Good morning! Wednesday is Q and A day on Teachers Write, a chance to ask guest authors for advice on all your questions about writing craft. Though many authors pop in for Q&A Wednesday, we have two official guests today – Cynthia Lord and Kekla Magoon!
Feel free to address questions specifically to either author or pose them generally. Both Cindy and Kekla will be popping in throughout the day to reply to questions in the comments. Please remember that the first time you comment on this blog, your post must be approved by a moderator before it appears. This can take a little while, so don’t fret if your comment doesn’t show up right away – and thanks for your patience!
When I was ten years old, my grandmother gave me a magic book.
It was a book of fairy tales, and it was in English. This was extraordinary to me, because my grandmother was from Germany. She explained that this book was a gift to her from her father, my great-grandfather, who had bought it from a bookstore in France during World War I. He had wanted his daughter to learn English, and she did. It was helpful, no doubt, when she immigrated to the United States just before the outbreak of World War II. For some reason, my grandmother never gave it to my father. She gave it to me. My father became an architect; I became a writer. That book had an effect on my life, but I don’t think that it would have had the same effect on just anyone. It affected me, in part, because of who I already was, and who I was becoming. As Heraclitus famously said, “Character is destiny.”
My husband says that every person is a package deal. No one is perfect in every way—every single one of is a mixture of good and bad qualities. By the same token, your characters will be a mixture of good and bad qualities, and his or her destiny is linked to those qualities. The seeds of their journey exist at the beginning of the story. By the end, those seeds have borne fruit.
In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle said that too much or too little of any virtue becomes a vice. For example, in Macbeth, his main virtue is ambition. That is the seed of his character that grows throughout the play. But the balance of this virtue steadily falls out of balance. Too little would make him lazy. That’s not his problem. His problem is that he has too much, and it makes him ruthless.
Let’s look at another character. Dorothy, from The Wizard of Oz. At the beginning of the story, her virtue is that she is spontaneous and a dreamer. But too much spontaneity is recklessness, and too much dreaminess is foolishness. These flaws lead her into her adventure, the end of which is the correction of these flaws. Right? She sees the “man behind the curtain.” And she realizes that there is no place like home.
In other words, there are two things at play in any destiny, the character and the character’s destiny, which is simply another way of saying plot. E.M. Forster pointed out that, “Incident springs out of character, and having occurred it alters that character.” As the plot moves forward, the character will change by degrees, until his or her destiny is fulfilled.
How do you know which way your character is going to go? From virtue to vice, or from vice to virtue? Well, are you writing a tragedy or a comedy? I highly suggest that you begin with the end in mind. Even if you do not know exactly how your book will end, you probably have a sense of the ending, what feeling or response you would like to provoke in your reader.
Today’s Assignment: Let’s work on our characters a little bit. I want you do explore your character’s virtues and flaws. Write a scene or memory in which his or her main virtue is clear. Then rewrite the scene with the virtue out of balance—make it into a flaw, and see what you can come up with. Have fun – and feel free to share a paragraph or two from today’s quick-write in the comments if you’d like!
Guest author Elana K. Arnold joins us for today’s Mini-Lesson Monday.
Elana is the author of THE QUESTION OF MIRACLES and FAR FROM FAIR, two novels that do a beautiful job addressing tough issues in a voice that resonates with middle grade readers. That’s Elana’s topic for today’s mini-lesson…
Dealing with Heavy Topics When Writing for Different Age Groups
None of us is immune from the hard parts of life. As a parent, I wish I could shield my kids from all the scary, heavy things that are part of life: Death, Loss, Fear, Depression, The Great Unknown… Oh, how I wish I could feel all the hurt and pain FOR my children, happily, on my own skin, to protect them.
I know, of course, that doing this would be doing them a great injustice, because wading through the dark stuff can allow a person to mature and can reflect light and wisdom that is deeply meaningful and rewarding. But the impulse is there! Protect, deflect, defend.
So I understand when I read a review of my books for young readers, which do dip into really tough stuff, that questions why I “go there.” A recent Goodreads review of my most recent middle grade novel, FAR FROM FAIR, says this: “Life is precious. Our children deal with enough.”
I agree; life is precious. And that is exactly why we must embrace and wrestle with all of its aspects, the comforting and the uncomfortable. And, whether we admit it or not, our children are dealing with “enough.” They’re dealing with the same stuff, the same fears and worries and doubts. As a writer, it’s my job to create a place where kids can confront big questions. A book is a great place to practice saying “no.” If the topic feels too intense, the reader can put the book down and walk away. And isn’t that what we want for our kids? The opportunity to engage with risks on their own terms, and in a gentle way? Well, it’s what I want for my kids, and for my readers, and so I provide it through the stories I share.
But, depending on the age of the reader, the depth of the conversation may change. A great piece of parenting advice I once got was: Answer the question the child asks, but just that question. For example, if a kid asks, “Where do babies come from?” I might respond, “Babies grow inside a mama’s body until they’re strong enough to be born.” Then, I’d wait for the inevitable follow-up questions. They might come immediately, or days later, but they would come: “Well, how did the baby get in the mama’s body? What do you mean it takes two people to make a baby? How does the sperm from the daddy get into the mama? Oh! Did you and Daddy do that to make me?”
As a writer, I follow the same process. I believe almost any topic can be tailored to the age of a child; of course, what one person feels is “appropriate” for, say, a seven- year-old might be vastly different from what another person feels is “appropriate.” For me, the key is to follow the almost-intuitive responses that might guide us to answer our own children’s questions. Of course, each parent would approach the “where do babies come from?” question differently, and each writer will approach the “tough stuff” differently, too, according to her own heart. And that is okay! The way I write about the tough stuff will be different from the way you write about the tough stuff. For every hand, there is a glove. For every approach, there very well may be a reader who needs just that approach.
Today’s Assignment: Here’s an exercise to help you decide for yourself how you might want to deal with one “heavy topic” across different age ranges.
Step One:
Pick a “heavy” topic. One that matters to you! Death is a good one to practice with.
Step Two:
Put two characters in a room: a six-year-old child and a grandparent. Have the six-year- old ask, “What is death?” (Or whatever the topic may be). Have the grandparent answer the question… just the question! Then allow the child to ask a follow-up question, and follow the discussion where it goes.
Step Three:
Repeat the scene. This time, make one of your characters 12 and the second character parent-aged, somewhere between 35 and 50. Have the 12-year old ask about death, this time with the understanding that all 12-year olds have some preexisting knowledge. Allow the conversation to unfurl as it may.
Step Four:
Put two teen characters in a room. One of them asks the other about death… Maybe, “Are you afraid of dying?” In this scenario, allow the two teen characters to express fear, doubt, comfort… anything goes.
You will see that the conversations are different in interesting ways. Look at the three dialogues you’ve created. What are the differences between them? Make a list! Then, perhaps more importantly, ask yourself, what are the similarities between them? These similarities will illuminate your personal truth: the things you think are valuable to impart regardless of the imagined reader’s age.
Be brave! Be honest. Dive in. And feel free to share a snippet of your writing or reflections on this activity in the comments today!
Note from Kate: If any of you will be at ILA in Boston later this week, please be sure to come to our panel about this topic on Saturday!
Humor Breaks the Ice: Funny Books That Spark Discussion of Tough Topics – with Elana K. Arnold, Kate Messner, Mike Jung, Jo Knowles, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, and Audrey Vernick
Sat, Jul 9, 2016: 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center – Room 111
Great speakers often open with jokes or funny stories because laughing makes audiences receptive and open to new ideas. Likewise, humorous books can be powerful jumping-off points for discussions of serious topics in classrooms, literature circles, book clubs, and families. This panel features five authors who inspire empathy by using humor to shine light in dark places.
Good morning! Sunday is check-in day at Jen’s blog, Teach Mentor Texts, so be sure to visit her today for some words of encouragement and to check in for some encouraging conversation with fellow TW participants.
Our guest author here today is Susan Hill Long, whose books include THE MAGIC MIRROR: CONCERNING A LONELY PRINCESS, A FOUNDLING GIRL, A SCHEMING KING, AND A PICKPOCKET SQUIRREL and WHISTLE IN THE DARK. She joins us today to talk about literary models in our writing lives.
Writing is about the only profession people assume can be leapt into, like a well-made canoe — plop down, start paddling, and soon you’re there! Published, and sporting a healthy glow, besides. Not you, of course. You’re here! You’re doing the work, learning and practicing and sharing along the way. You know that writing is more like carving the canoe, from a giant log that first you must fell in dark woods where you may have been lost for a while.
Luckily, there are many tools available to the lumberjack/paddler/writer. There are classes. There are advanced degrees. There are craft books and podcasts and peers. But one thing I sometimes hear from writers, beginning or expert, is how they stop reading, when they start writing. “I don’t want to be influenced,” they say. Or, “I don’t want to discover someone’s already written my book.” Or, “If I read Kate DiCamillo’s latest marvel, I swear I’ll pack it in.”
These are understandable concerns. But to give up reading is to ignore the writer’s ultimate (and most enjoyable) tool. Have you ever seen art students arranged around a painting in a museum, copying the work of a master? Of course – that’s partly how it’s done. Like many, I am self-taught. That is, I didn’t attend an MFA program or take creative writing classes. I majored in Art History, which prepared me for a vibrant career as a “temp.” But I’m only “self-taught” insofar as I had enough desire to learn and to practice that I used the countless works available to me for study. In this pursuit I’m in excellent company.
In her slim volume THE SCENE BOOK: A Primer for the Fiction Writer, Sandra Scofield tells of a friend who structured her own story using an admired book’s chapters one by one to lay out scenes. In the end, her novel was, Scofield says, “very much her own, she had a story she was proud of, and she had learned a lot.” Scofield tells us, too, that “Alice Munro has said she enters others’ stories wherever she has a notion, as one enters a room in a house. She connects this habit to her ideas about building up a story of her own around its “soul” in a way that leads to its structure.”
Before starting to write her first manuscript, Kirby Larson says she studied Patricia Reilly Giff’s books thoroughly, even typing two of them out to help her get a feel for the rhythm, pacing and length of a chapter book. In one interview, Barbara O’Connor credits her whole career to Cynthia Rylant. “When I read MISSING MAY,” she says, “I had one of those light bulb moments. I finally GOT voice. And I GOT the importance of place.” Similarly, Barbara O’Connor was fascinated by the shifting viewpoints in JULY 7th by Jill McCorkle, and “filed that away, hoping someday I would be up for the challenge.” Her book GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE is written with four viewpoints.
Many writers go in search of words – out and about in the world, and in the books of writers we esteem – sparkly words, singing words, words that slide or stop. In her sturdy book THE WRITER’S PORTABLE MENTOR, Priscilla Long encourages writers to keep a notebook of interesting words, a personal lexicon. And we can use books we admire not just to study language and technique, but to cultivate our own talent for and love of storytelling. Sandra Scofield, again in THE SCENE BOOK, encourages us to develop that facet of talent by “immersing yourself in more reading, and in reading more diverse stories, such as those by ethnic and immigrant writers, foreign writers, and other tellers of stories far from your experience.”
Remember that we are beginners only for a time, but we are, all of us, forever students.
Weekends are laid back on Teachers Write. There’s no official “assignment,” but we still love to give you something to read & reflect on as you drink your morning coffee or tea. With that in mind, I’ll introduce today’s guest author, Caroline Rose Starr.
Caroline was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start Author for her debut novel, May B. She’s also the author of the verse novel Blue Birds and the picture book Over in the Wetlands. Caroline spent her childhood in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and New Mexico, camping by the Red Sea in one and eating red chile in the other. She has taught social studies and English in four different states and worked to instill in her students a passion for books, an enthusiasm for experimenting with words, and a curiosity about the past. Today, she joins us to talk about novels in verse.
Back in my teaching days, I used to introduce poetry to my students by first asking them to interview their parents about their own experiences with the form. Many fondly remembered nursery rhymes, Shel Silverstein, A. A. Milne and the like, but their opinions changed when they got older. Once the parents faced poetry that felt confusing or obscure, those positive memories were mostly forgotten.
I will confess that no matter where I taught, my upper-elementary and middle-school students were transitioning in their thoughts about poetry, moving from those fun younger-year experiences into something more guarded and less interested. What showed me this is the strange but similar words kids thought of in connection to poetry. Without fail, they told me poetry was about flowers and love and it was definitely for girls. I’d spend the rest of our year together trying to reverse the idea that poetry is limited to certain subjects and a select type of reader. Almost always I could win them over by the end.
Verse novels are a perfect fit for young readers in this phase of conflicting thoughts. Here are three reasons the verse novel is worth sharing:
A verse novel is a fast read. This can be enormously satisfying for readers who find standard prose a struggle. There are no dense paragraphs. The white space, which verse novelists use along with line and stanza breaks to further communicate their story, makes each page less intimidating. Individual poems run much shorter than chapters, adding momentum to the story’s pacing.
Because each word is carefully selected, verse novels strip away the unnecessary. If a prose novel is a rolling film, a verse novel is a collection of still photographs, placed one against the next. This streamlined structure, which often includes a close first-person point of view, gives readers an intimate picture of a book’s central characters. Readers can feel and hear the rhythms of a character’s inner world, can experience the story alongside her.
My students were right about the love thing. Poetry heightens the emotions. And verse novels make stories come alive by pushing readers one step closer to the world on the page. Each word speaks doubly — first telling the story, second helping readers feel it. Emotion and physical sensation are intertwined, so much so that as the verse novelist leads readers through a story they might feel the darting movement of fear, the gentle calm of reflection, the scattered sense of confusion, the security of being known and loved.
Poetry isn’t exclusive, as my students first thought, but sometimes it feels like it is. That’s the beauty of the verse novel, a succinct, condensed blend of poetry and story that flows from one word to the next. Those words sink deep, move with the familiar rhythms of the everyday. The verse novel doesn’t just tell a story, it shows us how to listen, encourages us to linger. It changes us along the way.
Happy Friday! Don’t forget that Gae’s hosting Friday Feedback on her blog! It’s a chance to share a bit of your work-in-progress, get feedback, and share feedback with others as well.
Lisa Schroeder is our guest author here today. She’s written over a dozen books for kids and teens including the popular verse novels for teens I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME and CHASING BROOKLYN, her most recent YA novels, THE BRIDGE FROM ME TO YOU and ALL WE HAVE IS NOW, and the middle grade novels IT’S RAINING CUPCAKES, MY SECRET GUIDE TO PARIS, and THE GIRL IN THE TOWER. Lisa is a native Oregonian and lives with her family outside of Portland. She’s visiting us today to talk about researching settings, even when you can’t get there in person.
Setting is so important to a novel. Of course, in some stories it’s more important than others, but still, that sense of place and what it means to the main character(s) is a crucial part of every novel. Over the years, I’ve learned that the setting is one of the things that can make me really excited about a particular work-in-progress.
When I was working on my YA novel THE DAY BEFORE, for example, I was stressed out about an editor leaving and how that might affect my career, but when I opened the document, Amber and Cade took me to the beach every day. It was exactly what I needed at the time.
In 2015 my MG novel, MY SECRET GUIDE TO PARIS, was published and the most common question I get about that book is, “How many times have you been to Paris?” And I always feel a little odd when I reply, “None.” I know that surprises people, and I do understand. But maybe it will be comforting to some of you to learn that it is possible to write about a place you’ve never actually visited. As an aside, I’ve had readers who have visited Paris themselves tell me it took them right back to their trip to the City of Light, which is a lovely compliment to receive.
Many authors take pride in their research trips so they can ensure they get everything right. But sometimes, it’s just not possible due to time and/or money restraints. And personally, I don’t believe you should avoid a setting simply because you can’t get yourself there. Yes, it’s going to require a lot of effort and research on your part, but it’s pretty fun, if you ask me.
So here are six tips to help you research your setting when you can’t visit in person.
1) Get a good guidebook, if one’s available, one with an excellent map. When I was writing the Paris book, I mapped out what arrondissement my character was staying in and then I figured out what made sense every day in terms of her destinations around the city. It’s a bit like travel planning for ourselves, but we’re doing it for our character(s) instead.
2) Reading non-fiction books about the place is obvious, so my next tip is to try to find fictional stories set there as well. For example, ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins was a great one for me to read to get in the Paris state of mind. Social media can be a great resource for this kind of thing – don’t be afraid to ask if you are looking for good books set in a particular place. And don’t forget to check various age levels. Like, you might find something helpful in a picture book, you just never know.
3) If it’s a popular travel destination, find some good travel blogs and bookmark them. Travel blogs are great because they usually include pictures, and I find visuals incredibly helpful. In May, a companion to MY SECRET GUIDE TO PARIS came out called SEALED WITH A SECRET, and it takes place in London. (No, I haven’t been to London either. Are you feeling sorry for me yet?) A blog that I visited frequently while writing that book was www.aladyinlondon.com. There’s even a search engine on her site so if I wanted to check to see if she’d written about something specific, I could easily find out.
4) Google Earth is your best friend. Not sure what a particular street looks like? Put yourself on the map via Google Earth and see for yourself. I wanted to describe Île Saint-Louis one of the two small islands in the Seine, in detail, and Google Earth allowed me to see the window fronts of stores. So wonderful!
5) Talk to people who have lived in the place you’re writing about if at all possible. Pick their brains about little things you may not be able to find anywhere else. Try to learn unique tidbits you can include in your book that will punch the setting up a notch. Ask them questions like, “Can you name a unique spot that may not be on everyone’s radar?” and “What restaurant do the locals love to frequent?” In one of my YA novels, I included a little roadside hamburger joint that has some of the best and biggest soft serve ice cream cones I’ve ever had in my life. I had two different readers email me specifically because they wanted to tell me they’d been there and they thought it was so neat that I’d included it in the book.
6) Using the city you’re researching, Google phrases like “hidden secrets in…” or “secret spots tourists miss in…” or “unusual things to do in…” This will often give you articles or blog posts about places that aren’t well known. For example, it would have been really easy for me to write about all of the well- known spots in Paris, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to include a few places that not everyone necessarily knows about and that would appeal to kids. For example, I included a chocolate shop, a puppet show, and a darling little boutique.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to know everything about a place in order to write your story. When all was said and done, I probably researched twenty Paris spots very, very well. You might want to make a list of the scenes you’re going to write and what you’ll need to know for those particular scenes. It worked best for me to read books and blog posts to get a general feel about Paris beforehand, and then to research as I went along, for the nitty-gritty stuff. You will have to decide what works best for you. Sometimes research can get in the way of making progress on your story, so it’s perfectly fine to get the bare bones of the story down and then come back and fill in the holes with research details.
And by all means, if you can hop on a plane/train/bus, do it! There is nothing like experiencing the sights, sounds and smells first-hand. And please, send me a postcard, okay?
Good morning, campers! It’s Thursday Quick-Write day, and Liz Garton Scanlon is your fabulous guest author. She’s written picture books like ALL THE WORLD and IN THE CANYON as well as the middle grade novel THE GREAT GOOD SUMMER, and today, she’s here to talk metaphors.
Saying More with Metaphors:
Using the Element of Surprise to Say Big Things
Metaphors and similes are such fun, accessible poetic devices to teach, and to use! And not just in poems, either. Literary comparisons allow writers of all stripes to crystallize images and drive home points, to make things even truer and more deeply understood than they previously were. Pretty powerful, huh?
Unfortunately, guess what else they’re good at? Becoming clichéd. Struck me like a bolt of lightning… you’re cute as a button… she’s an angel… I’m blind as a bat! It seems a shame to offer students this handy tool and, at the same time, walk them straight toward a significant pitfall!
The writing exercise offers writers a way to create fresh and wild metaphors, have a few laughs and, sometimes, discover new truths along the way.
Your assignment:
1. Brainstorm a list of emotional or physical states (jealousy, joy, fear, hunger, anger, excitement, worry, confidence, sadness, etc.) Put each word on a little slip of paper and have everyone in the group pick one. (If it’s just you, give yourself a nice choice of words or, better yet, have someone write them for you.)
2. Now, brainstorm a list of both natural and manmade objects (pillow, rock, waterfall, TV, table, blender, forest fire, river, puddle, book, bar of soap, etc.) Put each word on a little slip of paper and have everyone in the group pick one.
3. Each writer sets up their forced simile at the top of his or her page: Sadness is like a forest fire, jealousy is like a rock, worry is like a blender….
4. Now, take a few moments to make this TRUE. At first, many writers will say, “Nope. Impossible. Mine don’t go together.” But I like to compare this process to making a Venn diagram. The things you’re comparing don’t have to be identical – they just need to overlap a tiny bit! So, simply ask yourself, “What details do these things have in common?” That’s what will make this true!
5. For example: Jealousy is like a rock. They’re both really hard things. They’re heavy so they’re hard to move out of the way. Some people think they’re ugly. OR: Worry is like a blender. It just goes round and round and round and chops up perfectly good ideas and good days.
6. After doing one round, mix up the papers and try it again. Before long you’ve revealed the endless opportunities for fresh and surprising and meaningful metaphors. Enjoy! And feel free to share one of your newly discovered metaphors in the comments if you’d like!
Got questions about writing? Wednesday is Q and A Day at Teachers Write Virtual Summer Writing Camp, and we’ll have some great guest authors answering. Today’s official author guests are Jody Feldman and Sarah Albee (so this is an especially great day for questions that relate to nonfiction and informational writing!) but other authors always pop in as well, so ask away! You never know who might show up.
Teachers & librarians – Feel free to ask your questions in the comments. It’s fine to ask a general question or to direct one directly to a specific guest author. Our published author guests have volunteered to drop in and respond when they can.
Guest authors – Even if today isn’t a day you specifically signed up to help out, feel free to answer any questions you’d like to talk about. Just reply directly to the comment.
Note from Kate: I’ll try to be here for Q and A most Wednesdays, too. Please be patient with me if you’re a first-time commenter – it may take a little while for me to approve your comment so it appears.
Tuesday and Thursday are Quick-Write days at Teachers Write, so our guest authors will be coming by with some writing prompts to try out. Do as much or as little as you’d like with each mini-assignment, and feel free to bookmark those you’d like to use with students later on. Teachers Write posts don’t go anywhere after the summer ends. They’re always here for you to use and share with student writers.
Before we start today’s quick-write, I’m going to toss around a little virtual confetti because today is release day for RANGER IN TIME: RACE TO THE SOUTH POLE! This is the fourth title in my Scholastic chapter book series about a time traveling search and rescue dog.
Ranger, the time-traveling golden retriever with search-and-rescue training, joins an early twentieth-century expedition journeying from New Zealand to Antarctica. He befriends Jack Nin, the stowaway turned cabin boy of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ship. They’re racing against a rival explorer to reach the South Pole, but with unstable ice, killer whales, and raging blizzards, the journey turns into a race against time… and a struggle to stay alive.
I’d love it if you’d share this one with your students and help spread the word on social media today, too. Thanks!
Now…on to your Tuesday Quick-Write!
Our guest author today is Anne Marie Pace, who writes picture books for kids, including VAMPIRINA BALLERINA, which is in production as an animated series with Disney, and its sequel, VAMPIRINA BALLERINA HOSTS A SLEEPOVER. She’s with us today to talk about generating ideas.
100 Steps
by Anne Marie Pace
Yesterday, Kate talked to you about having a writer’s notebook. Today, I’m going to give you something to put in it.
I came up with the 100 Steps exercise for my picture book writing classes for adults to generate picture book ideas, but it’s very adaptable.
The idea behind 100 Steps is that every step you take puts you in a different spot than the one you were in before you took that step, and every different spot gives you a different perspective. If you want to get technical, yes, I agree that whether I walk 99 or 101 steps south down the street I live on, I can still see Kristin’s car and that strange mailbox with the smashed-in side and the house where the lady with the corgi lives. But at another level, at some point as you move towards something and away from others, something new comes into view and something else vanishes. A tree seems taller or shorter. A house that seems grand at a distance suddenly comes into focus and seems more run-down when you see the unpainted siding or the cracked window that you couldn’t see from farther away. You see the trail of ants but not their destination—and then suddenly you can see the anthill.
Your Assignment: Take your journal or notebook and your favorite writing implement (mine are Uniball Vision Elite BLX roller ball pens, but I digress). Now walk 100 steps, preferably in a direction you don’t usually walk. Take a side street or walk into your neighbor’s yard (assuming your neighbor is a friendly person who doesn’t own a vicious dog). Remember — 100 steps, not 99 or 101.
Stop. (Obviously you can’t stop in the middle of a busy intersection, but try to plan your path so that you don’t have to.)
Observe. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What random thoughts occur to you?
Take notes. Jot everything down as fast as you can. Don’t think too hard—just take notes. In ten minutes, you can probably fill a page or two with words and ideas.
Now find a comfortable place to sit. Reread the notes you’ve taken and see what connections you draw between your various observations. You can even mark up the page if you like—maybe drawing circles around everything to do with nature and rectangles around man-made things, or making triangles around sights and ovals around sounds, or using dotted lines to connect all the notes you made about trains.
Finally, pick one of the connections you’ve made and use that connection as a starting point for some writing. I don’t know what you’ll want to write. Maybe you’ll do a focused free-write on your connection. Maybe you’ll write a dialogue. Maybe you’ll start an essay or a poem or a picture book or a bit of description.
It doesn’t matter as long as it works for you. Feel free to share a snippet of your writing in the comments today if you’d like!
A quick note about blogging your Teachers Write experience: There will be daily opportunities for you to share and interact with one another in the comments section of each post. Often, our guest authors will stop by to be part of the conversation, too (though not always – some will be on deadline or traveling for book tours or research). In addition to commenting, it’s great if you also want to set up a blog where you share all of your writing from this summer. One important request: Our guest authors have given permission for their lessons & prompts to be shared on the Teachers Write blog only. Please do not copy and paste any mini-lessons or writing prompts – publish only your own writing on your blog. If you’d like to reference the ideas shared here, providing a link is the best way to do that. Thanks!
Four quick things before we get started…
1. Teachers Write is an online summer writing camp with published author-mentors who donate their time to work with us. It’s free. There’s no charge to participate, but we do have a request. Kate, Jo, and Gae all have new books out or coming out this summer. Much of the time we’d normally spend on book promotion is going into Teachers Write instead, so we’d love it if you’d order or pre-order these: Kate’s THE SEVENTH WISH, Gae’s THE MEMORY OF THINGS, and Jo’s STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS.
That’ll run you about $45 total – which is the cheapest professional development around (and you get to keep the books!) We also ask that everyone try to buy at least one book written by one of our daily guest authors. We don’t check on this – it’s all honor system – but if you can, we’d truly appreciate it if you’d support our books in this way. If you truly can’t swing the expense right now, we’d still love for you to participate and would ask that you support our books in other ways – by requesting them at your local library, borrowing them, and writing online reviews. Thanks!
2. Our weekly schedule will look like this:
Monday Mini-lesson, and a Monday Morning Warm-Up on Jo’s blog
Tuesday Quick-Write
Wednesday is Q and A day – authors will be here to answer your questions! We’ll have some other Wednesday features, too.
Thursday Quick-Write
Friday Feedback on Gae’s blog, and some great Friday features here, too.
Weekend free-for-all – Saturday & Sunday will feature great essays, writing prompts, and reflections from guest authors. They may or may not have an assignment attached, but you won’t want to miss them!
Sunday Check-In on Jen Vincent’s blog – a chance to check in with everyone, reflect on the week, and share encouragement.
3. I’ll be popping in to comment, and I know many of our guest authors will, too, but since this community has grown so much (we’re more than 2500 teacher-writers strong now!) you’ll also need to commit to supporting one another. When someone decides to be brave and share a bit of writing in the comments, or when someone asks for advice or feedback, please know that you are welcome (and encouraged!) to be mentors to one another as well. Watching this writing community grow is one of the best things about being part of Teachers Write.
4. The first time you comment, I will have to “approve” your comment before it appears. This is to prevent us all from being besieged by unpleasant rogue comments. So when you comment, it will not show up right away – sometimes, it may be later in the day when your comment appears. THIS IS OKAY. Please don’t post more than once. I’ll be on book tour or traveling for research much of June & July but promise to check in whenever I get wherever I’m going each night. Be patient with me, okay? 🙂
Now…let’s get started!
What’s in Your Notebook?
We talk a lot about writer’s notebooks with students, but sometimes, we don’t know quite what to tell them. What is a writer’s notebook anyway? What are you supposed to put in there? Sometimes, when kids struggle with this question, our first impulse is to give directions – assignments, even. And while it’s fine to provide “starter ideas,” a truly writer’s notebook should be more organic than that.
Writer’s notebooks are as unique as the people who own them, and there’s no one right way to use one. This can be an uncomfortable notion for writers of all ages who like to get things right. But with a little encouragement, a writer’s notebook really can become a great tool for experimenting, finding voice, collecting ideas, reflecting on one’s work, and a million other things.
I have two notebooks with me as I write this blog post at Starbucks. Let’s take a look inside…
Here’s a page where I scribbled when I was out to dinner with a bunch of teachers & librarians in Dublin, Ohio and someone showed me a photo of a party her kid sent from college. Someone had blown up a large inflatable pool in the dorm room and filled it with water. I have no idea if I’ll ever use this in a book in any way, but I loved it and wanted to save it.
I often take research notes in my writer’s notebooks and then use other pages to organize. Here’s a timeline I made to help me organize historical details for RANGER IN TIME: ESCAPE FROM THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE, which comes out in June ’17.
Sometimes I write questions at the top of a page in my notebook, so I can go back and scribble answers when I have the chance to interview an expert. Here’s one of those pages…
I keep a running list of ideas for future Ranger in Time books.
Antarctic exploration is somewhere on that list, and that was the spark for the newest Ranger in Time book, RACE TO THE SOUTH POLE, which is about a Maori-Chinese boy who stows away on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova, as the crew tries to be the first to reach the South Pole. It comes out tomorrow!! (6/28)
Sometimes, I don’t know quite why I’m adding something to my notebook, but it simply seems worth exploring. One day, I was checking on a historical quote that I wanted to use, only to find that it was misattributed to that person who supposedly said it. This happens a lot, and it got me wondering who else’s famous quotes aren’t real quotes. So I made a list. I think this relates to a character in my novel in progress, but I’m not sure yet…
I wrote this on an airplane while I was talking with my friend Linda Urban about my work-in-progress. We were brainstorming this one character, and I was lamenting how overwhelming and big this novel felt. Linda said, “It is big, but you will find all the footholds.” I knew I’d need to remember that later, so I wrote it down along with my other notes.
Want to see what some other writers do in their notebooks?
From Erin Dionne: “A research list of the strongest natural, man-made, and imaginary metals. (The 15/30 was keeping track of how many days in a row I was working on preparing for this manuscript)”
From Deborah Underwood: “Page where I quickly captured an idea for the upcoming HERE COMES TEACHER CAT. (Most of my notebooks are filled with illegible scribbles and idea snippets; this is uncommonly readable!)”
From Donalyn Miller: “Notes on our family reading autobiographies.”
From Katie Carroll: “A very messy list of events that need to occur in my WIP and brainstorming some other things (generally bad stuff) that could happen along the way.”
From Stacy McAnulty: “Using my journal/notebook to work out plot revisions on a rough draft of a MG novel.”
From Jo Knowles: “From a pop-up workshop I attended this winter. My notebook is filled with these sorts of exercises, as well as notes from workshops I attend. I also use it to jot down notes and ideas for a WIP, or ideas for new stories.”
From Kara LaReau: “Diagram of train compartments copied from Murder on the Orient Express, with my characters’ names penciled in.”
From Kimberly Pauley: “This page is a character sketch.”
From Kari Anne Holt: “This is a very, very first draft of a poem from HOUSE ARREST. I wrote a lot of it longhand in spiral notebooks, because it felt easier (and more satisfying) to revise this way.”
From Melanie Conklin: “This is a page from inside the notebook for Counting Thyme. I make a mess, but you can pick out lines that are still in the book here.”
And finally, from Madelyn Rosenberg: “I tend to let my writing notebooks double as scrapbooks. Here’s a page from a notebook from the 1990s, when the eyebrows fell off of my Winnie-the-Pooh.”
You get the idea, right? You understand the writer’s notebook rules now? There are none.
Sometimes that can be scary, especially for those of us who like to know which hoops we’re supposed to jump through to do things the right way. But try to embrace the idea of your notebook as a place to play this summer. A place to explore ideas and collect things. Remember when you were a kid and you came home with a pocket full of rocks and twigs and crickets? Treat it like that.
Your Assignment: Finish this beginning. “This summer in my notebook, I want to…”
Or don’t. You can write something else instead, if you’d like. Because that’s how notebooks work.
In the comments today, feel free to share a snippet of what you wrote, but please also write a few lines introducing yourself. Let’s get to know one another – we’re going to be writing together for six weeks, starting right now!
Before we start today’s quick-write, I’m going to toss around a little virtual confetti because today is release day for 
