Positive Jealousy: When Comparison Helps

You've heard it said that comparison is the thief of joy. In many ways, I feel that I could look in the corners of the Antipodes and not find a truer saying. When I give in to comparing my life to other peoples' lives, my body type to that of other women, my income to others' income, my relationship status to someone else's, my indie-publishing to that blogging-friend's big-publisher book contract, the joy ebbs like a low-tide. But there is one way in which comparison has served as a catalyst for inspiration. See, the amusing burden of being a reader and a writer is this: one spends half one's time thinking:

"Golly, what a phrase. Wish I'd thought of it first."

My most common thought while reading is not, "Oh, what a lovely book! I'd like to read more like it." Rather, it's much more of a, "What a killing plot. I'd like to write something like this in my genre before anyone else does." I am only halfway in jest. My best ideas are always already in the works. Isn't that terrible? Two days before hearing about Liam Nisson's film, Non-Stop, I said to a friend while crossing a downtown city street:

"You know what'd make a great mystery? A murderer committing his crimes on a plane."

Well thank you, Hollywood, for stealing my thunder. So although I still appreciate a good book for a good book's sake, I try to harness that honest enjoyment and make it work for me. Wild horses may not be able to drag secrets, but they can certainly drag me a few miles before giving it up as a bad job. I have learned to use this "positive jealousy" to understand more about a given genre. I keep a list when reading mystery novels to note what tactics this author seems to be using to reveal clues, corral suspects, and work out the denouement. By this, I hope to learn how to write a better mystery novel.
Obviously I don't intend to copy any author wholesale but I see nothing wrong in learning where their road went right and benefitting from the general trailblazing spirit. What a stupid lot the pioneers would have been if they insisted on cutting their own Oregon Trail. Rather, the whole group worked off of their own and others' prior experiences, wisdom, and knowledge of the way. The ruts of their wagon-wheels can still be seen in some parts of the prairies today. That's called teamwork. Avail yourself of it.

Perhaps the best moments of this useful jealousy come to me when I am standing in the children's section of Barnes & Noble or other bookstores like it. Try as I might to be a grown-up, there is something about children's books that I find utterly irresistible. I never walk down the contemporary fiction aisle. I skip science fiction entirely. Romance? I wouldn't know where to begin with all the covers that look identical and promise hunky heroes and willowy heroines who, no matter the direness of their circumstances, always inherit a dukedom and the arrogant duke to go along with it. Of course the heiress ditches the duke in favor of a humble peasant who, after the suitably humble wedding, realizes he is a marquis in real life. Bad luck, Duke-y darling. Anyway. Groping my way to the children's section via P.G. Wodehouse, Georgette Heyer, and the mysteries, I stand strangely dry-mouthed in the presence of my childhood incarnate. The feeling that my creative and artistic breakthrough which, like the Fountain of Youth or Eldorado, must be just around the next cape or continent or end-cap, is nearly palpable. Have you never felt it? It thrums around me...
The sense that I could write The Book With No Pictures if BJ Novak hadn't done it first.
That Harv Tullet simply beat me to the fingerpaints with his Press Here.
That Lemony Snicket's wit is only my own, rather scalded by life and choosing to laugh through the pain.
That A.A. Milne is my kinsman.
That Newberry Honor Medals are handed out like gold stars for participation.
Of course I soon realize that success is not quite as even-handed as indie publishing would have me believe. The Book With No Pictures is brilliant because BJ Novak did the nearly-impossible and made accessible to millions something so obvious none of us could see it. A way to teach children to adore the written word for mental pictures it can conjure: show them a good time with not a single picture by putting the adult on display and pointing out the fact for the kid's edification: "You just had a blast without asking once to see the pictures. Get it now?"
Making an obvious abstract tangible for the laymen and children among us is a terrific and talented effort. I applaud Novak and Tullet and Mo Willems and so many other authors of the children's books coming out today for their creativity in story-telling, art, and an understanding of children. Their work reminds me that there are authors as talented and inspiring as Margaret Wise Brown, or Margaret and H.A. Rey, or Ludwig Bemelmens, or Kay Thompson in the present day. And more to come. We are still going strong, we race of authors. Not all of us will gain a place in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of children...not all of us will so impact someone's childhood that they stand in that section Barnes & Noble reliving their childhood through the dear book-faces on the shelf. But some of us will. Some of us will....and I could be one of those.
That is why I say comparison is not always the thief of joy. I am given a gift when jealous inspiration thinks, "You know, if I just keep working, I can do that too." Harness it. Follow it. Let it drag you across genres and art mediums and indie publishing and query letters and rejections and contract offers. Let it have you. Experiment. Enter contests you'll never win. Write in a tone that is unlike anything you've used before. Choose a chancey subject and write it well. Or try. Fail and try again. And again. You never know when you'll find that Eldorado. The brain has so many, many trails to blaze.

So here's to standing gape-mouthed in book stores. Here's to relentlessly pursuing creativity. Here's to blazing the trails together. And here's to applauding those who have written the literature that has affected our lives from the moment we realized what stories were. May we all try our hardest to be like them and add to the beauty of literature.

Cottleston Pie: a piece of whimsy

“My name is Sylvi.” 

“Your name isn’t Cottontail?" 

“No.” 

Simpian was silent for a moment. Her name ought to be Cottontail, because Cottontail sounded very good when matched up with Cottleston Pie, and if his plan was to work at all, it must sound right. But Sylvi was not such a bad name after he thought about it for a moment or two. “Sylvi, do you like Presenti-mints?” 

“I’ve never had one. Are they good to eat?”

-Cottleston Pie

Mad, vain creature that I am, I have a bit of a secret project that I want to share with someone. I ought not to even write this post, as it is only a post of how I shouldn't be telling you what I'm telling you. But my vanity wins over, and when I have written something I like, I want you to like it too. I suppose that is the downfall of any good writer. Or is it the inspiration of any good writer? Who knows--I certainly don't, and my stars! I'm going to tell you so I might as well get it over with. I am trying my hand at a new story--a nonsense story--that follows no particular plot, and is whimsical, lovable, and positively dotty. It is meant either for very young children who live their lives by whimsy and for whoever is reading it to them. :) It is a direct nod to Winnie-the-Pooh, and takes it's name from that lovely nonsense rhyme by A.A.  Milne:

Cottleston Pie

I had not meant to come up with a new story, but it hit me over the head while I was playing with my five year old sister and our cousin who is the same age. I said something to Rebekah about "he's simply in such-and-such" and she misheard me, looked at me with her head cocked on one side, and said, "Who's Simpian?" and just like that an Idea was born.

      Simpian lived in a house perched in a tree, simply because that is the best place to live. (As anyone who has tried it ought to agree.) He lived by himself as far as anyone could tell. He had no father or mother or sisters or brothers and certainly no uncles or aunts. That is, until tea-time. Then you might find Simpian rummaged out of his tree house by the sound of the great brass bell and if you followed him across Waterloo and through The Field (and once or thrice around and through and behind the blueberry bushes) you might hear quite a lot of people calling him “Allister!”—or more often than not—“Come Allister!” and he might look less and less like a pirate and more and more like a grubby-little-chap-in-need-of-washing whose relatives were looking for him.

-Cottleston Pie

The boy who used to be Only Allister is now Simpian Grenadine: Master of Cottleston Pie. And that came to be in this way:

      Allister flipped onto his back in the grass and looked up into the branches of his tree. The sun shone yellow through the green leaves and blue behind that, and Allister whispered his rhyme to himself in a sing-song voice: “Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie….” And just like that—without even trying—the words had attached themselves to the tree and the house and Allister sat up, a deal surprised, and half expecting to see a Notice written up and tacked to the tree:      

     “Notice:            

           Formerly known as Tree-House Belonging To Allister, now known as Cottleston Pie: Home of Simpian Grenadine.”    

   The last bit surprised Allister more than finding that his house had named itself. What sort of a name was Simpian Grenadine? A good one, he thought. But where had it come from? Nowhere, he supposed. And because Allister was clever enough to know that the best thing always come from Nowhere, he didn’t bother to ask any further questions and only said to himself once or twice as if trying on a new jacket: “Simpian Grenadine…master of Cottleston Pie.”

-Cottleston Pie

If you must know, Cottleston Pie is the name of Allister's tree-house and Property. It's a private sort of place and one is never quite sure while he is there if what happens is true or make believe. But it doesn't really matter because everything that does happen is beautiful and entirely fabulous. I thought I had better Advise you as to the species of story Cottleston Pie is, because it may show up in my Snippets of Story posts and then if I didn't tell you, you'd be left hanging out to dry. I am planning on making little pen-and-ink drawings to illustrate it and if it turns out to be good at all I am going to give it to some of my Little Friends come Christmas time.
What do you think of Cottleston Pie? If you don't like Winnie-the-Pooh and wonderful nonsense in general do not read further. You'll hate it. But if there is a little bit of whimsy hanging about in your heart, I think you might enjoy this newest child of mine. :)

      “Well, are you or aren’t you?” he asked.    

          Sylvi stared at him out of one round boot-button eye, then swiveled her head so she looked at him out of the other. “I am’nt.”    

        “You whatn’t?”        

         “I amn’t.”      

         “Ah. That’s what I thought you said.”        

         Sylvi narrowed her eye. “That means I am not.”    

        “I knew that,” Simpian hastened to say. “Only I wanted to be sure you knew what it meant.”      

        “Oh, I know.” And Sylvi began to groom her tawny fur again. She paused mid-brush and looked up at him. “You are a perfect basket of red-herrings, aren’t you?”

-Cottleston Pie  

Writing Children: The To-Do's, and Not To-Do's. :)

“I don’t want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read.”

—Astrid Lindgren

I do not feel equipped to speak with authority on many angles of writing--I am not a published author, I make a hash of comma usage, I tend to use unpopular POV's (such as narrative), and my plot lines are not exactly Dickensian in intricacy. However of all the criticisms I got in the critique group that I was a part of (and that shaped me immensely) there was one consistent compliment. 

Apparently, I can write children well. Nearly all the members of the group commented on how realistic the children were in their personalities, their relationships, etc. I'm not saying that to boast, only to let you know why I'm hashing this topic out. 

I suppose the thing is, I am immersed in Children-Culture. With seven younger siblings (and eight cousins across the field) I have a 15-person study-group below my nose at all times. Okay. Let's face it. In my lap at all times. It was not three days ago that my five-month old Levi punched a random series of keys while I was writing and botched up the formatting of my entire manuscript. :D (thankfully I was able to fix it)

Being that I am so constantly involved in child-culture, it's a good thing some of that has translated into my writing. I'd be worried otherwise, for isn't it a maxim of all writing that your life flavors the way you write? If it isn't, it ought to be. That being said, I thought I'd give you a few tips on how to write fully-rounded, fully-fleshed children characters:

Point One: Children are not that simple:

 “You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it’s going to be too difficult for grownups, you write it for children.”

—Madeleine L’Engle

Children have far more to them than meets the eye. They are people, after all, with hopes, dreams, aspirations...and they have more soul than we often realize. My little sister Gracie sat, dejected, at our dining room table this afternoon, having discovered a chicken that had succumbed to a cruelly enforced pecking-order, and died.

"He suffered, Rachie!" she cried, and the tears welled up in her eyes. "Can we pray for him?" (In fact, on a side-note, she keeps a running list of deceased pets that she prays for routinely. :P)

You cannot write a child-character as a named clown that walks around providing comic relief with his lisp and hope to captivate your audience. Especially if you write for children. They know their own kind, and they are quick to detect flaws in your characterization of one of them. So how do you write a child? Provide plenty of soul and depth. Children have a thought-process, deep emotions, and everything that makes an adult-character tick, only it is precious and unspoilt. Watch children and see how they interact with one another. I promise, you'll learn much from them.

“Grown-up people find it difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy.”  ~Edith Nesbit

Point Two: Get out of the cliche-box:

Not every child has a lisp. Not every child drops "r"s. Not that you can't use those characteristics, but your child must have more to him than a clumsy tongue. Children are so much fun, that it is a pity to limit them to a speech impediment. Think outside the box. Does she like to dress up? Is she flamboyant? Would she march up to a stranger and demand a kiss, or is she quiet and reserved, having to be coaxed to speak?

Perhaps the most fun is writing The Little Boy. Frogs and snails and puppy-dog tails! ;) I have a weakness for naughty little boys....Dill, Darby, Tucker...oh yes. What is it that makes them so adorable? It could be something as small as freckles, a pug-nose, dirt around his fingernails. Just watch a little boy for five minutes and you'll have a host of actions to use in describing that character of yours. :)

Point Three: Pay Attention:

The Mistress of this third point, in my humble opinion, was Edith Nesbit. Even the narration of her books reflects the elaborate, illogical, perfect charm of a child's thinking. This is a task that takes some doing, for the older we grow, the easier it is to forget how sensible a childish thought once seemed to us, and how we came across that thought in the first place. You must cast aside all adult-ish thinking when you write for children. You must approach them on their own footing, thinking how they think, dealing with crisis the way they do. Sometimes it requires a kyniption fit. Sometimes it requires a fist-fight. But bet upon it. Something unexpected and not quite well-behaved is always the right way for a child. :) After all, social-grace and politics are not a large part of the average child's diet. Scapegraces are darlings, in my opinion. :) 

Point Four: Have Fun:

This is the last, and perhaps most important point. Children are fun. They have not yet learned that life expects more of you than smiles and giggles, delicious frights, more smiles, and a little dirt thrown in. Let your pen play for awhile instead of work. You characters can, on occasion, even serve as your alter-egos. I dare you to try to forget you are nearly grown-up, or even grown-up, or even Very Ancient. Try writing in a childish way. You'll find it refreshing, unusual, and so addicting you'll want to come back for more. :) 

“It is all very wonderful and mysterious, as all life is apt to be if you go a little below the crust, and are not content just to read newspapers and go by the Tube Railway, and buy your clothes ready-made, and think nothing can be true unless it is uninteresting.” 

~Edith Nesbit

The Lost Art of Reading Aloud

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."

— Emilie Buchwald 

"You may have tangible wealth untold.

 Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. 

Richer than I you can never be – 

I had a mother who read to me."

— Strickland Gillilan

I owe much of my love of reading and writing to my mother. For as long as I can remember she has read aloud to us. I can distinctly remember my first encounter with Anne of Green Gables. I complained that there was too much description, and I couldn't understand it. Yet Mama persisted in reading the book aloud to us and before long I was lost to the world in the fairy-fancies concocted by Anne Shirley in that tantalizing land of Avonlea.
Mama never stooped to reading easy books to us, and I don't think she ever skipped the hard words. She wisely surmised that we would soon learn, somehow, what the big words meant, and in the meantime they didn't matter. It was of little consequence that if we didn't understand every little detail--the beauty of the words would rub off on us anyway. That is not to say that Mama didn't have secret misgivings--she has often admitted that when she read Hans Brinker to us, she really thought it was far over our heads. Funny thing is, that is the one book I remember thrilling me to my fingertips. We turned it into a unit-study (Ah! The beauty of homeschooling!) and learned all about the queer Dutch houses on their stilts and the bustling canals instead of crowded streets. Some of my fondest, coziest memories come from snuggling up on the couch, and oh! To get that coveted spot right next to Mama where we could lean against her soft side and follow along in the book as we learned to read.
I fear reading aloud is a lost art, and yet what a pleasant pastime! It is one of those forgotten pleasures, like letter-writing, that we would do well to revive. It brings a group of people together, their thoughts, dreams, and emotions wrapped round the same story. Is there anything sweeter than experiencing a story again with a dear friend? I well know the glorious sensation of discussing a book with one of my sweet sisters in Christ, reliving the intricacies of the plot, the characters, what we thought was going to happen and what in actuality did....*happy, happy, nostalgic sigh*

I have fond dreams of someday, in my house o' dreams, reading aloud to my husband some chilly fall night when we haven't any troubles to pressure us and nothing to do but please ourselves. ;) I do hope he'll enjoy being read aloud to.

"When Mother reads aloud, the past
Seems real as every day;
I hear the tramp of armies vast,
I see the spears and lances cast,
I join the thrilling fray;
Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
I meet when Mother reads aloud."
~"When Mother Reads Aloud" Author Unknown 

I also cannot wait for the day I can gather my little chickens around me and open a book to transport them to new worlds; to vicariously experience the wondrous delight of those dear, beloved stories for the first time through my children.
But there is an art to it. The reader-aloud who halts and mispronounces words and reads in a monotone so fast it sounds like Chinese is not pleasant to listen to. If you would have interested listeners, you must be an interesting reader. Go ahead and liberate your fancy. Use accents. Choose a different voice for each character and maintain it. Read the descriptions with a soft, flowing voice and try to put the beauty of the words into your tones. Practice on your siblings! I recall reading The Hobbit aloud to my younger sisters--they loved it, after they got past their string of perpetual questions. The famous mother/sister answer I've found to be appropriate to all occasions is: "Well if you listen you might find the answer out!" :D
Here is a list of my favorite books to be read aloud as a child. Oh, thank you Mama for reading to us! :)

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A Little Princess by " " " 
Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johanne Wyss
The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
Hinds Feet on the High Places by Hannah Hunard
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott
The Moffats by Eleanor Estes

You're Never Too Old For This! =)

Hello Fellow Scribblers! :) Before I begin this post, I thought I'd remind you all that there are only....22 days to enter the Autumn Writing Contest! Yes, I know publicity reminders are irritating, but I only have one real entry right now and I'd love to hear from all you girls on there! Thanks to my several new followers! You girls are what will make this a cozy little blog! :) Now for the real business.... Some poor people labor under the delusion that the Winne-The-Pooh books by A.A. Milne are for children. If you think that is a funny and wrong statement, I believe you have never read the real books! Read this quote from one website:

"Interestingly, Milne didn't write the Pooh stories and poems for children but instead intended them for the child within us."

And I have found this to be wonderfully true! :) In my opinion, Disney has watered down the Winne-The-Pooh stories and characters until they are for children and no one else. But I have seldom seen such wit and comedy in any other easy-reading book that you can find in the Winne-The-Pooh series! The humor is characterized by mispellings, amusing capitalizations, adorably choppy conversations, and...Pooh logic! Here are several quotes from the various books:
"Just what I feel," said Rabbit. "What do you say, Pooh?" Pooh opened his eyes with a jerk and said, "Extremely." "Extremely what?" asked Rabbit. "What you were saying," said Pooh. "Undoubtably." Piglet gave Pooh a stiffening sort of nudge, and Pooh, who felt more and more that he was somewhere else, got up slowly and began to look for himself. "But how shall we do it?" asked Piglet. "What sort of a lesson, Rabbit?" "That's the point," said Rabbit. The word "lesson" came back to Pooh as one he had heard before somewhere. "There's a thing called Twy-stymes," he said. "Christopher Robin tried to teach it to me once, but it didn't." "What didn't?" said Rabbit. "Didn't what?" said Piglet. Pooh shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "It just didn't."

"Well," said Owl, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said Pooh. "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." "It means the Thing to Do." "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said Pooh humbly. "The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward. Then---" "Just a moment," said Pooh, holding up his paw. What do we do to this--what you were saying? You sneezed just as you were going to tell me." "I didn't sneeze." "Yes you did Owl." "Excuse me, Pooh, I didn't. You can't sneeze without knowing it." "Well, you can't know it without something having been sneezed." "What I said was, `First Issue a Reward.' " "You're doing it again," said Pooh sadly."

"A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat
Which is not to be wondered at;
He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back....

Our bear rejoiced like anything
To read about this famous King,
Nicknamed "The Handsome." There he sat,
And certainly the man was fat.
Nicknamed "The Handsome." Not a doubt
The man was definitely stout.
Why then, a bear (for all his tub)
Might yet be named "The Handsome Cub"!

Anyway, I hope you will read A.A. Milne's books and enjoy them as much as my family and I have! It may be strange to believe at first, but one of the chapters in a book that we have laughed at so hard we cry is the "Heffalump-Hunting" chapter of one of the Pooh books! Read them! They are amazingly funny! :) -Rachel

"The Romance of Mr. Puddleby"

Hey guys! Last post I bemoaned the fact that I only had toads to use as models. Well, I used them! Meet Mr. Otis Puddleby! :) The star of "The Romance of Mr. Puddleby". (I put his bowtie in the wrong place, so he looks rather owlish, but that is of little consequence for a 3-year-old's book! :)

The story centers around this young, handsome, and debonair toad, who is convinced by his friend Sir Ringneck to go find himself a bride to cure his loneliness. He takes the advice, and goes to woo and win himself a bride: the fair Geraldine, who is absolutely "all over with warts". (Which in a toad's way of thinking, is pricelessly beautiful :) I have only painted two pictures so far, but have written the whole story! The bad thing is, both Mr. Puddleby, and Geraldine (at least the models) perished in their habitat! I hadn't even gotten a chance to paint Geraldine! Hopefully I can find two similar ones and keep them alive! :) I suppose I ought to make them a proper epithet:

"Here the lie the bodies of ones who waddle

Through life, until they begin to model.

They posed for her, and did their part

And furthered well her dabbling art." ;)

And in case you wanted to see the next illustration of Sir Ringneck convincing Mr. Puddleby, it is below!

This is the better one of the two I think! :) His bowtie seems to be in a likely place, and I like Sir Ringneck's clothes! I am trying to figure out how I ought to paint a "tan-paisley waistcoat" on Mr. Puddleby, which he wears to "go a'courtin'" :) I can't wait to draw the last picture, which will be Otis Puddleby and Geraldine getting married! :) -Rachel

What Can I Do With a Toad or Two? :)

Little Gracie (3) has been absolutely loving our big old volume of Beatrix Potter's books. In the past, I have written and illustrated a series of books for Abigail, (at least, a few) so I am thinking it is high time I did another one, complete with watercolor illustrations for Gracie. Recently, I've been inspired by Beatrix Potter's books, and have been studying her paintings, to see what exactly makes them so terribly charming! So I'm off on a quest to make a book for Grace that even somewhat resembles the charm found in the Potter tales! But a good artist needs a model, and since I don't want to draw the book about LaMancha goats, a dog, chickens, or a cat, the only capturable thing I have around here are toads. But what is charming about a toad? What sort of inspiration can one find in those warty beasts? I am off to find out. I shall make a tale about a toad-a good tale, and paint him faithfully. That is, unless something more congenial comes along. The only other thing I could paint is a guinea pig of ours. But she leads a very dull life in her cage, and is rather unoteworthy, excepting the fact that she is a very pretty creature indeed! :) Wish me luck in my attempts to make a masterpiece out of a toad or two! :) -Rachel