Permission to Imagine

 I teach creative writing to kids. You'd think I am surrounded by junior Weltys and

Me, one happy camper!

Hemingways. I am, most of the time.

A couple of years ago, I got a call from a total stranger who heard I tutored. I do occasionally mentor high school students with Important Writing Projects--college essays, a fantasy novel they are self-publishing, a contest entry. A call from a dad about his 8th grade son was not a surprise.

His request was.

"Can you tutor my son in creativity?" he asked.

My hearing isn't what it used to be, especially over the phone. I asked him to repeat what he'd said. He did.

He wanted me to teach his son "to be creative."

I am not a phone person. I have a hard time making myself understood if I can't see who I'm talking to. The dad, son and I made an appointment "to discuss" at Starbucks.

When I first moved to my North Atlanta suburb 17 years ago, I joked that I was really living in Lake Wobegon--"Where all the children are above average." Every kid was either in the Talented-and-Gifted Program, or a prodigy in some other field. I had never seen such a cut-throat bunch of students and parents. I'm not talking high school juniors, aiming for Harvard Early Admission; these were fourth graders.

The Carriage House-Young Writers HQ

Now here I was at Starbucks with a dad insisting I "teach" his son creativity. Cautiously, I asked what he expected from "creativity lessons."

"He must be able to write an excellent college essay. His grammar and form are very good, but he has no ideas. Very dull. I don't understand. He is an A students, but no imagination." Dad spoke rapidly, thrumming his fingers on the table, obviously annoyed with my stupid questions. "He is going to be Ivy League."

I sipped my soy latte, trying to figure out a nice way to say it was a little early to obsess over Ivy League admission, and that you can't "teach" creativity.

I asked if his son liked to read. No, he did not. He was "too busy" to read. Busy with what?
Extracurricular science classes, violin lessons, learning a FOURTH language.

"He sounds busy all right," I agreed. "But what does he do in his free time? Does he like to read?"

I thought Dad was going to pound the table, so I grabbed my latte. "Free time? There is no free time. He must work at subjects that will get him into an Ivy League college."

The dad called to the boy who had been banished to a corner table.  He was the most arrogant 14-year-old I have ever met. He had always excelled at everything...until he hit the wall with his lack of creativity. I could tell he thought that since he wasn't creative, it must not be very important.When the son started interviewing me as to my credentials, that was it. I told Dad I didn't think his son and I would work well together. And got the heck out of Starbucks.

I chalked that up to one of those weird things that happen sometimes. I spent a few moments regretting that an intelligent boy had never had the chance to be creative, and therefore dismissed it as unimportant. Then I forgot about Dad-and-Son.

Until Young Writer's Camp the following summer. Since I have to get know my students in the first hour of a one week camp, I have question cards with the basics--name, age, last school attended. Then the not so usual--how many books have you read for fun in the last school year? What's your favorite book? My last question is"What is the most important thing I need to know about you?" I started asking this after I had a hearing impaired camper, and no one thought to tell me.

 I get goofy answers ("I love Minecraft. Can I just do that on my phone?) or heartbreaking ("My best friend died last month and I am really sad.").                                      

Sssh! Writers at work.

For the last three years, at least one student every session writes "I have no imagination"--or some variation of that.

That floored me. I subscribe to Pablo Picasso's philosophy. "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." I substitute "writer" for "artist" and "once he grows up" to "once he leaves middle school."  These kids are 10 and11.

Why on earth would any child that young think they had no imagination?

"How do you know this?" I ask, and get the same answer every time. "My teacher said so." Or, "My parents say so."

How depressing. A fourth grader who believed himself incapable of original thought

As I talked to these campers, a profile emerged. They were incredibly over scheduled, starting in toddlerhood. When I asked what they did for fun, they gave me a blank look. Free time? Fun? Something that did not involve winning and losing? This was a new concept for them.

Up a tree, imagining.

Enriching children's lives with extracurricular activities can be a good thing. My own Young Writer's Camp falls in that category...the difference being there are no awards or winners at camp. The reward is having fun and using your imagination to do and be whatever you want.

Imagining takes time. Time that appears "unproductive" to a task-oriented parent or teacher. Even adult writers have a hard time explaining to others (OK, spouses) that lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling with Beethoven's 9th blasting is "writing." Characters are living and dying in my head, to a Beethoven soundtrack. They have to live in my head awhile before they make it to the page.

As an only child, I spent a lot of time alone. An only child with chronic respiratory infections. I missed so many school days through fourth grade, that by today's attendance policies, I would still be in second grade. Home alone, I read, drew, wrote and imagined whole towns full of people, all of which resembled Mayberry. If you've ever read Harriet the Spy, it was a lot like her game of Town.

Any number of authors have had long spells of illness when they had to entertain themselves with books and their own minds. I am not recommending chronic illness as a way of nurturing creativity. What I am advocating is down time. Time to stare at ants on the side walk, gaze at the shapes of clouds, invent imaginary friends and pets. Time to slop around with paints without a teacher's direction, to put on music and make up your own dance without worrying about posture or precision. It's not about perfection; it's about the freedom to create. The freedom to fail without repercussions or shaming.

Take my own daughter (please! Rim shot!) She too is an only child who spent a lot of time alone.  Like me, she learned to entertain herself with crayons and paper. In school, her artwork did not win praise because she "did not produce representational images." In other words, she preferred colors and shapes to drawing a horse or a house. She just stared down her teacher and continued to draw her own way.

Her artistic epiphany came on a day when I was trying to finish book edits. Desperate for quiet, and an activity that didn't require my supervision, I gave her a bag of ancient disposable cameras. By the end of the week, she had used them all up. This was at my parent's house, and when we went home, I saw no reason to drag the cameras with us. I mean, she was five. I wasn't going to waste money developing pictures that were probably shots of her feet or the ceiling.

From one of the disposable cameras. Lily's grandmother.

Weeks later, a package arrived from my parents. Mom, ever-the-doting grandmother, had developed the pictures. And...hey, these pictures were good. They were carefully composed, centered, and focused. One roll was nothing but shots of my mother's antique collection, one vase, one statue, on piece of porcelain at a time, like an auction catalog. Another roll I had watched her shoot...walking around the yard, snapping pictures of the ground. Or so I thought. These were pictures of dead leaves and roots, with interesting shadows and shades of brown. Beautiful. There were closeups of household items--a doormat, an electric fan. How did a five-year-old, whose teachers had labeled as "lacking in artistic skill" learn to do that?

Lily's 1st award winner. 3rd grade

I still don't know.  She continued to photograph, first with my old school Nikon, (which she still prefers) and finally her own digital Canon. As a result of a bored five-year-old messing around with disposable cameras, was that at high school graduation, her portfolio was recognized as one of 10 "AP Photography Profiles of Merit" from across the country.

Is she the next Ansel Adams? No. She's an education major in college. But she has a love of photography, something that gives her the satisfaction of creating. She has a photographers eye. She had the time to explore the world through her lens. Even though at the same time she fell in love with figure skating (another creative outlet) she always had time for her camera, taking it with her to classes and competitions.

Do I expect any of my writing campers to become the next JK Rowling or John Grisham? That would be great, but I don't expect it. I expect them to explore their imaginations and have fun. I hope that some will continue to write. I know they do, because they return year after year for the advanced camps.

I've been a public school librarian and I know the strong and weak points of American education. The one thing the most curriculum lack is the one thing that cannot be tested or taught, but without which, all other subjects are just words on a page.

Imagination. We have scheduled imagination out of our kids' lives. This summer, as you scurry around, trying to keep your kids busy, schedule a little time to do nothing. Give them the chance, as my mom used to say, to use their heads for something besides a hat rack.

Have a great summer everyone. Now I need to go prepare for my returning advanced camp writers.  I can't wait!

In the Good Old Summertime

It's been interesting to read how summer affects the writing schedules of my co-bloggers. For Jeanne Marie, it's a time when she can write more consistently than usual. For Esther, it's time to catch up reading, with not so much writing. And for Mary Ann, it's a time to be inspired by her workshop students.

Like Mary Ann, I'm also inspired by the young writers in my summer camps. I teach two girls' writing camps at the Hinsdale Center for the Arts. (If you know any girls in the Chicago area who like to write, there's still time to enroll. See the right sidebar of this page on my website for details.) But since I also teach young writers via homeschool and private classes during the school year, I'm lucky enough to have that inspiration all year long. 

So, in summer, what I look forward to is the opportunity to vary my writing venue and routine. The warmer weather means I can take my laptop out on the patio to work. Or, if it's too hot, I can escape to the library or a coffee shop without having to bundle up in layers of clothes. Granted, we probably have enough good days in spring and fall to do the same, but for some reason, when summer arrives, I have a sudden longing to spend more time outdoors, or at least out of my office.

Wish MY backyard had as many flowers as this writer's!

I found it ironic, then, to be posting the following on my Facebook page a few weeks ago:

This would be a lovely day to work outside. Only trouble is, I'm writing a scene set in mid-December, 1736 in a drafty palazzo. Don't want to make it too hard for my imagination. :-) 

Instead of sitting outside, where I really wanted to be, I stayed at my computer desk clutching a glass of iced tea to help me feel cold. It worked too--I ended up with goosebumps, which was perfect. The things we do for our craft! (Maybe if I had a stronger imagination I could have written the scene while sitting in the warm sunshine.)
 
How about you? Do you ever change your writing environment to give your imagination a boost? I'd also like to know, does your writing routine change at all in summer? Please share your answers by posting a comment. And if you try the following Writing Workout, let me know how it works for you.

Don't forget--today's the last day to enter to win an autographed copy of David Harrison's terrific picture book Cowboys (Wordsong)! Read April's amazing interview with him for details.

Writing Workout

Varying Your Writing Venue

Do you tend to write in the same one or two places all the time? If so, try a change of venue and observe how it affects your writing. Some possibilities:

• at the beach
• in your backyard
• at a park
• at the zoo
• at an outdoor concert
• in a coffee shop
• in a restaurant
• at the library
• at a museum

If you've never thought much about how your surroundings affect your writing, check out this post, "Where's Your Writing Location" by Steven Savage.

And wherever you end up, Happy Writing!
Carmela

Summertime...and the Writing is Intense

    Although it's been in the 80's here for months (winter? spring? didn't happen here), summer officially began a couple of days ago. Right on Hotlanta schedule, the temperature went from 80 something to 90 something immediately.

     I begin my Young Writer's Workshops for the parks department today. No matter what week I begin (and I've been doing this for years), it will always be the hottest week of the summer at that point.  This is a good thing, for me at least.

    I turn into a slug in hot weather, and spending six hours a day with young, enthusiastic writers gets me up and inspired.  Inspiration is what I need in the summer, when my schedule is even crazier than usual.  Writing time is sandwiched between workshops and increased practice sessions and competitions for my daughter, the figure skater. Even though everything is air-conditioned, all that running around in hot, sticky, snail-paced Atlanta traffic sucks the energy out of you. Makes you cranky. Makes you want to go sit in the neighborhood pool with a margarita (if the neighborhood pool let you bring in alcohol, which it doesn't.)

  When I was a full-time teacher, my writing time was confined to the summer months. With a work day that started at 7am and frequently went on past midnight (including the sixty mile round trip commute) I just didn't have the time. I also hadn't learned that if inspired, you can write in ten and fifteen minute mini-blocks of time. Back then, I thought if you couldn't spend four or five solid hours at your desk (before the invention of laptops) then you just couldn't write at all.

    Writing has been my "day job" for fifteen years. (Holy cow, I hadn't done the math until just now!) I also haven't done a lot (OK, any) contemplation of how the change of season affects my writing. But since you asked...

    I am a night writer by nature. I usually fight this inclination because if I write before sleep, I go on writing in my dreams. Which is not particularly restful. I can make this up in summer catnapping.

    Extra daylight hours do not inspire me to stay parked in front of a laptop inside. They do inspire me to walk (even if it's just around the asphalt parking lot of the skating rink). Maybe pace would be a better word. Whatever you call it, mindless activity gets my mojo going. I can pace outside at home, but I live in a friendly neighborhood. Passing a dog-walking neighbor without at least saying "Hi" blows my stream of thought. I never have that problem in the rink parking lot.

   More than anything, however, my young authors (ages 10-14) bring out my best creative game. They help me as much (if not more) than I help them.  Each group is different and memorable. This year I have a new venue...a converted carriage house on the grounds of an antebellum mansion. Who knows what kind of writing energy we will find there?

   Now if you will excuse me, I need to load up the car with all the teaching necessities...books, white boards, markers, dictionaries, and a pencil sharpener (wherever I am giving the workshop, there never seems to be a pencil sharpener!) I am off to meet a new group of fresh, excited and eager-to-learn writers.

    I can't wait.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

P.S from Carmela: Don't forget to enter our current giveaway contest for a chance to win an autographed copy of David Harrison's picture book Cowboys (Wordsong). Read April's terrific interview with him for details.

Out and About..... with Illinois Young Authors

Lucky me!

I was one of thirteen guest Illinois children’s books authors, illustrators and storytellers invited to participate in the 36th Annual Illinois Young Authors Conference held May 15 at Illinois State University in Normal.
Co-sponsored each May by the Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois Language and Literacy Council and The Illinois Reading Council, the event celebrates and honors exceptional writing by students in grades K through 8. More than 500 students and their families traveled up and down and across Illinois to participate.

A pre-conference informal Friday night gathering at the Illinois State University Barnes & Noble Bookstore featured a panel discussion and book sale.

Saturday’s sessions are the true treasure.

Young writers from similar grade levels meet in small groups facilitated by parent and teacher volunteers. The students read aloud their manuscripts, share their writing process, then connect, writer-to-writer, with their assigned children’s book author.

Beth Vest of Lacon and Andrea Miracle of Edwardsville proved invaluable during my three sessions with third and fourth graders, overseeing my materials, clocking my talk and furiously copying the quickly-crafted original wording of each session’s group-written List Poem verse that appears, complete, at the end of this posting.

The day ended with an Awards Ceremony during which each participating Young Author received a certificate and autographed book from his or her session author.

Hats off (stove-pipe style) to Jan Dundon who once again so generously gave of her time to organize and oversee this singular annual Illinois event, and to her hard-working ILLC and IRC volunteers..

And hats off, too, to the talented Young Authors honored at this year's 36th Illinois Young Authors celebration! Another talented Illinois author, known especially for his oration, would be stroking his beard and popping his black vest buttons.

Out and About with My Illinois Young Authors

On a terrific May day in 2010
I worked (writer-to-writer) with
         forty-three
         talented
         Illinois Young Authors
                       from
                                    Chatham
                                    Chicago
                                    Durand and Elgin            
                                    Granite City
                                    Leland
                                    Morris
                                    Pekin
                                    Peoria
                                    Waukegan,
                                    and so it goes.
                       The Land of Lincoln grows some mighty fine writers!

My writers had written
                       Fiction,
                       such as Storybooks
                       (tales of friendship and adventure)
                       And Non-fiction too, such as
                       Skits and Poems
                       No one, it turns out, wrote a memoir.
                       But Gillian wrote about her brother in the service.
                       All agreed: each wrote something unique.

I had to ask,
since I’m a Young-at-Heart Author,
one who so wished she'd grown up in Illinois,
"What does each of you love MOST about writing?”

              Michael loved the drawing and the coloring.
              Ryan loved thinking about something, then simply just writing.
                      Amanda liked expressing herself.
                      Ethan liked imagining.
             Aziz liked sharing thoughts and Life experiences.
         
             “You can redo writing if you want to,” said Hunter.
             “I can write whatever I want to,” Jayce said
             Jack Timbo likes writing a lot of stuff on paper.
            
             Carson had the Very Last Word:
             “Writing," he declared, "is a Miracle!”

Amen.
(I could not have said it better.)

--Esther Hershenhorn