One
of my favorite writers and illustrators, Michelle Edwards, was kind
enough to invite me to join the My Writing Process Blog Tour. Michelle has
written and illustrated numerous books for children, including the National Jewish Book Award
winner, Chicken Man. If you enjoy knitting, you might like to pick up her book on knitting for adults, A
Knitter's Home Companion, an illustrated collection of stories, knitting patterns,
and recipes. To find out more about her work, visit her website: www.michelledwards.com.
And if you want to check out her tour post, which appeared last week, click
here: http://michelledwards.com/blog/2014/6/23/my-writing-process-blog-tour
You’ll find my answers to
the tour’s four questions below, as well as links to the author who I’ve tagged
and whose responses will appear on the blog tour next week.
1. What am I working on?
Pffffssssssssssssssttttttttttt. Do you hear that sound? It’s the
sound of air escaping from the chamber of my heart where stories-in-progress
are kept, leaving them limp and flat and earthbound. It’s the sound that I hear
whenever I answer this question, a question that drains the enthusiasm and
energy out of my pen, and leaves me stranded, empty-handed, wishing that I’d
kept my mouth shut instead of answering the question.
The first time anyone asked me this question, I made the mistake
of answering, and the story that I was working on turned to dust. The second
time someone asked me the question, the same thing happened. In time I stopped
responding to the question and politely switched the subject, which is, of
course, what I’m doing now. I’ve learned not to respond to the question.
Writing, I’ve learned, requires silence in order for a story to
grow. As soon as I open a door and start talking about a story, revealing its
secret—even when I don’t yet know its secret—the story ends up deflated, much
like a punctured balloon, and all my energy for that project rushes out the
door, too. That’s why I don’t tell anyone what I’m working on. I need to keep
it a secret, and that means not telling my wife, my
brother, my critique partners, and certainly not strangers until the work is done or almost done.
But I can tell you what I’ve been working on for the past few
years since the projects are almost ready to share: a YA novel about a high
school runner who moves to Florida and discovers the kind of racial prejudice
that he thought ended with the Civil War, and a book for adults about yoga that delves
into the link between meditation and yoga. I’m working on a MG novel, as well,
but that’s all I can say about it without puncturing the balloon and hearing
that sound (Pffffsssssssttttt) again.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
How does any writer’s work differ from another writer’s work?
Each of us writes in our own unique, idiosyncratic way, making our work
distinctly our own in the same way our fingerprints are our own, or in the same
way that snowflakes possess unique qualities and characteristics that make them
different from one another. Every writer uses the same twenty-six letters of
the alphabet. Yet each of us manages to convey an entirely different world
based on our perspectives, our backgrounds, our prejudices, our tics and habits
and preferences.
Until I went to Vermont College (now Vermont College of Fine Arts) for an MFA, I used to write
whatever an editor asked me to write. If an editor needed a book on a certain
baseball player, I wrote it. If another editor asked for an adventure story, I
wrote that, too. If an editor requested a nonfiction book about American
explorers, I did the research and came up with a book. These were the first books
that I published. They taught me a lot about writing
for children. But they didn’t teach me how to write stories that came from my
heart. I didn’t learn how to tap into my own emotional core until I studied
with the amazing teachers at VCFA, including Jackie Woodson, Graham Salisbury,
Norma Fox Mazer, and Marion Dane Bauer, who were the most supportive and
nurturing mentors any writer could ask for.
Each of these teachers wrote about the world from a different
perspective, yet they taught me the the same lesson: the importance of writing from the heart. Maybe
that’s what distinguishes my work from the work of other writers, although I
think that any writer, if he wants to reach a reader’s heart, has to open his
heart, too. If I’ve done my job as a writer, then
the stories that I write will reflect what's in my heart. My vision. My prejudices. My desires. My
assumptions. My way of looking at the world. I guess that’s what makes my work
different from another writer’s work. And it’s what makes another writer’s work
different from mine.
3. Why do I write what I do?
I write what I’m compelled to write. Sometimes I hear a voice, or
I wake up from a dream with a faint memory of an image, or I simply want to see
where my pen will lead me. Sometimes the words lead to a young adult novel,
sometimes to a short story, sometimes to a
piece for adults about yoga or writing or meditation. Usually, when I start
out, I don’t know in advance where the words will lead. I listen for a voice.
And when I hear it, I try to capture it on paper, to get it from inside my head
onto the page so that others can hear it on the page and enjoy reading what I
hope will be a good story.
4. How does your writing process work?
Here’s how it works: I have my own rituals that I follow before sitting
down at my desk at roughly the same time every morning. I’ll go for a walk before breakfast. I’ll make a pot of coffee. I’ll read
the morning newspaper’s headlines and comics (Zits is my favorite). And then I’ll
go into my office and open up my laptop and begin working.
Some days the writing comes smoothly, others it’s a stormy
process. I can’t tell ahead of time what kind of day it will be until I sit
down and start. Often, I’ll start the day reading a poem to help me re-enter the
space where words come from. Or I’ll fold laundry and the action of using my
hands to fold somehow gives my mind a chance to relax and work its way into a
story. The same is true for washing the breakfast dishes. These daily, mundane
chores help me think about stories without actually writing so that when I get
to my desk in the morning I’m ready to begin.
I find it helps to have a number of projects to work on. One of
my teachers at Vermont College—I think it was Sharon Darrow—suggested that writing is a lot
like riding horses. If a horse falters in midstream, it's helpful to have another horse in reserve to jump onto so I can keep
writing. It's also helpful to remember that I can always climb back on the horse that faltered and ride it again further downstream.
* * * * *
I’ve asked Ann Angel, a writer who I
met at Vermont College years ago and whose career has blossomed in many
directions since we got our degrees, to share her writing process on
the tour next week.
Ann
Angel is the author of Janis
Joplin, Rise Up Singing (Abrams 2010), winner of the American Library
Associations' 2010 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award. The book also made
Booklist's 2011 Top Ten Biographies for Youth and the 2011 Top Ten Arts Books
list. It is a 2011 CCBC Choice Book and received an SCBWI Crystal Kite Award
and more. Ann has also written young adult fiction and nonfiction, including the critically acclaimed books Such A Pretty Face: Short Stories about Beauty
(Abrams, 2007) and Robert Cormier: Writer of the Chocolate War (Enslow,
2007). In fall, 2013, Ann's biographies of famous adoptees, Adopted Like Me,
My Book of Adopted Heroes, was released by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, and
her upcoming anthology, Secret Selves, Short Stories About the Secrets We
Keep and Share (Candlewick, 2015) will introduce readers to fifteen authors who
reveal secrets their characters have tried to lock away. She posts on her blog
http://annangelwriter.com/blog/
and contributes to another blog, The Pirate Tree http://www.thepiratetree.com . For more
info, take a look at her website: http://annangelwriter.com/index.html
Posts
