Category: Writing (Page 67 of 73)

Nuggets of Writing Wisdom from SCBWI L.A. 2010 Conference

August 28, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

As promised here are some nuggets of wisdom from the SCBWI L.A. conference. They are pretty much all writing related, but many of them have universal wisdom as well.

M.T. Anderson:

- Books take us away from home, so we can actually see our home.

- Literature restores a sense of unknown to what we already know.
- Understanding the past is just as much about forging ahead to the future.

Gordon Korman:

- What do you use more as an adult? Your sense of humor or your ability to recognize foreshadowing.

- Kids are more subtle than you think they are. It’s not that stuff is going over their heads; it’s just the stuff we think is important, they don’t care about.
- Kids are not an exotic subspecies. When we are writing for kids, we are writing for ourselves.

E.B. Lewis:

- We spend so much time scratching to get some wealth that we miss out true wealth: our children.

- Sometimes we don’t scratch deep enough to find the true value of our kids. It’s more valuable than gold. We scratch them too deep sometimes and destroy our children.
- As artists, we need to fill ourselves up to flowing and give it all back.

Rachel Vail:

- The trick to being a good listener is to actually listen.

- Spying is key to being a writer. Put on your headphones in a public place, but don’t really listen to music.

- How can two people in same conversation have such different experiences of what happens.
- When I get stuck, I make some tea and force myself to remember.

Gail Carson Levine:

- When you make a list, no idea is stupid.
- The magic and joy of being a writer is learning about yourself in your writing.

Carolyn Mackler:

- By standing out, you put yourself out there for a fall.
- Be proud of what you wish for and stand by it, even if it’s harder than you expected.

Gennifer Choldenko:

- Human beings need stories; we always have and we always will.

- Harness the energy of your dreams.
- Give yourself the right to take risks; you’re not making real risks if you haven’t risked and failed.

Paul Fleischman:

- Research should be like slip; it should be there but never show.

- Laughter gives you a sense of control.
- There’s now way around but through–that’s the writing life.

There’s not much left to say after reading over what these heavy-hitters in the kidlit world had to say, so I’ll leave you with my own ridiculous mid-conference quotation: “I just don’t think I can listen to one more stranger and pretend to care about they’re saying.”

Reality TV Show About Writers Called Kill Your Darlings

July 19, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

In addition to all the shows that offer up (often crazy) fame-seekers their 15 minutes, it seems there’s a reality TV show for just about every aspiring professional: singers, dancers (I’m a big fan of SYTYCD), artists, chefs (I’m also a fan of Top Chef), models…just about everything. But I have yet to come across a reality show for writers.

Let’s imagine a show where aspiring writers live together, write together, and compete against each other all with the hopes of winning the grand prize of a six-figure publishing contract. We’ll call it “Kill Your Darlings.”

Here’s what might happen in the first five episodes:

Episode One–Our writers are shown to their compound, which is somewhere in the middle of a remote wood in a large camplike building with cots and no indoor bathrooms or running water, and only one electrical plug. A shouting match ensues over who gets to be first to charge his/her laptop. The kindergarten-teacher-by-day/picture-book-writer-by-night character convinces everyone to draw sticks for the plug. The day ends with the lead instigator of the shouting match, who is an egomaniacal writer with one (indulgent) self-published book to his name, in the outhouse saying, “You don’t mess with me like that. Everyone just better watch their backs when I’m around the plug.”

Episode Two–The obnoxiously beautiful (and probably British) female host blasts an air horn to wake the writers. The first challenge is a 20-minute writing session. The goal is to write as many words as possible of your story. The person with the lowest word count will be eliminated. A woman with an annoyingly high voice throws a fit when her laptop battery dies at the 15-minute mark, and even the pretentious guy who writes only on his old mechanical typewriter beats her word count. The host makes a stabbing gesture with her hand and tells the loser, “I’m sorry, you have been killed.”

Episode Three–The host announces that today’s challenge is to write a personal essay answering the question “Why did I become a writer?” The two hours the contestants have to compose is spliced into a montage with the writers sobbing/writing in inspirational corners of nature and a backdrop of sappy voice overs describing the tragedies that led them to the writing life. The winning essay details how the writer had overcome being raised in an orphanage, a near-death experience in a plane crash, a scare with cancer, and taking care of her sick husband. Three of the five judges were reduced to tears during the judging ceremony.

Episode Four–A side story of a budding relationship between two of the contestants (one of whom is married) is thread into the narrative. Meanwhile, the contestants take part in an intensive writing session in which they are all locked into one small room. There is a lot of hair ruffling, frustrated grunting, nail biting, frantic typing, and self-berating done by all the writers. One contestant spends nearly the entire time staring out the one small window, lost in thought, but still manages to avoid being “killed” because the judges deem the haiku he wrote as “inspired.”

Episode Five–The budding relationship has turned into a full-on showmance with the married writer declaring in her outhouse interview that she is leaving her husband for her new reality-TV soul mate. The contestants are given each other’s writing to review and the show turns into a free-for-all of unnecessarily mean criticism by the critiquers followed illogical justification of their writing choices by the critiquees. Sadly, one of the showmancers is “killed” from the competition.

Well, clearly I could just keep going on and on and on with this. Honestly, it would probably make for better television than 90% of what’s currently on.

Magnetic Poetry: Birthday Party Edition

July 10, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

The party-goers have been at it once again! They were at my house celebrating a certain occasion (I’ll never tell what, but there are some not-so-subtle clues in this post and the actual date of the cause of celebration is July 12th) when they decided to have some fun with the magnetic poetry kit.

Here’s what the fearless poets came up with this time:

manipulate explore and burn (possible instructions for covering up crime?…maybe my brain went there because The Godfather is on)
puppet confess rhythm howl work too girl pour a s (my little nephew, who turned four earlier this month, came up with this one…it has a certain rhythm to it all right)
silent voice time (we could all use a little of this)
prostitute s love to create pleasure for naked obedient expose d chicken monkey s (it wouldn’t be magnetic poetry without the good ol’ prostitute and her crazy exploits with the exposed chicken monkey)
investigate who vacuum es up beauty (grammar issues aside–it seems all the S’s were already being used–i suspect this somehow involves the crimes committed by the first poet)
suck sex (c’mon, you know what comes next…say it with me, “That’s what she said!”)
why dance funny like the strange spider with the precious old pickle (why, indeed)
imagine every dream be ing sweet (my personal favorite, probably because my dreams tend to be anything but sweet)

Thanks to all who participated in writing this wonderful poetry. I always enjoy sharing your creative creations.

The Ever Morphing, Humorous, Exciting, Dumber? Aspects of the English Language

June 30, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

Seeing as I’m a nerdy writer-type, I find discussions about grammar and language fascinating. The really cool thing about these discussions are that they are so often humorous. I know, you’re thinking, Grammar and language, humorous. No way! But really, just go with me on this (I have amusing examples to back me up).

Take this video about English:

If you didn’t laugh at this, well, I suspect you may lack a pulse. It reminded me of a particular discussion I once had with my brother and hubby about superlatives, in particular the word “dumber.” (And, for the record, my brother and hubby are not dumber than I (or is it me?) because I am not dumb at all!)

Another hilarious blog post about the Alot is over at Hyperbole and a Half. And check out agent Kristin Nelson sharing funny church-bulletin bloopers at Pub Rants.

My personal stance on the English language errs on the side of tradition (except on this blog because I prefer a more conversational tone here, like it’s just you and me, sitting on the hammock on a warm summer day, chatting it up about…well, as my blog description says…whatever), but I’m always open to new interpretations of words, grammar, and style.

That’s why language is so exciting: It’s always evolving, morphing, and adapting to suit current needs. And that means there’s always room for more debate!

People As Characters: The Don

May 31, 2010 / Katie L. Carroll

This is the first installment of my People As Characters series.

The hubby and I met Christina and Don on a recent vacation in St. Lucia. I guessed Don to be in his sixties. He has a big belly, a loud, friendly voice, and graying hair, which he covered with a baseball hat that had some sort of presidential seal on it. He claimed that it had been given to him by President Bill Clinton. Christina appeared to be a bit younger. She’s Portuguese and her soft, musical voice has a noticeable accent. They’ve been together for 10 years.

The hubby and I were on an open-air jeep/catamaran tour of the island with Don and Christina. Unfortunately for them, they had spent the first day of their vacation out in the sweltering St. Lucian sun…we’re talking a mere 13 degrees north of the equator. Not only did they not wear sunblock, but they lathered themselves up with oil. Apparently they have an old-school view of proper sun exposure. Needless to say, they resembled a pair of lobsters.

Christina spent most of the day shrouded in light-weight shawls and a giant hat, shrinking away from the sun and rolling her eyes at Don. Don spent most of the day talking. He was good at pointing out the obvious, telling stories and jokes that nobody really wanted to hear, and spending his money (which no one on the island wanted to take because who has change for a $100 bill when you buy only a pack of gum and some suntan lotion).

I got the feeling they spend a lot of money on vacations because they were staying at an nice, but overpriced resort, most of Don’s clothing was from a previous vacation destination (his sandals had the word “Hawaii” printed on them), and they bought everything from tropical trip essentials (like suntan lotion and shawls) to cheesy souvenirs while on the tour.

At one point, Don’s special presidential hat went flying off his head and into the street (luckily it didn’t fly off the side of the jeep and down the giant cliff that bordered the side of the road). Thomas, our good-natured guide, yelled to the driver to stop, jumped off the back of the jeep, and retrieved the hat…I hope Don used some of the change from his $100 bills (if he had any left by the end of the day) to give Thomas a good tip.

Despite Don’s bad sunburn, he seemed up for anything. He was one of only a few people who actually stood under the big waterfall at one of the stops and he bought a giant conch shell and learned how to blow into it to make a loud horn sound.

Don works for a juice concentrate company, but he loves fresh-squeezed juice. I’m not sure what Christina does, but she has an apartment in Manhattan. Don has a house in New Jersey, where he grew up. Neither was willing to give up his/her residence since they’ve been together, so they kept both and share time between the two residences (like some sort of split-custody living arrangement).

Don and Christina were really fun to observe because they were just so full of personality.