My Writing Process Blog Tour

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

Swimming Out Of Solitude

As writers, we spend most of our writing lives in solitude, working alone, lost in imaginary worlds that take us far from our homes, our friends, our communities.

It can be daunting, not just the work itself, but the intense solitude that comes with the work, despite the pleasure that the words bring and despite the satisfaction that comes with telling a story, if only to one’s self.

But sometimes words and stories aren’t enough. We need to seek out the company of others to support and sustain us, not just for relief from our work and the solitude that comes with it, but for the pleasure of conversations, and for the delight that comes from sharing common interests with friends.

Some writers take up painting and search for classes to learn a new art. Others sign up for photography classes. And some writers, like Michelle Edwards, seek out the companionship and community that can be found in the company of knitters.

It was Edwards’ love of knitting and her desire to find a nurturing community that led to her newest book, A Knitter’s Home Companion, which is a love-song that she’s written to knitting and the process of forming a community around her life-long passion of shaping strands of wool into hats, scarves, sweaters, socks, mittens, and even egg warmers.

An award-winning picture book writer and illustrator, Edwards comes from a family of knitters, and she inherited the gift of “magic hands” from her mother and aunt. She began knitting as a child, and no matter where she’s lived during her life– whether in upstate New York, on a kibbutz in Israel, or in her current home in Iowa–she’s always managed to create a community for herself through her love of knitting.

At times she loves to knit so much, it seems, she can’t stop:

Many, many times, I have knit, as my good friend Esther likes to say, my mouth shut.

I have knit just to see the colors change. Just to feel the movement of my needles.

I have knit while walking, talking, reading, stopping at train crossings, waiting in checkout lanes, traveling on planes, and riding in cars.

I have knit by candlelight. By flashlight. During snowstorms. Tornadoes. Floods. I have knit thinking about the big questions. And I have knit thinking about what to make for dinner.

You’ll find that A Knitter’s Home Companion is more than a collection of stories that Edwards has written about her love of knitting.

She includes knitting patterns, cooking recipes, and books to read, and the structure and layout of the book offers readers an intimate sense of what it might actually feel like to sit in a room with other knitters and listen as they share the stories of their lives, along with favorite recipes, books to read, and patterns to knit.

In the process of knitting these stories, recipes, and patterns together, Edwards manages to show us how she’s knitted a life for herself around knitting, and how other writers might find a way to swim out of solitude, knitting for ourselves a nurturing, supportive community of friends out of our own interests and passions.

For more information about A Knitter’s Home Companion, visit:
http://michelledwards.com/a-knitters-home-companion/
http://www.amazon.com/Knitters-Home-Companion-Michelle-Edwards/dp/1584799161

If you'd like more information about Edwards and her work, visit: http://michelledwards.com/

And to read an interview with Edwards (on wordswimmer a few years ago), visit:
http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2008/09/one-writers-process-michelle-edwards.html

One Writer's Process: Michelle Edwards

It was at summer camp in Vermont that award-winning picture book author and illustrator Michelle Edwards first began thinking about making books.

Not just any kind of books.

Hand-made books.

"At Camp Hochelaga we had a book-making tradition," recalls Edwards. "Every summer the oldest group of girls hand-made a book called the Log. My last summer at Camp Hochelaga, I was the Log editor."

That first book, hand-illustrated and hand-written, revealed to Edwards just how much pleasure she took in sharing the process with others.

And she still feels that same tingling sense of joy each time she brings a new book into the world, whether it's one of her award-winning picture books like Chicken Man or Papa's Latkes, or a new title in her popular Jackson Friends series.

Edwards, who lives in Iowa City, IA, was kind enough to take a break from her work on picture books and a middle-grade reader--and from the knitting that she loves to do when she's not at her desk--to share her thoughts on writing with Wordswimmer.

Wordswimmer: If writing is like swimming...how do you get into the water each day?

Edwards: Coffee. Strong. Sometimes I read a bit before I dive in. A lot of times I sit in an ancient green barcalounger and write and draw on newsprint pads. If I am reading a work for a specific reason--the only reason I read in my studio--then I take notes on index cards.

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

Edwards: What keeps me afloat always is holding on to a particular heartbeat of the story. I keep it in my pocket like Little Brute kept the wandering good feeling. Often, when I am swimming laps (in the pool) or walking in the woods near my home, I am doing work, thinking about plot and characters.

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?

Edwards: Reading. Looking at art. Knitting.

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Edwards: When it isn't going well, I get this very uncomfortable feeling. Like wearing jeans that are too tight. Usually there's this inner voice cheering me on. But sometimes it gets cranky or worried. Then, I get worried, too.

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

Edwards: By thinking of the alternative. I just can't imagine not creating. Not seeing a story through. The characters just eat at me whether I'm ready to write about them or not. And sitting in my chair and working until there's a breakthrough of sorts. Paying attention and proceeding with confidence are my new mantras.

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

Edwards: When the story or picture is right and you just know it. That's a great feeling. It doesn't always last, but sometimes you just know you've hit it.

For more information about Edwards and her work, visit her website:
http://michelledwards.com/home/

And to read more interviews with Edwards, visit:
http://barbarabbookblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/michelle-edwards-chicken-man.html
http://yarncraft.lionbrand.com/2008/04/08/yarncraft-episode-13-yarncrafting-with-kids-top-5-kid-friendly-patterns/
http://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2007/10/catch-me-classic.html

If you'd like to read stories that Edwards shares with other knitters, visit: http://www.lionbrand.com/stories/

And to download samples of her art (for free), go to:
http://cache.lionbrand.com/downloadableCards/valentines2008.pdf

Swimming Through A Stormy Sea

It takes strong, skillful strokes to swim through a stormy sea without drowning or veering off-course.

Writing about death--one of the stormiest of seas for readers of any age--is tricky, but it's especially challenging when you're writing a story for children between the ages of six and nine who are just learning to read on their own.

Some adults might say it's dangerous--if not impossible--to introduce such a topic to young children. Yet that's exactly what Michelle Edwards has set out to do in Stinky Stern Forever.

Edwards, the winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Chicken Man, has crafted a sensitive portrait of a young girl's first experience with death, deftly exploring Pa Lia's confused feelings after watching Stinky Stern, one of her classmates--"the enemy of the second grade"--get hit by a van while crossing the street without looking.

Pa Lia and Stinky (and Stinky's mean-spirited antics) are introduced in the first chapter, where Edwards doesn't waste any time showing readers the tension in their relationship.

When Mrs. Fennessey lets the class make snowflakes in an art project at the end of the school day, Pa Lia is eager to begin and help her two best friends, Howie and Calliope.

Pa Lia was an excellent cutter. She cut and folded and sewed shapes all the time with her grandma to make paj ntaub, "story cloths." She finished her snowflake quickly.

"Beautiful," said Calliope.

"Super," said Howie. "Can you help us with ours?"

Pa Lia carefully put her snowflake on her desk. She showed Howie and Calliope how to make a sharp fold. She taught them her grandma's trick of little cuts and turns.

But after leaving her snowflake unguarded on her desk, Pa Lia doesn't see Stinky putting a "big ugly glob of glue right in the middle of her terrific snowflake."

"Snowflake a little sticky, four-eyes? Heh, heh, heh," said Stinky Stern, the enemy of the second grade.

To her credit, Pa Lia doesn't let Stinky ruin her delight in her snowflakes. She quickly cuts and pastes a paper star over the ugly spot of glue.

It's in this opening chapter that Edwards gently and gracefully leads readers toward the major question that will play itself out over the course of this slim volume: How can Pa Lia and her friends mourn a classmate's death, even if that classmate did mean things?

Stinky's death occurs in the second chapter as Pa Lia and her big brother, Tou Gher, leave school for home.

Pa Lia watched Stinky Stern run across the street. He wasn't even looking. Running home to think of more mean things to do.

Pa Lia saw a lady driving by in a white van.

She heard brakes screech. She saw the white van hit Stinky. She leaned close to Tou Gher.

With these words, Edwards plunges her young readers into new and difficult terrain--the emotional turmoil of loss--and shows Pa Lia's response at the scene of the accident and in its aftermath.

What's remarkable is how Edwards conveys Pa Lia's shock, fear, anger, helplessness, and distress in the simplest of words so children might understand what Pa Lia is going through.

"Pa Lia, let's go," said Tou Gher. His voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

Pa Lia couldn't move.

The lady from the white van covered Stinky with a plaid blanket. Mr. Scott, the principal, and Mrs. Fennessey came running out of school. Pa Lia saw Mrs. Fennessey kneel down next to Stinky. She could hear her singing to him.

Pa Lia squeezed her eyes shut. The sound of sirens blared in her ears. She opened her eyes. She saw the paramedics putting Stinky on a stretcher and loading him into the ambulance.

Will Stinky be okay? He is so quiet. So still.

The ambulance sped away with its lights flashing and its sirens blasting.

"I know that boy," said Pa Lia. She was crying. "He's in my class."

Tou Gher hugged Pa Lia. He was wearing a puffy down jacket. He was soft and warm to hug.

"We better go or Mom will worry," he said. "They were both shaking now."

Pa Lia reached for Tou Gher's hand. She held it tightly the whole way home.

Look closely at this passage and you can see just how carefully Edwards (well-aware of the emotional resources of her audience) reveals the multiple layers of emotion that Pa Lia passes through, each layer another stage, much like steps, taking us deeper and deeper into Pa Lia's growing shock at the horror of what she's seen.

That night Pa Lia's friend Calliope calls to tell her Stinky Stern has died, and the next day Pa Lia arrives at school and immediately senses that everything is different.

Following Stinky's death, Pa Lia struggles to make sense of what she has seen and heard. As her classmates share their memories of Stinky--the good and the bad things that he did in his short lifetime--Pa Lia draws pictures in her spelling notebook of some of the things that her classmates say about Stinky.

Frightened and upset, she is too distraught to stand up and share anything with her class until Will, a classmate who shares memories of being tormented by Stinky, says that being dead means Stinky will never come back to school and never go on to third grade. "That is what it means to be dead. It means being gone. Always."

By the end of the story, the collection of memories that the class has shared before lunch, along with Will's words, help Pa Lia finally come to terms with Stinky's death. At last she understands that Stinky Stern is never coming back. Ever.

Here's how Edwards shows Pa Lia struggling with this realization and using her new-found understanding to heal herself and her friends:

Pa Lia rubbed her stomach. She looked at the snowflakes on the wall. Yesterday changed everything.

Pa Lia hugged herself. She shut her eyes. She could hear the sirens blaring again. She could see the ambulance and its flashing lights.

Stinky Stern is dead.

Gone.

Pa Lia put her pencil down. She closed her notebook. She raised her hand.

Mrs. Fennessey nodded.

Pa Lia took her snowflake off the wall. The glue still felt wet.

Returning to the snowflake, the same one that Stinky had tried to ruin yesterday, Pa Lia confronts her anger at him for his mean actions--anger that she felt when she saw him get hit by the van.

Acknowledging her anger in this way lets her release it and feel as if "a heavy bird had just flown from its nesting spot on her heart."

And with this release, Pa Lia has come full circle--from anger and grief to healing through imagination and memory. Indeed, it's her imagination, and her ability to find comfort in her imagination, that ultimately helps Pa Lia face the tragedy.

If you've ever shied away from telling the truth as you swim through stormy seas in your own work, especially when the truth might cause you or your young readers pain, take a look at Stinky Stern Forever.

The courage the Edwards displays in writing such a book, refusing to shy away from the challenging emotional truths young readers are sure to feel when reading about death for the first time, may help you as you wrestle with your own emotional truths.

For more information about Michelle Edwards and her work, visit her website:
http://michelledwards.com/

What other reviewers have said about Stinky Stern Forever:
http://fusenumber8.blogspot.com/2006/06/review-of-day-stinky-stern-forever.html
http://bccb.lis.uiuc.edu/1006focus.html