found out that she did come, pulled a few of her old Mean Girl tricks and within an hour learned that the MG act doesn't fly when you are old enough to be a grandmother.  I think I really am, at long last, rid of her ghost.

     I wonder if Todd ever rid himself of us?

   And now for the details of our current book giveaway to win Alexis O'Neill's new book, The Kite That Bridged Two Nations, check April's Friday post for details on entering through Rafflecopter.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

Real Life Fiction

     I am a thoroughly unimaginative writer. I had this pointed out to me by a second grader (!!), during the Q & A part of a school visit.

     "Where do you get your ideas?" is always a favorite question.  This particular day I was explaining the origins of My Best Friend and First Grade Stinks (my daughter, Lily), Yankee Girl (my own childhood) and Jimmy's Stars, (my mother's family).  When I finished another little hand waved from the back of the pack,

    "So you just write about your own family?" said the student.

     I had to take a beat before I answered "yes."

     It had never occurred to me before,  All of my stories up to that point did have their origins in family stories.  I come from a family of storytellers, and I grew up always looking for stories of my own to add to the family collection.

     Since then, I have broadened my scope a little.  A Tree for Emmy is based on Lily's best and oldest friend. The Roller Coaster Kid came from the father of my next-door-neighbor.  I am currently working on a short story based on two of Lily's friends,  But try as I may, my stories always seem to begin with a character or situation that I have encountered in my own life.

However, starting off with something that happened in "real life" does not mean that I am merely narrating an actual occurrence.  Life is not so tidy as fiction. Life does not have opening scenes, exposition, a climax and a denouement.  Sometimes life does have those elements, but it also has a lot of extraneous stuff as well.  Fiction has filters.  Fiction has to be shaped.

    Yankee Girl is the book that hews closest to the events of my life.  The first draft was around 400 pages.  I included every detail and incident that happened when I moved to Mississippi as a fifth grader.  While I wrestled to get this sprawling mess into something that resembled a story, I learned a cardinal rule of fiction writing:  Just because something happened, doesn't mean it is important to the story.  For example, your Irish setter may have been in the room when you had a monumental fight with your best friend.  You may have been wearing a pink sweatshirt and matching high tops.  Unless your dog plays an active part in the scene (she jumps on your friend to break up the fight) or what you wear is essential to the character,  these are details that can be cut. They clutter your story.

     Or, as one of my mentors at Vermont College told me over and over, "Because it 'really happened that way' is not a good enough reason to include it in your story."

     She usually followed this admonition with "How does (this detail, character, plot point) move the story along?"  The answer was usually "It doesn't."  And another page of perfectly good but pointless prose would disappear into the "Delete and Save" file.

   I have yet to write a story beginning with a character totally imaginary. I have edged a bit away from the side of the pool, venturing deeper into the wholly fictional end of writing. My current work-in-progress is based on an event that happened to someone my daughter knows.  She doesn't know him well, or any of the details of what "really" happened.  It doesn't matter.  My mind is creating characters, envisioning scenes and hearing conversations. All of this from the offhand remark "Mom, there's this guy at school who..."

    To celebrate the arrival of Esther's new book, TXTNG MAMA TXTNG BABY, in the warehouse, we are extending our giveaway of the book through August 20, 2013. Click here for details.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

I'm Not Charles Dickens; Writing the Autobiographical Novel

     "Everybody's first novel is autobiographical." I don't know who said this, or how true this. However, I am guilty as charged.  My first published book, Yankee Girl, is at least semi-autobiograpical. By semi-autobiographical, I mean I changed the names, physical characeristics, and several of the characters are composites of real people. 98% of the incidents in the book really happened, if not to me, then to members of my family, or someone I know personally. The most important part of the story, the inner struggles and fears of Alice Ann Moxley are 100% me.

    Why do writers start off writing about their own lives?  What could be easier than writing about yourself and the people you know?  Right? Wrong!

    Yankee Girl took me five years. It was my life.  What took so long?  I have kept a diary since third grade, so I had my fifth and sixth grade journals to jog my memory. True, I did have to do a years worth of research on things that weren't in my journal (the chronology of the Civil Rights movement, hairdos, television schedules....but I'll save that for a future post.)

    I do a lot of critiquing, and I can always sniff out an autobiographical first novel. New writers think that you start at what they believe to be the beginning (sometimes all the way back to the beginning, as in David Copperfield's first chapter "I Am Born.") In fact, most autobiographical novels seem to take Mr. Dickens as their literary role model.

    Mistake.

   Before you start snorting, "Just who does Mary Ann Rodman think she is, trashing Dickens?" I will tell you I like Dickens.  Nobody can create a character like Dickens. However, there was a reason that most of us read "edited" versions of David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities in middle school. Our books were perhaps 250 pages.  The uncut versions are around 900 pages! Before I went to college I decided that "a real writer" would have read the original versions.

     So I ploughed into them. Here is where I became frustrated with Dickens' style. He could spend a whole chapter describing a character who never appears again.

     And description? I love writing description, but again, the man could write for pages about a room that really had nothing to do with the central story. OK, I realize that Dickens wrote many of his books
as newspaper serials, and that he was paid by the word. But that was then. This is now.

     My point?  Real life and fiction are two different things. Fiction is life edited. I learned this the hard way.  The first draft of Yankee Girl and included everything, even the color of my bathroom tile  (mint green, if you want to know). And it was 300 pages! Somewhere in those 300 pages was the original story of following your conscience vs the crowd...but it was buried under characters who appeared once and disappeared, a fight my mother had with the Welcome Wagon Lady who told us to move back to Chicago (it was funny, but really added nothing to the story), and endless details that were accurate to the time...but detrimental to the story.

    I was writing Yankee Girl in the Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children program. My second semester, my obese novel landed on the desk of my semester's mentor, Marion Dane Bauer. I wasn't around when she first saw it, but I can imagine her reaction. Marion is of the Spartan school of writing.
Her books do not contain one unnecessary word, character or scene. Her Newbery Honor winner, On My Honor and Yankee Girl are both middle grader novels. The first draft of YG was something close to 80,000 words. On My Honor is 16,000.

   I have lost track of how many times per critique Marion would use the phrase How does this move the story along? She used it in reference to characters, scenes, and descriptions that I thought were just too cool to leave out. Because it really happened this way I would write back. That's not a good enough reason Marion answered.  If it doesn't move the story forward, take it out.


     Being a slow learner, who likes to wander up literary cul-de-sacs just because I love the way the words sound, it took me most of the semester to discern what did or did not "move the story along." The "move along" critiques continued to the end of our time together, although they grew became less frequent, I went into the next semester with a 50,000 word draft. (The published version of Yankee Girl is around 44,000 words.)

     Meandering around with words doesn't just happen with autobiographical novels. However, in an autobiographical story, you have a tendency to not want to leave out a single detail, relevant or not.

    Thank you, Marion Dane Bauer, who has influenced me more than she will ever know, even though our styles are absolute opposites.  And for the rest of you who haven't had the good luck to spend six
months working with this wonderful writer, repeat after me How does this move my story along?


Posted by Mary Ann Rodman
  

  

Two Villages, One Book---One Happy Author

     The last time I posted I was on my way to Chicago for the One Book Two Villages Program (hence known as OBTV), hosted annually by the Winnetka-Northfield Public Library System. Each year, two thematically related books...one for children, one for adults...are selected for citywide reading in Winnetka and Northfield. This year, my middle grade historical fiction Yankee Girl was chosen as the children's book.

     I was thrilled to have my "first born" book so honored, and doubly so when I learned that the adult selection was Kathryn Stockett's The Help (the first time I have been associated in any way with a New York Times bestseller!)  Not only do both of our books take place in Civil Rights-Era Jackson, Mississippi, but both of us claim Jackson as our hometown. (Kathryn was really born there; I just sort of adopted it.)

       If knowing that your adult counterpart is a bestseller was not intimidating enough, I really felt out-of-my-league when I learned that my predecessors in the program include Laurie Halse Anderson, Pam Munoz Ryan and Deborah Ellis!
Luckily, I didn't come upon that information until after the first day of the program.  By that time I already knew that the readers and librarians of Winnetka-Northfield Public are the best.  I have never had more fun on a multo-day school/library presentation.  Because this program has existed for seven years, the whole three days were smooth, glitch-less and stress free for me.

     I visited two schools, Skokie and Sunset Ridge Schools, where I talked about the Civl Rights Movement, and the background of Yankee Girl. Snaps all around to the teachers and librarians at those two schools who made sure their students read YG before my visit. One of the schools even conducted book discussion groups for YG before I arrived. As a result of the pre-planning, the students were ready to ask me insightful and cogent questions.  When you have been doing school visits as long as I have for YG,
after awhile you know you have been asked every conceivable question. . . twice!  These students questions I had never considered, and found themes and nuances I was unaware of. . .and I wrote the book!

     Many of these students were also present for a Mother-Daughter Book Dicussion and Young Writer's Workshop that took place at the Winnetka Library after school.  By the end of day two, I could remember the names of a dozen kids, because they had attended both programs and at been present for one of the school visits.

     At these library programs, I discovered that not only were these students critical thinkers, they are also fine writers. I suspect this is because they are also fine readers. As part of the writing workshop, we did a freewrite exercise in which the word prompt was "bedtime."  In only five minutes, and without consulting with anyone (or their neighbor's freewrite!), everyone of those dozen or so young writers had a sequence that involved being told to "turn out the lights and stop reading", followed by continuing to read by some "alternative" form lighting . . .flashlight, night light, hallway light, sneaking into a bathroom. Yes, these kids are my kind of kids! (For the record, I was a hallway light reader....hanging as far out of bed as I could to catch the light, but not so far that I couldn't haul myself up at the sound of footsteps.)

     If all this activity were not enough, there was a booksigning and talk at The Book Stall in Winnetka. Not only did I see the same students from the other programs, but for me, there was a special surprise.  The brother of one of my father's FBI partners showed up!  I had never met this man before, but his resemblance to his brother (who I knew very well) was so amazing, I knew exactly who he was before he introduced himself.

     The last event on my agenda was a luncheon with the Winnetka Alliance for Early Childhood. This time I gave my "adults only" version of the actual events behind YG.  I had a great time; I hope my audience did as well.

      The week was topped off with visits with Chicago writer buddies, including TA's Marti (aka Carmela) and Esther, as well as with last week's author interviewee, April Pulley Sayre.  I arrived back in Atlanta Saturday afternoon, experiencing the same sort of let down you have after a wonderful vacation. Especially since the Atlanta Airport. baggage retrieval and commuter rail were all hour behind schedule. (But then, when aren't they?)

     I would like to thank every single person who made my time in Illinois so special. . .but I don't know all of their names. A big shout out to those school librarians and teachers for spending considerable time discussing YG in advance. A thank you to the folks at the Book Stall, and the Winnetka Alliance for Early Childhood. Roses all around to everybody at the Winnetka Library (especially Director David Seleb) who became my new BFF's overnight. Most of all, I want to send a truckload of (cyber) roses to the Wonderful Wizard of Winnetka, Head of Youth Services, Bronwyn Parhad who made all of this come to pass. That's Bronwyn with the OBTV display in the library's children's department. Hooray for Bronwyn and Winnetka-Public Library for giving me the best gift a children's writer can receive . . . the opportunity to connect with young readers.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

P.S. Alas, my camera was out-of-commission, so I don't have any of my own pictures to share, but it you go to Winnetka-Northfield's Facebook page 

 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=168830&id=8630759092
you can see how much fun we had.

     Browym and her PR team also produced this terrific YouTube trailer for the Yankee Girl part of the TVOB. Just enter my name in a video search, and it will come up.

Writing from Life Without Boring Yourself by Mary Ann Rodman

I read somewhere that all first novels are “semi-autobiographical” and are always dedicated to the author’s parents. Guilty. However, what I learned in writing Yankee Girl is that “semi-autobiographical” is not the same thing as a memoir with all the names changed to “protect the innocent.”

When I critique a manuscript, the author is always amazed when I say, “This is something that happened to you,” or “This is a family story, isn’t it?” I’m not Karnack the Great. There are certain hallmarks of writing ripped from your family album/high school diary. Here they are:

1. Stories that meander. Life doesn’t fall into neat little story arcs with climaxes and denouements and resolutions. Between the exciting and interesting parts that inspired you to write the story, are the dull parts . . . flunked tests, bad hair days, barfy school lunches. In the first draft of Yankee Girl, I included them all. Then I wondered why a book about a pretty intense time and place (Mississippi, 1964) was so boring. Which brings me to a cardinal rule of writing; if it doesn’t move the story along, cut it. Unless that bad hair day turns out to be a key plot point, or you need it for a specific reason, CUT IT!


2. “Because it really happened that way” is not that reason. A truckload of specific details can bury your story. Anyone who reads my novels knows my fondness for using period detail . . . AquaNet hairspray, Beechnut’s Fruit Stripe Gum (“five different flavors!”), popular music titles. But a little bit of this goes a long way. When you describe every article of clothing a character is wearing, I expect that character to turn out to be a major player, and those clothes to tell me something about the person. If not . . . well, you know what to do! When I point this out to the author, nine times out of ten, I get the argument “But it really happened that way.” Rule three . . .


3. . . . unless it makes sense within the context of the story, nobody cares if it “really happened that way.” This is fiction. Fiction is shaped reality. I didn’t “invent” any of the events of Yankee Girl. I did fiddle with time lines, smooshing events that happened over perhaps five years into one school year. Some of the things that happen to Valerie actually happened to me. Some of the things that happened to Alice Ann happened to my parents or their friends or people I knew in high school. I combined several people to make one character. This is why it’s semi-autobiographical and not biographical.


4. The “real life” part of your story is only the seed. Yes, you might start off writing about something that happened to you in the eighth grade, with yourself as the main character, but the story eventually has to find a life and meaning of its own.


5. Writing a main character who is essentially you is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It sounds easy, but like playing “yourself” on stage, it isn’t. With Yankee Girl, I grew bored writing about myself as Alice Ann. I never realized how utterly dull I was. Why would anyone want to spend 200 plus pages with this character? That is when you try to put as much distance between you and your fictional self as you can, while remaining emotionally true to the story. At eleven, I had no self-esteem and was afraid of everything (not without reason, if you’ve read the book). I made Alice Ann everything I wished I had been . . . mouthier, braver, smarter.
   

I went through the same process again with Jimmy's Stars, which was based on my mother’s family during World War II. Ellie, the main character, began life as my favorite aunt. By the time I turned the manuscript in, Ellie was part Aunt Agnes, part my own mother, and part a girl I knew in second grade. When my aunt’s daughter read the book, she asked “Um . . . was that supposed to be my mom?” The answer? No. My aunt was the sand in the oyster who attracted all sorts of other influences. In the end, Ellie McKelvey was not my aunt or my mother or Barbara from second grade. Ellie was a full-blown fictional character, living in a real time and place, living events that had their genesis in family lore, but that turned out much, much differently in the book.

This week’s reading list is on the meager side. By the time you read this, I will be recovering from retinal re-attachment surgery. So here it is (such as it is):
Picture book: FARMER DALE’S RED PICKUP TRUCK by Lisa Wheeler (2004, School Library Journal)
Middle grade: ANYTHING BUT TYPICAL* by Nora Raleigh Baskin (2009, Kirkus Reviews) TROPICAL SECRETS* by Margaret Engle (2009, Kirkus Reviews)
YA: WHAT WORLD IS LEFT by Monique Polak (2008, YALSA list), HOPPER GRASS by Chris Carlton Brown (2009, Kirkus Reviews)
(* indicates that I couldn't decide if this was upper middle grade or lower YA.)

Writing Workout: Fictionalizing Real Life

Write about an event or an anecdote from your life in which you are a central character.

Now write the same anecdote in which the central character (you) is the exact OPPOSITE of the real you. If you are shy, make the character aggressive. Instead of kindly, make yourself a bully or a “mean girl.” See what happens to your anecdote.

Did the story take a different direction?
Was it harder or easier to write about that central “you” character?
Are you surprised by the results?