PROMPT: The Verb!

I sadly confess: concerning the featured theme of our current blogs, 

I am not, nor have I ever been, a Devotee of Writing Prompts.

Should a writer or student relish such an exercise, I consult my 

“Writing Prompts” file and gladly comply.

Should a teacher or presenter put forth such an exercise in a class 

or workshop I’m attending, I seldom respond.

I happily confess, however: I am hopelessly devoted to prompting 

writers and students - urging, assisting, encouraging, coaching 

them - to keep keepin’ on, no matter the project, whether stalled, 

stopped or even stuck.

When it comes to prompt, the verb, my FOR HESITANT WRITERS 

file runneth over.

It holds strategies, techniques, tricks of the trade, tips, exercises 

and recommended books, including the oh, so understanding and 

oh, so instructive book Unstuck (St. Martins Press, 2003).

Most Readers have already met Unstuck’s author - writer, poet and 

Writing Coach Jane Anne Staw, my longtime friend I still fondly 

call Janie.

In July of 2020 I shared in a Wednesday Writing Workout one of 

her illuminating blog posts based on her book Small: The Little 

We Need for Happiness (Shanti Arts, 2017).

Lucky us, because once again, my dear friend graciously granted 

me permission to reprint her published words. This time I’m 

sharing a helpful Try This exercise from Unstuck to prompt any of 

our stuck readers to return to the work at hand.

The book’s subtitle says it all: A Supportive and Practical Guide to 

Working Through Writer’s Block.

In fourteen chapters that help the writer learn his or her own story, 

from “The Right to Write” to “What’s at Stake,” Unstuck lives up to 

its subtitle. Chapters 3 (“Flushing Out Our Enemies”) and Chapter 

6  (“Showing Up for Yourself”) especially spoke to me.

I’m hoping the essence of Chapter Five, “Thinking Small,” speaks 

to you.

Jane Anne-dash-Janie begins the chapter by sharing her two-word 

mantra.

     “If I were to choose a mantra for my writing, it would be 

     Think small.  Each time I sit down to write, I begin by recalling 

     these two words. And whenever I feel myself slowing down too 

     much or veering off-track, I bring myself back by repeating 

     them. Think small, Jane Anne. Think small. Thinking small 

     actually helps us write big.  Instead of limiting you, thinking 

     small will set you free.”

She ends the chapter with this Try This:

     “Instead of thinking about all the writing you must do – or have 

     not gotten done – think about just one small part.  If you are 

     working on a book, focus on the first chapter only.  If it’s a legal 

     brief, concentrate on the first point you want to make.  If this 

     amount of writing feels overwhelming, narrow your sights even 

     more.  Think only about the first page or the first paragraph.  

     Then, when you have accomplished your goal, congratulate 

     yourself and negotiate the next small step.”

                        

May the above exercise prompt you to think small and - continue - 

to write… BIG!

Thanks to Linda B at TeacherDance for hosting today’s Poetry 

Friday.

And thank you, Janie, for once again sharing your smarts, 

expertise and guidance with our TeachingAuthors readers.

 

Happy Keepin’ On!

Esther Hershenhorn

 

P.S. from Carmela: Time is running out if you haven't yet entered our giveaway of Zeena Pliska's brand new picture book, Egyptian Lullaby (Roaring Brook Press)! Read this post for details.

4 GOLDEN SOMETHING OR OTHER POEMS

Howdy, Campers ~ and Happy Poetry Friday! (poems and link to PF below)

I've been playing with Golden Shovel poems a lot lately--they seem to tap into my pandemic-related moods I'm not even aware I have. Recently I began to use dictionary definitions instead of a line from someone's poem. I call those Golden Definition poems. And now I'm splashing in the waters of what I call Golden Quote poems. 

The idea behind all of these forms is the same: take one line and use each word of that line (in order) to end each line of your poem. C'est tout--that's it! 

I'll keep this short  (hard for me!). Here are four of my Golden Something or Other poems:

2 GOLDEN DEFINITION POEMS

LOST
by April Halprin Wayland

I keep wanting things. I keep having

them, and then they're gone.

I keep flicking ashes, watching them go astray.

I keep playing with my watch or

watching mists disappear. I feel I've missed

 

something or someone. The

one thing that steadies me is the way

you sit still when I talk about being bewildered

in this wilderness. I feel I need a machete as sharp as

a surgeon's scalpel, something that hurts to

use. I keep opening drawers. I keep opening doors, as if I'm about to place

one foot outside. Should I?  Should I put it on this wet grass, going off in a new direction?

poem (c) 2020 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.
........................................................

One definition of LOST: having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction, etc. 

(I played with the last line just being "Etc," but that didn't work.  Then I made it longer, but it was a depressing ending. So I ignored the "etc."  And I can do that because I'm Goddess of Not-A-Golden-Shovel poems.)
==================================

THERE IS NO HOPE
by April Halprin Wayland

There is no hope,

but what there is

is everything else: the

jewels beneath the ocean, the feeling

that shivers over my arms when you do that,

a little blond head sticking out the window to see what

the squirrel is doing. There truly is

a field full of all the things I've always wanted—

so full, in fact, that I can

spend the rest of my life and be

in love with all the things I have and I've had.

poem (c) 2020 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

........................................................
HOPE: Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had.

drawing (c) April Halprin Wayland

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

2 GOLDEN QUOTE POEMS

FIX EVERYTHING
by April Halprin Wayland

First there was the bear. But she was tired,

and by the looks of him, the bear was tired

too, with

dark circles under his eyes and seemingly nothing

going on in his tired

head. And with

everything the way it was, everything

sliding down the hill towards them, she was too tired

to deal with

something as trivial as the

bear. Surely the world’s

phone directory was heavy with other saviors. In fact, guess its weight:

there had to be a lot of goddamn golden names in there. Or what about the bear? He

was snoozing now. Choose HIM. Had 

he ever raised his paw to help?  Never.

Which meant it was his time to step up. He should be the one chosen

to fix everything, to

save the whole goddamn world, not her. Are you listening, Bear?

poem (c) 2020 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.
........................................................

Here's the quote: “Tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world’s weight he had never chosen to bear.”― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned 

drawing (c) April Halprin Wayland

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

THANK THE DOG
by April Halprin Wayland

She wanted to thank

the dog. "Do you

write him a letter, do you thank him for

licking you?" she wondered.  Listening

to him scratch his rump (thump, thump, thump), she was overwhelmed with

love. Finally, she wrote, "Oh how I love your

wagging tail, your chocolate eyes!"

poem (c) 2020 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.
...........................................................................

Here's the quote from my friend Julie Rose Palmer, writer, poet, artist and musician. She wrote, “Thank you for listening with your eyes.” (about reading her emails).

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

How about you?  Try a GOLDEN SOMETHING-OR-OTHER poem ~ invent it. Then write it!

Thank you, Ramona, for hosting Poetry Friday at Pleasures From the Page!

posted with hope and gratitude by April Halprin Wayland and her dog, Eli 

drawing (c) April Halprin Wayland

A Must-have Book (PLUS Book Giveaway) for Storytellers!

I’ve been writing for children since 1977 and teaching writers since 1996!

My writing room’s shelves, desk and window sills boast enough books on writing-related topics to rival the stock of any Writer’s Bookshop.

Craft. Process. Story. The writer’s life. Writing for children. The ins and outs of publishing.

From Aristotle to Zinsser, with Lamott and McKee in the middle, each title stands ready to help me do my job.

I’m happy to report, and with total confidence, there’s not one book on my shelves like Matt Bird’s THE SECRETS OF STORY (Writer’s Digest, 2016).  It’s a must-have book on craft both smart and practical, Thumbs-up deserving - not only because of its eye-opening approach to storytelling, its thoughtfully-focused content, its sensible organization and the author’s personal writing style, but especially because the book delivers its subtitle’s promise - “Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers.”

The Good News is: those innovative tools can be yours simply by entering our Book Giveaway.  Be sure to read the details at the end of this post.

Matt Bird’s bona fides includes an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University, years of screenwriting and a long-running successful blog on storytelling, COCKEYED CARAVAN, recently renamed THE SECRET OF STORIES. 

He offers the heart of this comprehensive book up front and early, on page 2, in fact: “Tell the story that would win you over, even if you didn’t want to hear it.”

And then in three Parts laden with common sense and cathartic Aha’s (Writing for Strangers, The Ultimate Story Checklist and Getting from Good to “Good Lord, This Is Amazing!”), he shares the means to the end - a good story told well.

Bird believes audience satisfaction is the name of the game.  “You have to embrace your audience,” he writes. “They are the only reason to write anything.”  Listening to our audiences is key, he tells writers; it’s what allows us to build identification between our hero and our audience. Fortunately, his Thirteen Essential Laws of Writing for Strangers show us how to listen.

By the time I reached Law #4 - AUDIENCES DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT STORIES; THEY CARE ABOUT CHARACTERS, I’d put aside my yellow highlighter,

read to #13, then typed up all thirteen and emailed them to several of my writers and students.

And so it went as I – eagerly! - read through Parts II and III, cornering pages, underlining previously-recognized Truths, bracketing paragraphs, starring key words, writing in the margins and the top and bottom of pages to restate in my words what Matt Bird presented.  And all the while I kept thinking of my stories as well as my students’ and writers’ stories and how we now could perfect them, and thinking of how I’ll retool my SpringUniversity of Chicago Writer’s Studio Workshop - A Facilitated Children’s Novelists Writing Group, thanks to the book’s checklists.

How’s this for one of Matt Bird’s head-bobbing, comforting Truths: “Writing is not one big talent.  It is a discipline consisting of several distinct skills, each of which must be individually mastered by writing every day, day after day, for years, as you slowly get better.”

He then goes on to list the seven skills he believes writers need to master – Concept, Character, Structure and Plot, Scene Work, Dialogue, Tone and Theme.  One by one, chapter by chapter, he breaks down each skill according to definition, common misconceptions and the relevant questions that need to be asked.

It’s those relevant questions we must ask and answer if our storytelling ever is to satisfy our audience, the questions that by book’s end become handy-dandy tools.

For example, in underscoring the importance of creating compelling characters, how do we get our audience to believe, care and invest?  Matt Bird shares question after question we need to ask, making sure his illustrating examples drawn from familiar movies, tv shows and novels facilitate and serve our understanding. 

He does the same for structure (The Challenge, the Easy Way, the Hard Way, the Climax) and Scene Work (The Set-up, Conflict and Outcome), sharing relevant questions, each brilliantly exampled.

In his Preface, Matt Bird reveals that he hopes his book is “useful, illuminating and most, of all, fun.”  With this audience-member, he realized all three.

I can’t recall the last time I sat with a book on the craft of writing as fully engaged as I was reading THE SECRETS OF STORY and I think I know why.

In writing his book, Matt Bird thought about and embraced his audience of storytellers; he’d listened to their needs and worked hard to satisfy them. 😊

Writing in a lively, honest-to-the-bone style, he bravely put himself into the mix – his screenwriting studies, his unexpected illness, his life experiences, and best of all, his disappointments.  Even though THE SECRETS OF STORY is a work of nonfiction, how could I not believe, care and invest?

“If you really value your audience,” he writes, again up front and early, “you’ll never have to choose between audience satisfaction and writing from the heart, because the two will be one and the same.”

For the record, I personally am ignoring Matt Bird’s Final Rule, which is to ignore everything he said in the book’s previous 330 pages.  Way before that point, he’d written so convincingly, his Rules had segued and become the beliefs every storyteller needs.

Make time to visit Matt Bird’s blog.  Check the resources listed on the right side of the page, especially The Ultimate Story Checklist.  

To learn more about the author, click here to read his September 19, 2016 interview at the Blabbermouth blog.

IMHO: THE SECRETS OF STORY belongs on every writer’s bookshelf.

Happy storytelling! Happy checklisting!

Esther Hershenhorn

………………………………………………………………………………….

Now, to procure your copy of Matt Bird’s THE SECRETS OF STORY, enter our Book Giveaway and perhaps you’ll be the lucky winner.  Use our Rafflecopter widget below.  You may enter via 1, 2, or all 3 options.

If you choose option 2, you must leave a comment on today’s blog post below or on our TeachingAuthors Facebook page. If you haven’t already liked our Facebook page, please do so today! If you prefer, you may submit your comment via email to: Teachingauthors[at]gmail [dot] com

Email subscribers: if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.

Note: if you submit your comments via email or Facebook, you must still enter the drawing via the widget below.  The giveaway ends March 29, 2017, and is open to U.S. residents only.

[Carmela here: the above end date is a typo. The giveaway ends March 31, 2017.]

P.S. If you’ve never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, here’s info on how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway and the difference  between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

With Thanks to an Unforgettable TeachingAuthor and Mentor

In THE WRITER’S JOURNEY, Christopher Vogler notes that the Hero must connect with some source of wisdom before answering his Call to Adventure.  Usually that source is a teacher, a protector, a trainer, a tester whose offerings ensure the Hero begins his adventure ready, willing and able.

Vogler labels this particular stop along the way Stage Four – Meeting with the Mentor.

I consider myself life-changing lucky to have met such a Mentor on my Writer’s Journey -  the ultimate TeachingAuthor, Barbara Seuling. 

The second she left the world on September 12 she was instantly missed.

Barbara’s Children’s Book World friends and colleagues continue to sing her praises.

Her accomplishments were many, as noted in the September 13 Publishers Weekly announcement:  author of picture books and the popular OH, NO, IT’S ROBERT series (Cricket Books), picture book illustrator, former Dell and Delacorte Press editor, teacher and Emeritus SCBWI Board of Advisors member.

Even more plentiful were the legions of children’s book writers Barbara launched, watched over and celebrated, thanks to both her successful HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN’S BOOK AND GET IT PUBLISHED (John Wiley & Sons, 1984, 1991, 2005) and her long-time Manuscript Workshop.

Begun 23 years ago in her Upper West Side New York City apartment, Barbara eventually moved the July Workshop to Applebrook, her cottage in Londonderry, Vermont, and then to the Landgrove Inn down the road, where it remains a go-to proving ground for dedicated children’s book creators.

The first edition of HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN’S BOOK AND GET IT PUBLISHED served as my Children’s Writer’s Bible through the 80’s.  The 1991 Vassar Publishing Institute allowed me to meet and learn from Barbara in person, as did several Summer SCBWI Conferences that followed. It was in 2001, though, as I was considering answering the Call to a few New Adventures – serving on SCBWI’s Board of Advisors and becoming a Children’s Book Writing Coach, that Barbara’s mentoring made the difference. She guided me as we shaped my new career, instilling in me the confidence to move forward.  And fortunately, she did the same this past year, when she honored me with her invitation to continue her Vermont Manuscript Workshop. 

What joy, sitting in July with my fellow writers as our Guest Speaker and Workshop Founder passed on her know-how, insights, advice and Spirit.

And even more joy, when I visited Barbara and her wife Winnette Glasgow at Applebrook.  Barbara’s pride was palpable as she turned the pages of years of Workshop scrapbooks, calling attention to the writers she’d launched, the book creators she'd mentored, the workshop sessions she'd conducted, summer after summer.

Barbara began HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN’S BOOK AND GET IT PUBLISHED with one of my favorite quotes, written by Atheneum Founder and Publisher Jean Karl.

“A good book respects a child’s intelligence, his pride, his dignity, and most of all his individuality and his capacity to become.”

I love that verb to become, and the infinite number of nouns and adjectives that might someday follow it.

Simply put, Barbara Seuling respected each of her writer’s capacity to become, including this writer, and for that I remain forever grateful.

She held the bar High, because we write for children.

This summer, when I finally saw the crystal-clear waters that ran behind Barbara’s cottage, giving it its name, I could only smile. For years I’d used Barbara’s handle “aplbrk” when emailing her.

Some Mentors, like Barbara, gift their mentees with magic, a magic I know flows always and ever.

With enormous gratitude,

Esther Hershenhorn