Finding Our Balance

Until reading Penny Blubaugh’s novel, Serendipity Market, I hadn’t thought of storytelling or writing as a way of restoring the world’s balance.

But it’s an intriguing idea, isn’t it?

Do you think we tell stories as a way of regaining our equilibrium? And do you think we read and write stories for much the same reason–to fill the space in our hearts so that we don’t feel so empty, so out of balance?

Toward the end of Serendipity Market, one of the main characters (Lizard Man) says longingly: “This feeling... I wish it could last forever.”

That’s a sentiment every reader can share, I think, whenever we find a book to love, a story that pulls us in with magic and love, mystery and truth, a book that we don’t want to end.

It’s a sentiment that’s shared wholeheartedly by Blubaugh’s reader, too, as Serendipity Market comes to a close, and the danger that opens the story–the world spinning out of balance– is avoided thanks to the tales that Blubaugh has conjured within its pages.

The tales in this book are Blubaugh’s imaginative spins on ancient fairy tales. These tales, as Blubaugh writes in her afterward, are “like a collected memory reservoir that we can draw on anytime.” (That’s another wonderful notion that Blubaugh shares with readers–that stories are a kind of collective reservoir of humankind’s memories.)

You know you’ve entered a magical world from the very first paragraph:

Sometimes it’s the way a leaf tumbles to the ground. Sometimes it’s the slant of the afternoon sun, or the way the moon shadows ring the rocks at the water’s edge. This time it’s the appearance of a yellow-green finch in March. Stories are all around, so Mama Inez and Toby always watch for signs.

Stories are all around us, Blubaugh reminds us, if only we pay close attention and learn to watch for the signs.

It’s Mama Inez and Toby, her dog, who first notice the telling signs that the world is spinning out of balance and take the necessary steps to restore its balance.

Mama Inez writes with her fountain pen: “You’re invited to the Serendipity Market at the end of the world. Saturday next. Bring your story, bring a talisman. Help us balance the world’s spin.”

And then:

She folds each invitation to fit, neatly, squarely, into the confines of the bird envelopes. Toby breathes on each letter, breathes until the wings begin to move. They’re sluggish at first, but soon the birds are circling the witch’s-hat tower. Mama Inez sends them on their way, kestrels to the south, hawks to the north, falcons to the west, owls to the east...

And, so, the magic begins, with Mama Inez waiting at her house at the end of the world to see which of the ten birds will return and which storytellers will make the journey to the Serendipity Market to help save the world.

This notion--that storytellers have the power to save the world--is part of the magic that pulled me into the story, perhaps even more so than the fantastic re-imaginings of familiar fairy tales like Red Riding Hood or Cinderella.

With each story that unfolds in this book of magic, I kept hoping each storyteller would manage with his or her tale to restore a bit more balance to the world.

Isn’t that idea at the heart of our own storytelling efforts?

Somehow--for whatever reason--we feel the need to set the world straight.

In some way–emotionally, psychologically, physically–our world is out of balance; something is amiss. And it’s through our stories, through the process of writing (and through the process of reading and hearing stories, as well), that we regain our balance and, in the process, restore the balance to the world.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the world regains its balance by the end of Blubaugh’s novel.

What is delightfully surprising, though, is how each story, thanks to Blubaugh’s willingness to explore new and unfamiliar emotional terrain, sheds new light on the riches that she discovers in these old tales.

Much like Toby breathing magic on the envelopes at the opening of the story, Blubaugh breathes her own special magic on the emotional truths in these tales, enabling those truths to come alive in the reader’s imagination and heart.

For information about Blubaugh's new book, Blood and Flowers, visit:
http://www.harperteen.com/books/Blood-Flowers-Penny-Blubaugh/?isbn=9780061728624

For more information on Blubaugh, visit her website: http://pennyblubaugh.com/
or check out her Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/people/Penny-Blubaugh/100000139699962

And for an interview with Blubaugh that appeared on wordswimmer, visit:
http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2009/07/one-writers-process-penny-blubaugh.html

One Writer’s Process: Penny Blubaugh

“Writing takes a really long time,” says Penny Blubaugh a writer, librarian, and former flight instructor whose first novel, Serendipity Market, took more than ten years to write. “You can’t really set a timetable with writing. You just have to plow through and keep your fingers crossed.”

She learned patience and the craft of writing fiction for young readers at Vermont College, earning an MFA while studying with masters of the form such as Chris Lynch, Jack Gantos, Ron Koertge, and Jacqueline Woodson.

It was during her time at Vermont College that she came upon the part in her novel with Mama Inez and Toby.

“It came from this dream I had,” says Blubaugh.

Blubaugh was able to develop that dream into a collection of fairy-tale stories, writing during the one day off that she got each week from her full-time job as a YA librarian. Eventually, with the help her of editor, she wove the stories together into Serendepity Market.

Now that her first novel is out in the world, Blubaugh, who lives in Chicago with her husband, has started a second under contract with HarperCollins, and was willing to take time away from her work to share her thoughts on writing.

Wordswimmer: How do you get in the water each day?

Blubaugh: I procrastinate at first, even though I really only get one or two good writing days a week. (I work full-time and I’m just too beat to write on work days!) I check e-mail, I do laundry, I fiddle. But, in my defense, there’s a reason – I’m one of those people who can’t fully concentrate if there’s something on my mind. So, if I know the back porch needs to be swept it’ll devil me till I sweep it. In other words, I have to get everything done and then ease into the real work with pen and paper. (And yes, I use just that. I do everything in longhand at the beginning.)

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat... for short work or longer work?

Blubaugh: I want to see how things work. I’m not an outliner. I start with a premise and try to work toward a perceived end, but I never know how I’m going to get from A to Z. Sometimes when I read things back I think, “Wow. That’s really interesting the way that worked out.” It’s almost a “Did I write that?” moment. This seems to work the same for long and short pieces.

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?

Blubaugh: I feel like I have lots of dry spells! Most often they come when I feel like something’s finished and I’m positive that I’ll never have one other thing that I’ll ever be able to write about. For those periods when nothing’s working I try to remember two things: one is a comment by Ron Koertge that’s something like “I don’t worry about a bad day writing because the next day will be better,” and the other is the old comment about Butt in Chair. Something has to come of that eventually!

Wordswimmer: What’s the hardest part of swimming?

Blubaugh: Getting in the water. In a pool you just have to jump right in. In writing, you kind of have to do the same thing and commit to the work. Otherwise, it’s so easy to stay on the beach in the sun!

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

Blubaugh: I’m almost always alone. I don’t have a critique group, although I wish I did! Every one I’ve tried to form has died a quiet death. A friend tells me this is because I’m a writer and the rest of them are dabblers, or something like that. I have a few friends far away that I send work to, but it’s not like the immediate response you get from a writer’s group. But it helps, and my agent will read works-in-progress, as well. So, mostly I just plug on. I think this means extra revisions when things get to my editor, but who knows? Maybe I’d be doing those, anyway. My agent has a Yahoo group and it’s nice to see other people floundering in the shallows just like me, but it’s not a place for feedback.

Wordswimmer: What’s the part of swimming that you love the most?

Blubaugh: Reading something that sings, that catches and holds my attention, that has beautiful words and phrases, good plotlines and resolutions, and knowing that I wrote it! It stuns me every time.

For more information about Blubaugh, visit her website:
http://pennyblubaugh.com/

For another interview with Blubaugh, check out:
http://www.chicagomaroon.com/2009/2/27/chicago-librarian-conjures-classic-fairy-tales-with-a-twist-in-serendipity-market

To read a review of Serendipity Market, take a look at:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/penny-blubaugh/serendipity-market.htm

And if you’d like to read an essay that Blubaugh wrote for ALAN, visit:
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/v28n1/blubaugh.html