CELEBRATING!

Howdy, Campers ~ and Happy Poetry Friday! (Link to PF is at the end)

Look what I found in the depths of my closet:

No TeachingAuthor we've asked remembers who created these t-shirts nor for what occasion...which makes me laugh.                                                                                            

This is our final post celebrating our 15th (FIFTHEENTH!) blogiversary. 

Bobbi wrote a post titled What Comes Next?, Zeena posted Congratulations on 15 years!!! Here's to 15 more!!! Mary Ann posted 15 Years? No!!!  Esther posted  Happy15th Book and Gift Card Giveaway!  and Carmela, our Mother Board Blogger, posted 15th TA Blogiversary and Book and Gift Card Giveaway!

Let me be upfront with you. In my very first post, I wrote, "I learned that in teaching, as in poetry, less is more."   So here's the truth: this post is too long and I'm tired because I'm a puppy mom. I'm sure one day I'll get more sleep, but for now, I'm going to honor my tiredness and turn off my laptop without spending hours making it perfect. 

Because we all know there is no such thing as perfect. 

Over the years...

By the time I wrote my first TeachingAuthors post on May 8, 2009, I'd taught workshops in schools across the globe. But--whoa!--now the head of the UCLA Extension Writers' Program was on the phone, asking me to teach...TALL people?

In that first post, I blogged about how scared I was to teach adults:

"I practiced...by teaching teens at my home. The most important thing I learned from that was not to throw every single solitary thing I’d ever learned at them (those poor overwhelmed kids!)."

Over the years, as a teacher, I have learned to say less (except today on this post...forgive me). 

I've also learned to be more authentic. More human. More me. 

Here's an example:

This morning, my critique group of incredible, smart writers met. We meet every other Thursday at a deli in mid-town Los Angeles. We order breakfast, talk about our joys, our struggles, our kids and/or animals...and when we've finished eating, we get down to business. 

I was feeling weird and less-then last night because I had nothing for them to critique. 

It's dang hard to be honest, but today, when it was my turn, I told them that I was not nearly as brave as they are (believe me: they are seriously brave). When my manuscripts are rejected, or an agent asks for a revision, it takes me forever to send my revised story back. I'm timid when it comes to submitting and submitting and submitting. I'm sure my stories will never be good enough. 

How did it feel to be that honest with them? Good. 

Great, actually. I got support, practical advice and lots of love.

I did bring three picture books published in 2024--I love sharing them and hearing my group's reaction to the work of other authors and illustrators. That was really, really fun. We were all in it together, asking questions like, Did anyone edit this book? and Is this poetry or simply lyrical writing? and OMG I love this book!

I left feeling uplifted.

I've learned (am still learning) to trust that "still, small voice within."

Here's what I tell myself...and my students:

>There is no "right way" to write a book, train a dog or live your life.

>Ya gotta be honest. Telling the truth is hard. It's also what reaches a reader. 

> Listen to that still, small voice within. (Mary Ann's still, small voice has told her to write the book she must write before she dies. Not mine. Mine says to write the book that plops on my head unexpectedly and drips all over my t-shirt.)

>It's up to you to figure out what your fingerprint is... 

...whose advice to take, when to leave a critique group, a conference, an agent (and when to let that manuscript rest for awhile.) 

What's your fingerprint?

Here are three poems 

I've written over the years for our blogiversarys:

TeachingAuthors.com turns 2!

OUR  BLOGIVERSARY! 
by April Halprin Wayland

We six who ride our blog horse here

are rather like that Paul Revere

“One if by land, two if by sea,”
was revolution’s poetry

We TeachingAuthors gallop, too,

to share our lantern light with you

we aim to help, support and cheer

so you can write with joy, not fear

in this New Land: Kidlitosphere

(c) 2011 April Halprin Wayland, all rights reserved

TeachingAuthors.com turns 4!

       A Blooming Blogiversary

     Sheaves of paper, leaves of prose
     Typing wobbly rocky rows

     Planting tender inkling seeds
     Sowing words on glowing screens

     Underground the spark is struck
     Growing with some care and luck

     First a shoot, then a sprout
     Weeding all the adverbs out

     Seedlings reaching toward the sun
     Readers, writers we are one

     Blooming in the blogisphere
     Post by post, year by year
poem © 2013 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

TeachingAuthors.com turns 1!

BLOG-I-VERSE-A-TREE
by April Halprin Wayland 

How does it feel to cross over this creek,
to fly from tree to tree to you?
To find, in the midst of the jungle a few
readers discerning, kind and true?

How does it feel, week after week,
to water a seed, now one year old?
To watch its young, green leaves unfold
as it gives me back a thousand fold?

I feel I’m Bird, just opening her beak,
at the top of a tree, on the first day of Spring,
easily found on Google or Bing,
joining five friends to Tweet, to sing!

© 2010 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

Here's how I ended my first blog post...it's even truer--today:

So, it's been a process. I've become a TEACHING AUTHOR through the students I've worked with from kindergarten to AARP, through my colleagues, through my own teachers.

I’ve taught in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program for 10 years now [Update: this year marks my 25th year of teaching in UCLA's Writers' Program] and this year: 

I. Finally. Understand:

Teaching is generosity.

I feel incredibly lucky to be part of TEACHING AUTHORS, and look forward to more of this great adventure of camaraderie and discovery and learning from you.

(photo by my husband, who is proud that he's
hard to find on the internet)

Thank you, Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge  for hosting PF!

written with love by April Halprin Wayland 

with help from the film stars of my instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/aprilwayland/?hl=en):

7-month-old Sadie 

and 5-year-old Kitty

MESSY,PERPLEXING POETRY--ONE GAL'S JOURNEY

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Howdy, Campers ~ and Happy Poetry Friday! (PF link at the end)

The topic of this round is MESSY MIDDLES,  talking about what happens if the middle of a novel is sagging or the middle of another project just isn't working, etc. 

I can't offer much advice or examples of this except to say that I'm always in the middle of quiet terror. Can anyone relate?

So...let's talk about the messiness of writing a poem.

Here's how this poem evolved...in four steps (I've left out many of the middle attempts):

1. Looking for an idea. 

I started with a first line: I am musing about music.

(UNTITLED)

by April Halprin Wayland

I am musing about music.

I am lost.

I cannot find my feet.

They are sinking in sand.

There is no topic.

There is not bottompic.

There is just sinking

no thinking

no help

no hope

no nothing

until a little bird.

Just a word.

Just a chirpy word.

One chirpy word.

I look up

from this hole

from sand in my hair

sand on my cheeks

sand on my hands

sand from the beach

sand into next week

at a sandpiper

at her slender needle beak

I wait for her to speak.

another chirpy word

which I find thrilling

I'm twirling in this hole

a sort of reverse drilling

I'm spinning out this hole

scattering the sand

spraying it

playing it

abyss

this poem sucks

================

2. Research. 

I looked up the word music:

From Greek mousikē, any art presided over by the Muses

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_origin_of_the_word_'music'#ixzz1G3YuxcOS

The word music comes from the Greek mousikê (tekhnê) by way of the Latin musica. It is ultimately derived from mousa, the Greek word for muse. In ancient Greece, the word mousike was used to mean any of the arts or sciences governed by the Muses. Later, in Rome, ars musica embraced poetry as well as instrument-oriented music. Read more:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_music

...and wrote this:

This is a mushroom

This is my brain.

This fat white bumpershoot

Amusing

music.

I am the piano

I am the violin

I am a stupid poem

==============

3. What's at the heart of this idea? 

drawing by April Halprin Wayland

I broke away from everything above and thought about what I was feeling inside:

(UNTITLED)
by April Halprin Wayland 

Today I know

how that boy at the back desk feels

when his teacher tells him to write a poem.

He blinks blankly.

He isn't writing while all around him pencils fly.

He scratches his left eye

A storm cloud brews about his head.

His brows grow knotty.

When all around him ideas sprout

this boy at the back

is locked out.

==============

I rewrote it and sent it off to my friend Bruce, who has been sailing around the world with his wife for over 13 years. Regular readers know that he and I send each other a poem a day. We've been doing it since April 2010.

=================

4. Let let it cook. 

That was in March 2011. Today I searched my poems tagged WRITERS' BLOCK, found this poem (which has been cooking for quite awhile), and took another stab at it:

THE BOY IN THE BACK
by April Halprin Wayland

While all around him ideas begin,

he picks the scab on his freckled chin.

While all around him pencils fly,

his brows grow knotty, mystified.

While all around him windows open,

He closes his eyes hoping, hoping.

Ideas take root and poems sprout,

but the boy in the back?

That boy's locked out.

===============

Rewrites count as a day's poem in our rule book, so I'm sending this one off.

..............................................................................

Thanks to Tabatha for hosting this week's Poetry Friday at The Opposite of Indifference!

posted by April Halprin Wayland with lots of love and the help of (in order of appearance) Gin, Eli, and Penny...who are sacked out after helping to edit this:

WHEN THEY SAY I HAVE A STORY IDEA FOR YOU

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Howdy, Campers ~ and Happy Poetry Friday! (original poem and PF link below).

2019's first topic rumbling around our TeachingAuthors' treehouse, is How Do I Start a New Writing Project? Bobbi launched our new year asking What is your first line?; Mary Ann followed by blowing my socks off with her poetic description of beginning a new story.

You know the feeling when you read something and it's so good, there's nothing left to say on a topic? That's how I felt after reading these posts. I simply wanted to bow to my fellow TeachingAuthors and tackle some other topic...

Me, curtsying to Bobbi and Mary Ann

 I lied. It's Cissy Fitzgerald, curtsying. 

Photo by W.M. Morrison, 1895 

from the Library of Congress

...until I remembered my Hot Idea Files, which, like Mary Ann's journals, are filled with lines of dialogue, quotes that at some point stirred my insides, a misheard word, an item from my gratitude list, ideas that flew across the room and hit me like a rock, a remembered dream, a word or definition from Wordsmith.org's A.Word.A.Day ..like borborygmus (...look it up).

Here's a random jot (as Mary Ann calls them) from February, 2014:
Teaching feels as if I'm careening down on of those Olympic ski racing courses--you know, that 1½ mile downhill course where they hit speeds of 85+ mph? Yeah, that feeling. Like I'm going to hit a bump and skid off the course and die any minute. And then...the three hours of class are over and I had them. Cowabunga! GOLD MEDAL!

And here's one from June, 2017:
I think my sleep is deeper...I'm having lots of dreams. It feels as if I'm catching up on dreams that have been stacking up.

Speaking of stacking up...have you ever had someone say, "Heck, I can write a picture book on my coffee break!"?

When I hear that, I think about the process of choosing an idea for a poem, a picture book or a novel and decide that the person who just said this...
is an alien.

So—what do I do to start a new writing project? I open the door and listen to my stacks of ideas calling, "Pick me, pick me!"...choose one, and simply begin.

WHEN SOMEONE SAYS,“I HAVE A STORY IDEA FOR YOU!”

by April Halprin Wayland

I say, “How nice. 

Would you like to come inside?”
Then I walk her up the concrete steps of my brain,

open the door and move ten heavy boxes,

walk around letters stacked to the ceiling,

shove aside bulging brown bags with string.

We make our way to the back bedroom

past piles of Federal Express packages

where I stick a butterfly net

out the bedroom balcony doors

and catch a few more ideas

as they fly past.

In the kitchen, cases of canned ideas

line the worn wood floor,

unpacked sacks of fresh-picked ones

are piled on the counter.

We hold onto the paint-chipped banister

and walk down the wobbly stairs

to the cold, cement basement.

The sulfur smell surprises as I strike a match.

“Where is there room for your idea

between the wooden tennis rackets,

the rusty bird cage,

the folded music stands

and trunks of family stories?” I ask.

Crouching behind a trunk

is the one that creeps upstairs at night

to slink along the hall near my bedroom.

It's almost too heavy to pull to its feet.

This is the one I am working on now.

“Would you be kind enough to take your idea

to my storage locker downtown, near the pier?”

I say, handing her a small tin key.

“Perhaps you'll find room there.

Best to stand back as you roll up the aluminum door.”

drawing & poem (c)2019 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

What's in your Hot Idea File?  C'mon...tell us one thing. We are dying to know.

Thank you, Tara, for hosting Poetry Friday today!

posted with hope for this brand new year by April Halprin Wayland, Eli-the-dog, and Snot-the-aging-cat.

7 Ideas From My Messy Desk

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Howdy, Campers~ Happy Poetry Friday! My poem and the link to PF are below.

We at TeachingAuthors are easing our way back into blogging after a lovely summer s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Ahhhhh.

Our round-robin topic is The View From Our Desks.
Bobbi started us out from her new home, which she and her cat, Comma, are just moving into. She posted a poem aptly titled, The View From the Window by R.S. Thomas; Carmela's view is itinerant, beginning with her Creativity Camp, followed up with conference presentations (Carmela deserves a vacation!); Esther gave us stunning out-the-window views from her Chicago office; JoAnn is spending the summer writing poetry in her outside office, and Carla shares the long view: both the view from her office window...and also what she's thinking as she edits her upcoming book.

I've titled this post, "7 Ideas From My Messy Desk" because I've read that including numbers in a blog title attracts attention. (For you, dear readers, there really are seven ideas at the end.)

You and I know we can prove anything with sources from the internet, (which is why I use Snopes.com to check who actually said a quote, among other things)...and (surprise!) I've found a post which cites several studies indicating that a messy desk actually spurs creativity. Just the kind of study I love!

And...my desk is messy--or at least the side table is. I was going to clean up my office up for you...but why pretend?

I try to keep my desk itself clear, but on my side table you'll see:

• the aftermath of our annual block party (I want to print up new signs for next year before I put them away); 
• books I'm going through for my revised Writing Picture Books for Children class this fall; 
• two books my father loved by Tagore, which he discovered in India during WWII that I've been meaning to read for decades; 
• my handout, "Social Change Through Every Day Actions" from my presentation at the International Literacy Association's conference in Orlando two weeks ago; 
• a pile of 50-year-old letters from my father; 
• books and notes from my trips to New Zealand and Japan this spring;
• a bunch of nearly unreadable ideas jotted down in the middle of the night.

W

Not neat. But an office I would have died for when I was a teenager.
.

Here are two poems on today's topic:

MY DESK 1.
by April Halprin Wayland

If you come by
I'll clean it up

but if you don't

I won't.

MY DESK 2.
by April Halprin Wayland

My desk's a sorcerer's printing press,
a paper field
of don't-forgets.

Memos piled in mountain peaks.
Scrawled ideas
in ancient Greek.

Each brilliant message?
Lost in space.
Possibly a sign of grace. 

poems (c) April Halprin Wayland 2017. all rights reserved.

Do you ever write notes to yourself at night...brilliant ideas that are sure to rock the literary world...and when you wake up, they're either utterly incomprehensible, absurd or worse, ho-hum? Here's seven from the last few weeks:

1. Never say no to a rubber band; 
2. "I'm not shouting!" she shouts; 
3. a friend wrote to me: "so glad the conf was good and...that you had fun at the Penguin dinner. (which sounds like the start of a poem)"; 
4. per Nancy Bo Flood: Some languages have no tenses; so they can't talk about the past or future; 
5. Two kids: one named Smoke, one named Mirrors;
6. from A.Word.A.Day: "Natalie came home from school excited and worried, announcing, “Laura was hit by the school bus and had a conclusion!”;
7. Mr. Tongue Goes to the Unemployment Office (I have no idea what I was thinking, but I'm still laughing!)

I'd love to read ideas you've jotted down late at night!

Thank you, Donna, at Mainely Write for hosting Poetry Friday today!

 posted with the help of Monkey (can you find him in the picture of my office, above?) and Eli, who is pictured in his uncluttered corner office:

REVISION Without (too much) Blood

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Howdy, Campers!

Happy Poetry Friday!  My poem's below, as is the link to this week's PF host...and a link to a Poetry Camp for Grown-ups!

I'm the caboose on this TeachingAuthors train; this round we're discussing After the First Draft: Revision.Mary Ann starts us off with Congratulations! It's a First Draft!, JoAnn continues with Spring--and Revision--in the Air, Bobbi inspires (actually, each of these inspires...) with Facing The Words, Carmela continues with 3 Revision Tools for Seeing the Big Picture. 'Tis my turn.

*   *   *

I just wrapped another class, and it's like semi-sweet chocolate:

from Pixabay.com

...I'm eager to get back to my own projects, and I'm sorry to disconnect from these complicated, wonderful humans I've gotten to know over six tightly-packed weeks.

And like so many of you, I learn from every student.

One student in particular from this class, Mary Mahon (who gave me permission to use her name), has taught me how to take criticism. No matter what I threw at her in written critiques, no matter what the class said in group critiques, this woman took in everything without defensiveness, without slumping in her chair, without the shadow of a cloud crossing her face.

Each week.

Every story.

Last night, I took a new picture book in to my critique group.  This is usually my suck-in-my-breath time. My oh-I'm-just-fine time.

Cut! my group said. Cut the last part!  And, Why are these two characters even here? Kill them off! And, No--that's not where it should end...this is where it should end!

Last night, though, I did not shrink. I did not sag. I did not feel crushed or cornered or less-than.  I didn't feel like my critique group had their gloved hands inside my stomach and were re-arranging my guts.

Okay, the simile may be just a tad over-the-top...
my critique group is kinder than this.
from Pixabay.com

I felt like an adult. I heard my student saying brightly, "I learn from all your comments!"

...I learned from all their comments.

This is revelatory. This is spectacular. I am a walking miracle (no sutures!)

INSTANT GRATIFICATION
by April Halprin Wayland

I have been chiseling 

Each.Word.

In.Stone.

Year.

     By year

          By year.

But rewriting 

this story 

today...

I'm catching perfect waves,

racing my bike down hills,

riding shooting stars!
.

poem © 2016 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved
                    .
So, hopefully, reading about how my student changed me will help you. Some of us need to see and hear how others take in things differently. How they walk lightly.

Can you channel my student's voice as you work on that next draft? Maybe you'll hear content, not censure; new ideas, not attacks.

And me? I can't wait to kill off two of my characters.

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Now fly over to Check it Out, where MsMac is hosting Poetry Friday...

...then check out this one-day Poetry Camp for Grown-ups...
and 
DearEditor.com's 4th annual Revision Week,
in which Deborah Halverson asks five best-selling writers
to weigh-in on revision....
and
check out Laurie Purdie Salas' reflections on revision here

Posted by April Halprin Wayland...shown working on her second draft