Charles Emery’s voice

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m working on a middle grade series. I’ve recently paused writing the second story to edit the first.

At a conference last fall I had the opportunity to read the first six pages of the first novel aloud to a group of twenty-five writers and the accomplished author/editor Arthur A. Levine.  In preparation I spent a day tweaking the brief introduction to the book. Arthur’s advice was to carry the voice of the narrator in that introduction throughout the novel, and I might have something worthwhile.

After the conference, I reread my manuscript and discovered serious inconsistencies in the narration. One voice was enthusiastic and immature.; another, brusque and flashy.  A third seemed unfocused. The only voice worth hearing was indeed the the plain, confident one in the introduction. Who was that? I searched my memory for the face of someone I knew who spoke like that. One wrong face after another appeared in my imagination before I recalled that of Charles Emery (pictured).

The late Mr. Emery was my high school coach and English teacher at the Fountain Valley School of Colorado.  He was an extremely reserved but approachable man in his forties. His teaching manner can best be described as deliberate. He gave good lectures supporting his positions with historical facts and passages from the text. Students could always tell when Mr. Emery was about to read. He would lean back in his chair, lower his half-moon glasses, and tip his head up slightly.   He read us Chaucer, Shakespeare and Donne in his naturally low timbre. There was a resonant, Gregorian hum to his voice that caught the ear. He spoke almost without inflection. The poignancy and emotion of the stories were carried rather in the occasional pause or drop in volume.  He read to a room filled with sixteen-year-old boys, none of whom ever spoke over him. I recall closing my own eyes or staring out through the window, not to avoid his performance, but to focus on it more intently.

Mr. Emery – Chuck, as he insisted I call him in our few correspondences years later - was a decorate war hero (UDT in WWII). He was a champion handball player and had been a scholar at Columbia University. He never spoke of any of this to us. We learned about it in murmurs from the seniors. I never saw him brag, or swagger, or speak sharply to anyone.

I’ll never have Charles Emery’s voice, but always carry it with me, perhaps feebly into my own little stories.

Here’s a bit more about Mr. Emery from the school. As you will see, I’m hardly alone in my praise of him.

http://www.fvs.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=204&tn=FVS+bids+goodbye+to+Senior+Master+Emeritus+Charles+F.+Emery+’38&nid=367998&ptid=39771&sdb=False&pf=pgr&mode=0&vcm=True

Maurice Sendak and his uncle

Let me start by saying I never met Maurice Sendak, the exceptional author and illustrator of children’s books. But  I’d like speak about my reaction to something he once said :

After Sendak passed away last week, NPR replayed a 2006 interview with him (below). In it he talks about how his fury at his aunts and uncles drove his work – in particular his uncle’s comment to Maurice Sendak’s father that nobody would want to kidnap his children.

I’d like to offer a different take on the uncle’s statement that I feel I owe to my empathetic mother, who couldn’t bear even her own anger.

Naturally, a child might feel anger at what seemed to be a hurtful snub. I certainly would have as a boy myself.

But as an adult, I’d like to suggest an alternate explanation. Seeing the anxiety in his brother’s face, might not the uncle’s words have been meant to comfort and reassure his brother? Why indeed should Maurice Sendak’s father be concerned? Was his the family of a celebrity millionaire? Was there a kidnapping of a similar child in his neighborhood.

What I’m suggesting is not that the Sendaks’ reaction was extreme. We all feel personally threatened hearing news of notorious crimes.  But later in life, shouldn’t an adult look deeper? I’m not suggesting any kind of parity with the great author, but shouldn’t a writer see the world with more nuance than does a child?

NPR Narrative … Another book features a baby being kidnapped, just as the Lindbergh baby was famously kidnapped when Sendak was a boy.

MAURICE SENDAK: I had my father sleep in our room. We all shared a room, my brother, sister and I. And he had to sleep – and I still can see him with his underwear top, trousers, a baseball bat lying on the floor. And in case the kidnapper came in, he would kill him. And when my Uncle Joe – who I then used as the ugliest of all the Wild Things, because I loathed him – was – he said to my father: Why would they want your kids, Phillip?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SENDAK: How insulting could that be to a child, when he isn’t worthy of being kidnapped?

INSKEEP: Have you now gotten even with the people who made your childhood unhappy?

SENDAK: No, of course not. But, you know, being in a fury and not getting even is a lot of the energy that goes into work.

* http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152253537/beloved-childrens-author-maurice-sendak-dies )

you can not control what you do not measure

 

 

 

 

 

“You can not control what you do not measure.” It’s a phrase in business with murky origins. Someone is said to have coined it, but it seems that he was misquoted or a poorly paraphrased. Whatever the phrase’s beginnings, its meaning is profound.

There is a time to be unaware of one’s position: a dream, a moment of creation, a walk with the one you love. But I have discovered that if I do not gauge my progress, I am likely to make little of it. I count my pages now. I focus on milestones and personal deadlines. It’s made a huge difference in my writing. Everything counts, not with the same level of importance, but it matters nonetheless.

page 132 of the new novel

Shaking with fear and guilt, Erin told the Nighthawk,”We want to fix what my parents did, and save your islands from the Coal People. But we’re just kids, and we’re lost in time!”

Current Word Count: 32, 613

Hornblower and the Hotspur

Hornbower and the Hotspur

For background for my sea story I’m reading Hornblower and the Hotspur by C. S. Forester.  The Hornblower series is set in the Napoleonic Wars, some eighty years after the period of my story. The characters are decidedly not pirates.  They’re the Royal Navy side of my tale.  For the pirate side I will read other books.

I read the Forester books to glean the nautical terms, the commands, the ship handling and the battle scenes which would have been very similar to the 1720′s when mine is set.

Apropos to children and sea stories, this series was among my father’s favorites.  He started reading them in 1937 at age 34, when the first two were published.  The last was written in the late ’60s.  Lord Horatio Nelson, hero of Trafalgar, was a boyhood hero of my dad’s.  Clearly he was influenced as a child by sea stories. His youth was at the time when Teddy Roosevelt and the emergence of American sea power were in vogue. You can see his stalwart nature and his passion for the navy in this precious portrait of Judge Wilmer Brady Hunt, my dad, when he was, as he would say, still in short pants.

A few lines from my current project.

Pettiprig's Stern

Admiral Squeamish Pettiprig raised an eyebrow. “My three ships can certainly sink Darkrunner’s one,” he said.

“But what if he’s with Nell Flanders?” Roderick asked wagging a finger at the admiral.

Pettiprig shrunk back for a moment before steeling himself once again. “I have good intelligence,” he replied. “That she’s careened her ship on the beach at Flamingo Petite.”

Minutes later Pettiprig’s flotilla sailed off in a rush to Port Left with Foppy Sniggers, who no one noticed lay unconscious on the floor of the wine locker.

Outline complete

I finished my outline for the new story today.  It took me a couple of weeks, but I’m satisfied that writing it was a good idea.

I have mixed feelings, not about the outline itself, but about knowing so much about the plot.  The less you know about your journey the more exciting it is. But, as any veteran traveller can tell you, there is a danger in not knowing what’s ahead. 

There are two good things about this outline:

Firstly, I won’t end up retreating from blind alleys having forgotten important aspects that must be brought forward.  No stranger to this behavior, I’ve spent many days reworking the messes I’ve gotten myself into.

Secondly, with plot in hand, I can concentrate on the richer characters that a solid story can support.   Hopefully I will be able delve deeper into the circumstance, behavior and dialog of each.    Laborious and difficult as a writing an outline can be, these three-thousand words may save this writer the frustration and indignation of the dreaded page-one rewrite.

What I learned at the SCBWI Conference

I attended the conference with two specific goals:  to gain a better understanding of how the publishing business works and to learn how to be a more focused writer. Here is a breakdown of what I learned in four of the breakout sessions.

Steven Malk

One of the most memorable of the sessions was given by agent Steven Malk of Writers House.  Steven is cocky and generous, and he is very focused on work.  An avid Fantasy Baseball enthusiast, his position in a top agency and his hyper-competitive nature qualify him to be a spokesman for his topic:  Career Management 101.  He spoke forcefully for an hour about the importance of patience, of not over-extending yourself, of having a good attitude and of taking ownership of your own career.

“Small things can make a big difference,”  he said referring to how a writer should present herself to bothe the industry and her readers.  Don’t be brash, he said, of query letters. “But be confident.”  Steven emphasized reading everything you can in your field and studying the careers of successful writers.

Sarah Shumway and Michael Stern

Michael and Sarah’s session was on first pages for middle-grade books.  Michael is an editor at Firebrand; Sarah is a senior Editor at Katherine Tegen Books.  They were a well-suited – so well that they gave each other the giggles near the closing of the session.  But the rest was all business. 

The gist of what they were saying seems too facile to say, but they said it forcefully:   Engage the reader, in this case the agent or editor reading your query.   Make him laugh.  Make her curious.  Don’t try to say too much too soon.  Let the story develop organically.  Be mysterious if you like, but not confusing.

The importance of originally came up many times.  Don’t use cliches, they said.  Name things well, especially in fantasy.  Don’t use adjectives whenever just the noun will do.  Don’t just describe a scene; invoke an emotion.

Krista Marino and Nathan Bransford

Krista Marino is senior editor at Delacorte Press.  Nathan Bransford is an agent for Curtis Brown, Ltd.  Together they put on a very inciteful critique session for first pages for middle-grade novels.  (This is my field, so I was eager to get as much exposure as possible.)

I have to say the Krista and Nathan were polar opposites from Sarah and Michael.  I see them now as though they were married couples playing partners bridge.  Sarah and Michael were light and a bit giddy with the hands they were dealt.  Krista and Nathan played their cards earnestly and close to the vest.  They were equally observant, but different.  I don’t want to make too much of this.  I just like to watch couples work.

Together they stressed a number of important qualities about writing.  As Sarah and Michael emphasised also, don’t just describe what happens.  Show the reactions in the protagonist.  Don’t give away too much; you have a whole novel to roll out the story.  Don’t address the reader directly often, if at all.  Don’t be too chatty.  Never use words like “suddenly” or “nice.”  Ground the reader.  Don’t be coy in your setup, but say what you mean.  (That’s how they commented on my piece, and they were right on the money.) Don’t telegraph action by stating what you’re already showing.   Be witty and quirky. That shows your originality.

Michael Sterns (Again)

I also took Michael’s session in “Ten Things Agents ask of Your Novel Manuscript.”  (There were actually fifteen.) I don’t want to give away much.  You should hear him speak.  But a few things he mentioned are:  Have a clock in your story.  That will give it urgency, trim the bulk and thrust the action forward.  Take full advantage of subplots.  He uses as his example the jokes in Blazing Saddles (everyone’s favorite).  Use big jokes (or dramatic moments if that’s your theme).  But have small jokes and gaffs to keep the reader from tapping her foot between the larger ones.

These ideas are some measure of the riches I found at the SCBWI conference this year.  Anyone interested in writing or illustrating for children should seek out these retreats.  I feel renewed .  In fact I spent my lunch breaks cutting swaths of unnecessary plot out of the novel I am working on.  My story will be clearer and deeper because I spent a weekend with these generous professionals.

Nancy Pearl

One last thing.  As I was adding cream to my coffee between sessions, I heard an unmistakable voice of behind me.  I spun around and extended my hand to Nancy Pearl, Champion of Literacy, author of Book Lust and a wonderful resource for readers worldwide through her weekly interview and extensive blog. I had been unable to attend her talk due to a conflict, but I did have a chance to thank her for her efforts in support of readers and writers alike.

Clarity and patience

 I’ve learned a great deal about writing from reading.  You are what you read.  Everyone says it.  Stephen King in his On Writing, for one.   John Lennon became the songwriter he was by listening to stacks and stacks of pop 45′s.

And yet, good writing doesn’t just come from reading, nor education by itself.  Satisfactory writing, for me at least, comes through quite a lot of unsatisfactory writing.  It’s easy to beat yourself up about it.  Indeed, I’ve gone to the school of self-flagellation wearing my sack cloth and ashes.  By in large, that time was wasted.  Vanity and modesty are both illusory.

Good writing comes in the effort of making your imagination clear.  Clarity informs everything.  It tells you what is overstated, ommited and overdramatized.   To be clear is to tell a tale or sing a song without deviation, and isn’t that what we all look for in art?

And patience can’t be underestimated, for it implies two qualities one brings to a piece:  First, the dignity of labor.  To be patient means you will show up on time with a willingness to work for as long as it takes.  Patience further suggests that you will leave your negative nature behind and not infect the words with it.

The photograph, by the way, is of my granddaughter Erin who at three-years-old exhibits a remarkable degree of clarity and patience in so much that she does – especially her storytelling. As an example when she was barely two, she created an imaginary sister named Wall. Her hands and feet are mermaids and such.  Each has a name and a set of traits. She has stories about them all, and talks to them regularly. The remarkable thing is how clearly she remembers each vignette and how consistent are the properties of each character. I know this because when I confuse them, she corrects me with an all but imperciptible show of exasperation.  She is my inspiration.

About famed Dream City writer S. E. Hunt

Here is a quote from The Inventors’ Daughter series website in which I describe my collaboration with famed Dream City writer S. E. Hunt. (S. E. is a very close relation. In fact we could hardly be closer.)

Every night – very, very late – I fly high above the clouded moonlit ocean from Seattle to Dream City, never quite sure whether Professor Spotworth’s buzzing, sputtering Astral Phaeton will stay aloft for the entire frigid, buffeted journey. Once there, I join S. E. in a gloomy, back-alley coffee shop where we scribble, shout and toss notes at one another from opposite ends of a long, battered table.

 http://www.theinventorsdaughter.com/Author.aspx 

Why have a collaborator?  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m used to working alone, and I tried my best to research Dream City and write the book by myself.  I was shown the shark-shaped Aquarium.  I joined the Jupiter Space Museum, a five-story glass ball resembling the striped planet with the hurricane-eye riding on its equator.  I even travailed up to the Tripod observation deck where I could look down seven-hundred feet onto the three Dream Islands below.

But it was no use.  I could tell the stories alright, but the pages were as dry as a Pharaoh’s mummy.  No, I needed a partner who was not only a good writer, but a resident of Dream City and someone who actually knew the brave and clever Erin Isabelle Becker-Spotsworth.  I believe our collaboration, though quite stormy, has yielded far richer tales than I myself could have ever told alone, or he by himself for that matter.

I recommend to all writers that they occassionally take the opportunity to join a fellow scribbler and see if one plus one does not equal … well, who knows what? 

I suppose not knowing is rather the point, wouldn’t you say?