Freshman English

I was hired to teach English 101 at a local community college last summer, a week before class was to start. My primary qualification was my long career as a semi-professional student. Of course I had no clue what I was doing.

On the first day of class, I asked the students to split into pairs, perform cursory interviews of each other, and then make introductions accordingly. Mode of transport apparently ranked as one of the most important biographical details, at least among the males in the class.

I also asked the students they were taking English 101 and what they hoped to gain from it. Because the course was a requirement for all students, I received the expected answer from nearly everyone – they were taking it because they had to, and what they hoped to gain was a passing grade and college credit.

Because this particular course was added to the schedule in the week before school started (thus my last-minute hiring), my students had also been those who were still figuring out their schedules, for whatever reason, at the very last minute. Many were dealing with serious financial and personal issues, illnesses, multiple jobs, etc. Some were in high school. A few were older than I.

I had no idea what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect what I got. One of my students, an excellent writer, explained that he had gotten through 2/3 of the class in the previous semester but had had to drop out upon being sent to prison. He further explained that he had recently developed a case of severe writers’ block which he attributed to the cessation of recreational drug use.

Another student was a professional plumber in a technology AA program. He was well-muscled and tattooed. His writing was breathtaking, and he shared with me that he sometimes wrote poetry in his spare time. The following semester, he became an English tutor, and he has since received a scholarship to pursue a four-year degree.

I did not experience many of the issues I had been warned to expect from my students with plagiarism. Missing assignments (and highly creative excuses) were more the norm. But those students who did adhere to the butt-in-chair rule and took the work seriously turned out to be generous sharers, both with me and with one another. They talked about what mattered to them. They confided intimate details of their personal crises, dreams, desires, fears, secrets – not just to me but in their online workshops, as well.

In an essay on role models, one student wrote about Britney Spears and Martin Luther King, Jr. And, God love her, she actually made it work.

I honestly have no idea whether I taught them anything, but they taught me so very much, and I am grateful to all of them.

Writing Workout

During one of the earliest class sessions, I asked my students to describe a place that was meaningful to them, choosing details carefully to evoke a particular mood. After they wrote for fifteen minutes, I asked them to go to the place and write the description again.

I expected that most of them would say they were able to write a more fleshed-out essay with more vivid sensory detail when they were in the place rather than just imagining it. Indeed, a few did. Many said that quite the opposite was the case – that their imaginations were hindered by the presence of the actual physical environment. Some said that their essays were merely different – that they wrote about the crowded cafeteria at lunchtime and then, while there, wrote about the cafeteria empty.

(Then there were those who got lost looking for the place and those who never came back – the dangers of ever letting students escape the classroom, even at the college level.)

My take-away lesson for next time was to make sure to plan adequate time afterward for discussion of differing writing styles, habits, preferences, and methods. This exercise was a big eye-opener for me.

Open Heart Surgery—Writing a Holiday Story

Happy Poetry Friday!

Today's poem and Writing Workout/Lesson Plan on writing a holiday story are at the bottom of this post.

There’s always so much to do to launch a book. So much more than I’ll ever do. I have a file called “PR opportunities” which exhausts me just to scroll through.

Nap time!Luckily, NEW YEAR AT THE PIER--A Rosh Hashanah Story is powered both by the airy and emotionally true watercolor illustrations by Stéphane Jorisch, and by its association with a holiday. So though I am doing lots of PR, more people are approaching me for interviews and book signings than with past books.

So today’s advice? Write a holiday book!

Or maybe not. Keep reading.

When my first picture book, TO RABBITTOWN (Scholastic), came out, it was also stunningly illustrated (by Robin Spowart). It came out every Easter, which stuck me as funny, since I’m Jewish. It got a starred review in School Library Journal, went through many editions, became a paperback, stayed in print for eight years and sold over 64,000 copies.

That was pretty cool, but because it was my first book, much of that miracle was lost on me. I didn’t understand the amazing goldness of a starred review in SLJ, didn’t know that a publisher doesn’t normally take out an ad to promote a book, didn’t know that picture books were going out of print within two years.

When my next book, THE NIGHT HORSE (Scholastic) went out of print before anyone knew it was on the shelves, I took notice…to put it mildly.

There were lots of factors, of course. But it was clear to me that a book which had a handle—like a holiday—might have a longer shelf-life. So I asked my local independent children’s bookstore owner what holiday books she wished she had.

Ground Hog’s Day, she said.

With scrunched forehead and clenched jaw, I put on my mining hat, carried my heavy pick, and went to work on a Ground Hog’s Day story. I tried—I really did. But I wasn’t even sure what a ground hog looked like. And I’m a native Southern Californian—I couldn't understand why anyone would care if winter lasted longer. So the story? Flat.

Ten years later, an editor asked me if I had any Jewish stories. I immediately began to describe tashlich, a joyous, communal ritual during the Jewish New Year. I told her about the families gathered on the beach, the moving, melodic songs we sing as we troop up the pier, the goose-bumpy spiritual aura around us as we toss pieces of bread into the ocean, cleaning the slate for the New Year.

I began writing it immediately, heatedly, jumping up and down, singing Avinu Malkenu, dancing around the story, trying to get the right angle. I could write this story because I got chills when I thought about tashlich.

I think it’s called emotional honesty.

So here’s what I’ve learned. Would it be a good idea to write a holiday story? Yes…if you can’t wait to share the way you celebrate it (or avoid it, which might be an interesting spin on a holiday…). If you can barely restrain yourself from running out of the house this very minute and bopping passersby on the head with your story or dressing them up, painting their faces, taking their hands and leading them to the tent where you celebrate your holiday.

Then—congratulations! You’ve found that warm-homemade-bread-pesto-avocado-deliciousness of your story.

Writing Workout/ Lesson Plan (cleverly disguised as a poem): Writing A Holiday Story

WRITING A HOLIDAY STORY
by April Halprin Wayland

Lead us
to your backyard in the dark.
Light those red candles.

Sit us down
in your grandfather’s rattan chair
on the grass.

Bring us
that steaming rice dish.
Put a fork in our hands.

Sing us the song.
Now teach us the words
so we can sing along.

(c) April Halprin Wayland

And please--don't make this writing sandbox of ours into work, as I did for so many years with that mining hat and heavy pick. Write with joy!All images by April Halprin Wayland

“A Successful Picture Book is a Visual Poem”

[Note to teachers: while this post is aimed at adults trying to write commercially publishable picture books, the Writing Workout at the end can also be used with young writers creating their own illustrated stories.]

My childhood was similar to Jeanne Marie's in that no one read picture books to me. But when I started reading them to my son (more years ago than I care to admit), I fell in love with the genre. I was working as a freelance writer at the time, and I began fantasizing about writing stories that would be brilliantly illustrated—by someone else. (I can barely draw stick figures myself. April's sketches make me so jealous!) While I never said, “I can write a picture book on my coffee break,” I did often think: “How hard can it be?” As it turns out, at least for me, it can be VERY hard. But that didn’t keep me from trying.

I enrolled in my first class in writing for children (many years ago) with the sole intent of becoming a picture book author. I wrote several awful picture book manuscripts for that class. The instructor was too kind to tell me just how bad they were, but editors later responded to them with form rejections.

One of the last weeks of class, the instructor gave us an assignment to write in a genre we hadn’t tried yet. So I took a crack at the first chapter of a young-adult novel. I was surprised at how much fun it was. I was soon hooked. Like Mary Ann, I discovered I was really a novelist at heart. But I still dreamed of writing a publishable picture book manuscript one day, and I worked on several while I was at Vermont College. When I submitted those picture book manuscripts to editors, I received some “encouraging” rejection letters, but still no sales.

So I kept reading and studying picture book texts. I finally broke down and tried a technique I’d read about years earlier—I typed out the text of several picture book manuscripts I admired. That experience was truly eye, and ear, opening. (Esther mentions this technique, along with several others, in her article in the Sept/Oct 2008 SCBWI Bulletin.) For some reason, it wasn’t until I typed those texts and saw how they looked on the page, without illustrations, that I began to get a real feel for picture book format, pacing, and rhythm.

Later, I had a real “aha” moment when I read a quote from Caldecott-winning author-illustrator Maurice Sendak, in which he said:

“A successful picture book is a visual poem.”

(According to Janice Harayda at One Minute Book Reviews, the quote is from Sendak’s book, Caledcott & Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures.)

Sendak may have been speaking about the almost magical interplay between text and images. But his words made me think about how much picture book texts have in common with poetry. For example, in both:

• Every word must count.
• Words often work synergistically, so that the effect of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
• Both are meant to be read aloud, which makes sound, rhythm, repetition, and wordplay important, even in the absence of rhyme.
• Both have standardized forms: just as a haiku or sonnet must follow certain rules, picture books have rules too.

Two basic rules predominate in picture books being published today:

1. The text should not exceed 800 words. (Many publishers prefer texts shorter than 500 words.)
2. The story must fit into a 32-page format.

But even within a 32-page format, the actual number of pages available for text varies. For a detailed explanation, see the Editorial Anonymous blog. And after reading that post, check out the follow-up comments at Tara Lazar’s blog. Tara even provides diagrams that can help you create a storyboard for your manuscript. Finally, click here for a printable one-page picture book storyboard (for a book with end pages).

[Note: I don’t storyboard my picture books until I’ve gone through several revisions of the basic story. But depending on the type of story you’re writing, you can use a storyboard to help plot out the events in advance. For a discussion of this, click here.]

But to get back to similarities between picture book texts and poems: I found JoAnn’s comments about her love of wordplay interesting. JoAnn talked about how, for her, the rhythm and language come first and how she sometimes has to work at developing the story. For me, on the other hand, the story generally comes first, and I have to work at strengthening the rhythm and language.

I continue to revise my picture book manuscripts to try to make them more poetic. In the process, I think I’m getting closer to a publishable manuscript—I recently had an editor actually ask to see a revision of a story I'd sent her. Stay tuned. I’ll let you know how it works out. Meanwhile, here’s a Writing Workout to help you turn your manuscript into a “visual poem.”

Writing Workout: Creating a Visual Poem

Take a picture book manuscript you've written and look at your use of poetic devices. See if the addition of some of the following devices might enhance your story. (If you're unsure what these terms mean, check out this poetry glossary.):

• alliteration (Be careful of alliterative character names, though, as they have become cliche.)
  
• assonance
• consonance
• onomatopoeia
• simile
• metaphor
• repetition
• internal rhyme
  

Read your manuscript aloud. Does it have a strong rhythm? Do you stumble over any of the words? Revise as needed.

If you can, record yourself reading the manuscript and play it back to listen to the rhythm and flow. Or have someone else read the manuscript aloud while you take note of any parts that sound awkward. Keep polishing until your words sing!

The Accidental Picture Book Author

I never meant to be a picture book writer. I was a novelist. More specifically, a middle grade novelist. Picture books intimidated me. Pre-schooler intimidated me, even though I was the mother of a three-year -old.
Unlike those who think they can rip off a picture book during their lunch hour, I regarded those who could write picture books with awe. To me, picture books were about as simple as writing haiku...another art form I would not dream of attempting. Why"

Because the novelist is used to big expanses of time and space in which to tell a story. True, middle grade novels aren't the size of War and Peace, but they aren't less than eight hundred words, either. My first drafts of novels run 60-70,000 words. (I might add they are considerably less before they go off to the publisher.)

Not only are picture books short, but the text is only half the story. The text is the sound track for the illustrations, which tell the other half of the story. How on earth did you write a story like that unless you also were the illustrator? (I am not an illustrator.) Most of my picture book author heroes...Kevin Henkes, Peggy Rathman, Amy Schwartz...are illustrator/authors. They know how the characters look. They know how to draw a visual punchline. At the time, I was finding plenty of rejection for my novels. I saw no reason to add picture books to my pile of rejected work.
Then, for no other reason than to cheer up my four-year-old, I wrote My Best Friend
in two hours. I didn't know it was a picture book until I took it to my Vermont College workshop group. The group couldn't decide if it was a short story or a picture book. I had thought it might be an easy reader (which shows you how much I knew). The workshop leader really liked it and told me I ought to send it "somewhere." Seventeen "somewheres" later, it sold to Viking, who told me that it was a picture book. It was from that first editorial letter that I learned how to write a picture book. Writing like a picture book writer means dumping all the tricks that make me an novelist.

Gone was 99% of the description. I learned to tell the story through dialog and single well-chosen action verbs. The illustrator would do the rest. This is why I decided that producing a picture book was a lot like an arranged marriage. You write a text that does not become a book until it is illustrated by someone you never meet or talk to (editors like it that way), who then adds their vision to your text. Somehow, it all turns out well. At least it has for me. My illustrators have found far more in my stories than I ever dreamed was there.

I struggle every day in writing picture books. I have to remind myself to "leave room for the illustrator." To include the elements that give the artist something to work with, while leaving room for the artist's visual story. It is never easy, wihch is why I work on novels and picture books at the same time. When I need to paint my own word pictures in detail, I work on my novels. When I want to feel that I have accomplished something fast, I do a picture book draft. I can do a draft in a day. It takes fifty plus drafts over a period of several years before I even think about sending a picture book to my editors.

Knowing that we would be talking about picture books this time, I have been reading....picture books these past two weeks.
Here's the list: Fiction: Rainy Day by Patricia Lakin, Camping Day by Patricia Lakin, Abigail Spells by Anna Alter, Tiny & Hercules by Amy Schwartz, Silent Music by James Rumford, Nobody Here But Me by Judith Viorist, Yoon and the Jade Bracelet by Helen Recorvits
Poetry: Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman, Birds on a Wireby J. Patrick Lewis and Paul B. Janeczko
Non-fiction: A River of Words by Jen Bryant, 14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy, Keep Your Eye on the Kid by Catherine Brighton.


Writing Workout



Try this exercise when you feel as if your inner novelist is overtaking your outer picture book writer.
1. Take your basic story.
2. Write the story using only nouns and action verbs. (OK, you can use prepostions too)
For instance, The Three Bears might look like this:
Bears exit house. They amble through forest.
Girl sees house. Girl looks in house. House is empty. Girl enters house. Girl sees table....(OK, you get the picture.)
3. Now that you have the skeleton of your story, go back and add in more specific nouns livelier verbs and selected adjective.
4. Avoid adverbs.
5. Add sound effects if you like and they make sense in the narrative. (If you've read Surprise Soupy ou know I love sounds. They're fun to read aloud.)
6. Before you add words to your original word count, ask yourself if the word is absolutely necessary. Would you pay a hundred dollars to put that word in the story? You would? Then it must belong there.

I don't guarantee that this will deliver a publishable manuscript, but doing it over and over helps mold your story into picture book form.

Making What's So Hard about Writing Picture Books Less Hard

Oh, if only Ann Whitford Paul’s hands-on, right-on and thus write-on guide Writing Picture Books had been available when I first began writing.

[Note: the President at that time bore the initials J.C.]

Alas, Writing for Children wasn’t in vogue then.
The singular format (and art form) “picture book” was often labeled “picture storybook.”
The IBM Selectric typewriter reigned supreme, unaware the word processor planned to stage a coup.

I cut my writer’s teeth, I learned my craft, courtesy of:

(1) Lee Wyndham’s Writing for Children and Teen-agers (Writer’s Digest, 1976) and Phyllis Whitney’s Writing Juvenile Stories and Novels (The Writer, Inc., 1976);
(2) my sky blue, kite-embellished 1978 "I"-less Society of Children’s Book Writers membership card;
(3) the bounty of children’s books (published past and present) residing on the shelves of my Wilmette Public Library’s Children’s Bookroom.
I took selected books apart, physically sometimes, from the inside-out.
[See my September/October 2009 SCBWI Bulletin article “The Book That Changed Me.”]
I studied particular and favorite authors’ careers from their first book to their most current.
I read each book first as a reader, then again, as a writer.
I learned the stories behind the stories, taking heart and hope.
Writing for Children classes were few and far between; Children’s Book Writing Groups hard to come by.
Keeping me afloat was SCBW’s Manuscript Exchange which allowed me to learn from fellow Illinois author Berniece Rabe.

Writing a picture book text is Hard Work. Period.
It is not for the weak, in body or spirit.
The writer must dig often and deep through countless drafts to arrive at the bare bones of a story that not only can live and breathe on the page, thanks to the illustrator, but capture and resound in a reader’s heart.
Such efforts demand determination, patience, passion, persistence.
Reading and studying Ann Whitford Paul’s Writing Picture Books won’t make writing a picture book easy, but it’s certain to make writing a picture book eas-i-e-r.
As will the following resources, thanks to technology and the popularity of Writing for Children, that both fortify and enhance all you learn from Ann Paul’s book.

(1) Mem Fox’s website - http://www.memfox.com/
Mem Fox once wrote, “Writing a picture book is like writing War and Peace in haiku.”
Like Ann Paul, Mem Fox gets picture books.
Her website offers opportunities to hear and see Mem read, and to learn the stories behind her stories.
Check out her 20 Do’s and 20 Don’ts as well as her “So, you want to write a picture book” listed under the section “For Writers (And Potential Writers).”

2) SCBWI’s Picture Book Master Class with Tomie DePaola
Imagine 90-minutes up close and personal with Caldecott and Newberry Honor Awards medalist Tomie DePaola, illustrator of over 200 books, author of over 100!
This DVD Master Class, produced by SCBWI, features a one-on-one conversation between SCBWI Executive Director and best-selling children’s book author Lin Oliver and Tomie that offers inspiration, information, insights and encouragement for anyone writing the picture book today.
Purchase is available on the SCBWI website.

(3) A YouTube-available video of A School Visit by best-selling Author/Illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka.
Sit yourself down in the school auditorium, surround yourself with kiddos, and listen and learn how and why Jarrett makes books.
The illustrator piece to picture books is something picture book writers need to know.
And, if you’ve already successfully published a picture book, take a peek at how a fellow author presents. Jarrett’s website – http://www.studiojjk.com – is also worth visiting.

And, look for my TeachingAuthors review of Ann Paul’s Writing Picture Books in early Fall.

Writing Workout:
Write a Name Poem

Mem Fox declares: story begins with a character in trouble!
Editor Melanie Kroupa took that Truth one step further while helping me revise my middle grade novel, The Confe$$ion$ and $ecret$ of Howard J. Fingerhut (Holiday House).
“Who a character is gets him into trouble,” Melanie taught me. “But who a character is gets him out of trouble.”

Once I defined Howie’s Howie-ness in a name poem, he was ready, willing and able to travel his plotline.
In Chapter One, I let Howie share the poem with his fellow fourth-graders so my readers would know Howie too.
H = hopeful
O = original
W= willing
I = intelligent
E = enthusiastic
Coincidentally (?), junior businessperson Howie Fingergut’s traits are those of any budding entrepreneur.

Define your characters, plural (!) - Hero, Side-kick, Villain, in a name poem, to come to know who and what they are.
Try using adjectives, next verbs, then nouns.
And remember Ann Paul’s tip: characters have flaws!

What’s So Hard (for Me) about Writing Picture Books

I love wordplay. I savor the delicious way words feel in my mouth. The taste of an especially yummy combination—one that tingles with rhythm, rhyme, or alliteration. The way exciting language tickles my ears. I search for tangy, succulent, flavorful words.

Sometimes the sounds of words almost feel more important than their meanings.

Eeek! Halt! Hold everything!

When I get so enamored with sounds, I know I’m sliding off track. Because something else is much more important. Those tantalizing words have to say something. Mean something. The ideas they express have to take precedence over the sounds, no matter how delectable they are.

When I work on a picture book, I write by hand in purple ink on legal pads, over and over and over until I feel each stanza, each line, each word is pulling its weight—fitting into the pattern, portraying an emotion, saying what I want to say. Something grabs me, I play with it, I sink into the words and ideas and sounds and images and write. And write and write and write.

The hardest part for me is recognizing and incorporating something that resembles an actual plot—a story with a beginning, middle, and end—that adds the necessary depth to those strained-to-attain scrumptious sounds.

When I sold my first picture book, Cats on Judy, the editor asked me to add details that implied the passing of time so that the text felt more like a story. The same thing happened with Sing-Along Song. Do you see a pattern here? I didn’t, at least not at first.

Many of my rejection letters say that the text is “slight.” What does that mean? How many rejections have I received over the years for the same reason? I’m afraid to count.

Not too long ago as I worked on a new picture book idea, something clicked—almost audibly—like the flick of a light switch.

Eureka!

Somehow right after I finished the first complete draft, I knew it was weak. It needed something more to propel it beyond a simple counting book with rhythm and rhyme. After all these years (and rejections!), I figured it out for myself. I recognized slightness when I saw it (at least in this one manuscript) and took it back to my desk to tear it apart and start over. Now it’s more than a counting book with rhythm and rhyme; it’s an actual story—with counting elements woven in in alternating stanzas—and I’m also adding nonfiction back matter. I hope it works!

Some writers seem to attain the necessary depth in a picture book manuscript without a conscious thought. Or they know enough not to begin writing unless and until all the elements are in place. Not me. I have to work at it, word by flavorful word. But at last, I understand the meaning of slight—lacking that strength, that depth, that extra layer that makes a manuscript more than just what meets the eye at first glance and makes readers want to read it again and again.

"Just One More Story"

In second grade, I went to three different schools. (Ah, the joys of being an army brat.) In one of these (which I attended for all of three weeks), a classmate asked me to save her seat. I did my job and efficiently told the girl who appeared at my side, “Sorry, this is Tammy’s seat.” She was like, “I’m Tammy.” Whoops.

By high school, my friends had begun referring to my habitual lapse as “JM’s face recognition problem.” I remember being entirely confused by the movie Dead Poets Society, because I never knew which brown-haired white boy was the one who’d been in the scene prior.

In short, I am emphatically not a visual thinker. Put me in a building, and I could not point to the front. Put me on an unfamiliar road, and I will not know east from west; I will not know the direction from which I just came; I will never be able to get home without divine intervention.

I was a straight-A student but for art and home ec. Geometry was a nightmare. Can I blame all this on the fact that my mother never read me picture books? Surely not. But to this day, I have to remind myself to look at the pictures.

During my stint in the MFA program at Vermont College, I focused almost exclusively on novel-writing. I knew I lacked appropriate appreciation for the picture book form and most especially for small children, having spent little time with them and feeling especially clueless as to how they think.

Now I spend my whole day with small children and still have only the vaguest notion as to what goes on inside their little heads. But I have probably read them thousands of picture books in the last four years.

Lacking any parenting instincts, I have also read dozens of books about child-rearing. Peruse any book about kids’ sleep (the most important thing you can read as a new parent), and you will note the importance placed on a bedtime routine. Being a rather hapless and harried sort, I can’t say we have a great routine in place. The one thing (sadly) we never relied on is the sacrosanct ritual of the bedtime story.

If I ask my daughter to pick something to read before bed, she will deliberately choose the thickest tome – Richard Scarry’s 365 Stories For Bedtime or Charlie Brown’s Super Book of Questions and Answers. If I suggest something short and sweet (i.e., Ruth Krause’s The Carrot Seed), she will protest. The point of the story in her mind is not to ease into a state of happy slumber; rather, it is to stall.

The other day, we compromised on a medium-length book that I had purchased for my own enjoyment – Madeleine L’Engle’s The Other Dog. As I started to read aloud, I realized that not only would my daughter not find it funny – she wouldn’t “get it” at all. She did maintain cursory interest throughout and asked appropriate questions. But when we were finished, she did not request another story and went to bed without a single protest.

A few days later, she said, “You know that book about the dog with the pointy nose? I don’t like that book. Could you take it out of my bookshelf? Could you take it downstairs?” And finally, “Could you hide it?”

I used to think those “rules” about writing brief picture books were ridiculously stringent. Now I wish they were more stringent. My son, at age two, lacks the attention span to sit through more than 50 words. Meanwhile, so much of what we read is just plain BAD. All those books with flaps and pop-ups and scary rhymes that well-meaning adults seem always to pick up in thrift stores for 99 cents – how do these get published? And why do my children like them? My daughter had been repeatedly asking for The Scary Sounds of Halloween throughout the month of June.

Of course, interactive books and novelty books are popular with kids for a reason. And I must say, Pat the Bunny is just genius.

At any rate, yes, I can write an entire episode of Days of Our Lives in a day or two (6,000 words), and of course I can write a picture book on my coffee break. My latest is only 45 words long. Of course, even 36 revisions later, it is not ready for prime time. And even if it were – finding a home for it in this “soft” market, finding an illustrator to work his/her magic and turn my manuscript into an actual book would take years.

As a TV writer who leaves all the visuals to someone else (actors, directors, set designers), there is a certain wondrous thing about having an illustrator flesh out that which is not in my own mind. I hope it shall happen someday.

In the meantime, I am in Vermont this week at an alumni mini-reunion in hopes of recapturing the inspiration that I found here. I especially appreciated hearing a quote from the great Phyllis Root, who once advised in a lecture that a picture book should be about “one true thing.” So very, very true.

My little inspirations

Montpelier, VT

A Ford family fave

Our First Book Giveaway Winner!

We have a winner!

But before I announce the winner's name, I want to thank everyone who posted in response to our first Guest Teaching Author interview. We loved the variety of picture books you all shared, and we enjoyed your wonderful comments!

I also want to again thank Ann Whitford Paul for her terrific interview. And I need to apologize to Ann--I neglected to include a link to her website when I posted the interview. So if you'd like to read more about Ann and her books, please visit her website. (Hope that makes up for my mistake, Ann!)

I won't keep you in suspense any longer. Our randomly-selected winner of an autographed copy of Writing Picture Books is Diana at the Mysterious Title X blog. Congratulations, Diana! But don't forget--you need to reply to our email within 72 hours, as specified in our Giveaway Guidelines. If for some reason Diana doesn't get in touch with us in time, we will choose an alternate winner.

For those of you who didn't win a copy of Writing Picture Books, watch this space for an upcoming review of the book by one of our Teaching Authors, and for a second chance to win one of Ann's books. And stay tuned--we're planning more book giveaways in late August and early September!

“Heck! I can write a picture book on my coffee break!”

Happy Poetry Friday!

Today’s poem and a lesson plan on writing an envelope poem are at the bottom of this post.

Don’t you hate it when somebody says that?

I wrote thirty-six drafts of my newest picture book, NEW YEAR AT THE PIER—A Rosh Hashanah Story, before my editor said, “Yes! That’s it!”

Thirty-six drafts. Oy. I’ll tell you about it sometime…

So why do I keep writing picture books if I can't pop out one after the other, easy as pie?

Because I'm addicted.

I’m home now from the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) Convention and the American Library Association (ALA) Conference—both in Chicago.

On the three hour flight back, I had intended to work on the manuscripts I’m critiquing for the upcoming Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators annual conference. I was looking forward to three uninterrupted hours to work.

But on the last day of ALA, someone said something that triggered a story idea. And that idea kept bopping around inside my brain, begging to be written.

So, I let the story kidnap me. I put my pen to the paper and said, “Take me wherever you want to go.” It was like playing in a sandbox again. Like the old days, before writing became work.

I’ve been playing with it today, too, instead of sorting through conference papers and business cards, instead of putting away laundry, instead of writing this blog.

When I look at this newborn story objectively, it probably won’t sell. I mean, it doesn’t have a particular hook—it’s not a holiday book nor does it address a specific issue or problem.

But I'm taking it to my critique group because I'm hooked on this story. Addicted. I feel as if I’ve had ten cups of coffee today. (And for someone who gets high on ½ cup of decaf, that’s saying something…)

Research suggests addictive chemicals are released in the brains of artists and writers when they are practicing their art. But chances are, if you’re reading this, you already know that.

When I write, it feels... ...sooooooooooooo good.

So, if you know someone who thinks he can write a picture book during his coffee break, give him a kind smile and wish him good luck.

Then come meet me at the coffee shop and write the story that’s bopping around in your brain, begging to be written.

WRITING WORKOUT: Writing An Envelope Poem

I WRITE
by April Halprin Wayland

I write.

Some folks sing songs, some right the wrongs,
some work crosswords, some raise rare birds
some get in fights or march for peace,
(I do that too, may all wars cease.)
What keeps you jazzed ‘til late at night?

I write.

© April Halprin Wayland

The poem above is an envelope poem.

One of my favorite envelope poems is by Langston Hughes:

POEM

I loved my friend
He went away from me
There's nothing more to say
The poem ends,
Soft as it began-
I loved my friend.

Now that you’ve read this, what do you think an envelope poem is?

You’re right—an envelope poem is one that begins and ends with the same line.

How to write your own envelope poem.

1) Brainstorm what you’d like to write about.
2) Now start writing—mediocre ideas or good ideas, it doesn’t matter—just keep your pen moving.
3) Play with lines until you find one that is strong enough to begin and end your poem.
4) Polish your poem. Read it aloud to your cat.
5) Let it rest for a few days. Read it again. Polish it some more.
6) Do you love it? Then let your poem out of its envelope! Share it with a friend.
All images by April Halprin Wayland