Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
>I don't have a copy : the blurb only covers the first half of the
book-and-half-a-book.

I've misled you, I think.  It's only one book, and it was never
anything else.  It just used to be more choppy and disjointed.   

At the beginning of the book, Simon and his family move to the
National Quiet Zone, where no one can have internet or cell phones
or radio or TV, because there's a giant radio telescope nearby, 
where scientists are scanning the skies for signals from aliens.  

Since Simon is famous for the worst thing that ever happened to him,
he's thrilled to be in a town where no one can google him, and he
starts spinning stories.  He meets Agate, who wants to give the
scientists what they are looking for.  When things start to come
apart -- well, let's just say that when Simon decides to really
change the narrative, he goes big.   
  

    <scribbled by seanan Wed 28 Aug 24 03:10>
  

    
>23  

I’ve lived in that kind of question, Alan. 

The difference is between having one smooth whole book and two
disconnected parts of a book stuck together like a badly healed
bone. Not Part I: Tragedy and Trouble and Part II: The Road to
Restoration, which can be a complete journey, but two halves that
read, energetically and otherwise, as if they were separate books
that had been jammed in the same binding. 

The solution may require rewriting, shuffling, finding bridges and
connections, drastically changing one or both parts of the book, or
any of as many other options as can inhabit writers’ minds. 

In my lifelong experience (I started reading, proofreading, and
inadvertently sliding into editing when I was _very_ young — younger
than I’ve been telling people I was, and that was young.), it’s
normal. Some books flow out in a strange, swift ten-day rush of
words, only to sit like stodge, demanding removal from stones in
their streams. Many require unpicking or “This bit doesn’t go with
that”, “Hang on. The passage here defies that passage there”, “How
did we get from A to (going to try a Greek letter here, and learn
what the WELL makes of it) λ?”, “That doesn’t read like this
character”. In the best of books, it’s often a series of “How do we
get these people off this island?”

It’s easy, natural, and understandable to become prickly about one’s
work. Maybe that’s half of the communion (It’s different from
collaboration.) process; the editor/doula/reader’s ego and creative
flavors have to go away, and the writer has to be open to seeing
their world and people in altered ways. This, too, requires finding
a right partner for the journey. A wrong person is going to make
process harder and product more wrenched out of its joints. Erin
says, “ I've known
people who could find the raw spots but just made them more raw when
they poked at them.” In the multiverse of readers, there are more of
those than of the other kinds, and that, I think, has to do with
ego, a particular flavour of imagination that lets one move
completely into the skins of another person’s imagination instead of
one’s own (to the point where one lives with them, as well as with
one’s inner and outer beings), hearing with all (known and unknown)
senses, and a delicate attunement to how things have to be
communicated in any instant in time. The degrees to which one has
any of them varies, because we’re all mortal and changeable. That,
too, requires trust and presence (in all worlds) on both sides. 

All of those elements, I’d argue, are in an outstanding writer, as
well. Erin has them, certainly, in abundance. 

I wonder, often, about the connection between being a good reader, a
good observer, and a good writer. Anything for you in that, Erin? 
  

    
>She wonders if you had been pressured at all to write it for
young adults instead of for children, given the subject matter, and
if so how you dealt with that to make it the children's book that it
really is.

>That may be in part due to how the book came to be: I wrote it out
and did several rounds of revision before I sold it… 

SIMON was solidly middle-grade from its inception. Before there was
a Simon to live through SIMON, the book was middle-grade. There was
a funeral home. There were two, I think then lamas, balking at
walking towards an altar, and Erin being very droll and witty about
the scene. There was groping towards the form the book would take
(Form and fragility weave in with the communion/collaboration/raw —
“raw” is spot-on — revising/revamping theme.), the world becoming,
but it was always funny, there were always balky beasts in
incense-scented air, there was always a funeral director, and it was
always middle-grade.

None of this is to discount or dismiss the labor Erin put into
solidifying the work, but rather to acknowledge the ISness of some
works, the way parts of a book “just appear” in one’s head, as if
they were irrevocable, known, and solid things. The rest is open and
variable but, looking across books by Erin and others, and in my
experience, some portions simply ARE. Given that the mountain is the
book, one cannot move it.

More simply, there are ways in which a book comes to one. Some
portions of those ways brook neither argument nor change. They are
the novel’s skeleton, nerves, and neurones. You can perform surgery
on the dragon, but it is always going to be a dragon. Cut off a
wing; it’s a dragon shorn of a wing. Paint it blue; it’s a blue
dragon. Have it breathe rainbows rather than fire; it’s a
rainbow-breathing dragon. The dragon isn’t going away. 

Anything to reshape, reframe, reflect, rethink, revise, or add in or
to that, Erin? 
  

    
If not (or either way, as this is now here), then the not-dragon
aspects leads usefully to the next subject. Erin, you said, “My
experience is I don’t really have one idea for a book until I have
two ideas for a book.” 

May I ask you to use your own words as a springboard? 
  

    
Thanks for the illuminating answers.
  

    
Thank you for opening the subject. 
  

    
>I so respected the very slow reveal of the nature of
Simon's trauma and actually only wish it hadn't been in the book
jacket copy which was quoted above, so the reader could discover it
at the same time that Simon's friends did.

SAME.  

I am torn about having the "what happened to Simon" in the flap
copy, for just those reasons.   Part of me said "hey, I worked hard
on that reveal."  Artistically, I think not having the spoiler in
the flap copy would be better.  The book is structured as a spiral
-- at about the one-third mark, readers work out what happened to
Simon.  At about the two-thirds mark the other characters do too. 
At the end, Simon realizes -- finally -- that the is not defined by
the worst thing that ever happened to him.   The flap copy cuts out
the first turn of the spiral. 

But art isn't the only consideration.  I didn't want this book to
blindside young readers who might have actually survived a school
shooting themselves.  (There are more of them than you think -- a
few years back the Washington Post estimated 300,000 survivors since
Columbine.) 

The phrase "trigger warning" gets tossed around a lot, even mocked
and diminished.  We need to think of it more like we think of peanut
allergies.  It's not "this book is generically upsetting and might
upset you" -- it's "this topic specifically might be traumatic for
you specifically right now."   

In the end, the folks at Disney and I both sided with putting the
spoiler in the flap copy so that some kids could avoid it and others
could seek it out.  That happens too.  I've talked to a couple of
families who read the book together as part of their recovery from a
brush with a school shooting.  And I spent some time with a class of
sixth graders who -- heartbreakingly -- told me it was okay because
the shooting they survived was "not a big one."  
  

    
>Erin, you said, “My experience is I don’t really have one idea for
a book until I have two ideas for a book.” May I ask you to use your
own words as a springboard? 

Ooo, that's a good one.  Yes.  Over and over again I've had a
perfectly respectable idea for a novel, and I'll noodle away on it
in the background for a bit.  (By the way, I want to hear from other
writers here about writing as a slate, like a movie studio slate --
managing various projects at various stages of commitment and
completion.) Anyway. 
 Said novel will seem promising -- a few characters, a plot notion
or two -- but somehow static.   

And then, something else will happen.  I'll read or see something
new, or recognize something in my own life, and that new thing will
hit my old idea like the lightning hitting Frankenstien's
laboratory.    That's where the book finally comes to life.  

STAND ON THE SKY, my fifth novel, was once about a boy trying to
re-wild a hawk in Kansas. Then I saw the photographs from Asher
Svidensky (https://www.svidensky.com/>), and it became about a girl
training an eagle in western Mongolia.  

BUTTER AND OWL, the novel I'm working on now, was once about two
witch's familars, a cat and a raven, on a road trip to find the
missing witch.  But it didn't really get started until I decided
that the road trip they were on was actually the Odyssey.  

In the case of SIMON SORT OF SAYS, there was once a protonovel about
about a boy living in a funeral home who had some kind of secret --
it was talking to ghosts for a bit, or maybe precognition.  Then
three things happened.  First, my kids were in a lockdown at their
school.  Second, I read a long-form article about life in the real
National Radio Quiet Zone, which protects a radio telescope project
in West Virginia. I instantly smashed them together: what if there
were a kid who moved to the National Quiet Zone -- a fictional one
were I can cut out the internet altogether -- and was happy about
it, because it helped him keep his story secret?

Third, I saw this cartoon:  

<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/business/media/mad-magazine-school-shooting
s-comic-strip.html>

Somehow the fact that Mad Magazine had made a cartoon (though not a
funny one) about school shootings was a permission slip to make this
book the comedy I'd always wanted to write.  



  
  

    
It is very interesting to read about y'all's writing practice while
I'm working on a non-fiction book. There are definite echoes of
moments of discovery (and abandonment, reshuffling, rethinking, and
maybe even regretting...)
  

    
Advice I recollect is "kill your babies" (things you like, but your
readers might not.) 
  

    
> Advice I recollect is "kill your babies" (things you like, but
your
readers might not.) 

Kin to “Murder your darlings” which, contrary to widely held belief,
sprouted from the mind of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. (Thank you, Tin
Press. https://tinhouse.com/murder-your-darlings/)

If you can stomach The Entity Formerly Known as Twitter, then you
can see the full four pages of The Ghastlygun Tinies, presented by
Matt Cohen AKA He Who Wrote (but did not Draw) it.
https://x.com/mattcohen2/status/1717593989048602716

If not, here is another way.
https://imgur.com/gallery/ghastlygun-tinies-mad-magazine-eSvwrD1

> that new thing will hit my old idea like the lightning hitting
Frankenstein's laboratory.    That's where the book finally comes to
life.

That happened with my “I live for research” queer backstory to ROMEO
AND JULIET. There was a prelude to a bolt, and then the bolt. The
prelude was “There’s an espionage subplot.” The bolt came when I
walked into a research center, forced my stuck heels to carry me to
a research librarian, said I needed guidance, and told her what I
was doing: half-sentence backstory and subplot. She asked who the
lovers were. That answer lit her, which lit hope in me. Then she
asked a pertinent question about the backstory, which I couldn’t
answer, so she did, complete with why the book’s timing was perfect,
a tidy history lecture (in context), advice about a fellowship and
research space, and a printed pile of resources. Behold: Librarian
as lightning bolt. 

Since then, history has struck like volcanic lightning, time and
again. 

Story (as an entity) makes us human. The original theatre was people
gathered around a fire, sharing (possibly exaggerated) stories of
their days, tales of their histories, their myths, their dreams.
(Anent nothing, the Washington Post recently ran an article with the
title and subtitle “Is oral history more durable than written
history?
Why the ‘stories’ told by Indigenous cultures just might provide a
better record of the earth’s past.” https://wapo.st/3T8WW6a)

My social network is scattered, I live a solitary life, there is
(not for want of hunting) no writers group in my world, and if it
weren’t for librarians, pages, curators, and library workers, I
could easily go for weeks without speaking a word to a living human
being. (I pet-sit. Cats, dogs, and pigeons are the recipients of
conversations peppered with “I don’t know why I speak to you in
complete sentences.” 

There are times when the coals run cold, and there’s not much in the
way of breath or kindling to warm the storying world to fire. In the
truly glorious, sometimes overwhelming endurance slog of research,
with my utter lack of concrete reason to believe that all of the
time that all of these people (I work in many libraries, and _many_
minds have invested wisdom, suggestions, direction, and generosity
in this work.) are pouring themselves into something worthwhile, a
few unsought, gifted torches stand out. In no particular order:

I wrote about a startling piece of support-this-part-of-the-novel
research, and Jane Hirshield wrote, “Proof of concept: Here is a
writer.” 

Note that I am supposed to know none of this. I am grateful not to
live in “supposed to”. A research librarian led a research workshop
(Shocking, I know.) for teens. At the end, she asked for questions.
A teen stuck up a hand and was called on. “What,” came the query,
“was the most exciting recent project to come across your desk?” And
the librarian — one whom I rightly hold in a light of awe — told a
room full of teenagers about my work-in-progress. A year later,
during lean months, I still dine on this. 

For this, unlike any other manuscript I’ve written, I write anchor
scenes. One turned into a chapter. It is, although one’s not to know
it, because “He said”/“He said” break the beat, almost entirely in
iambic pentameter. In one of my personal Abysses of Insecurity,
which sinks adjacent to an Infinite Bog that’s all too familiar to
other artists in my orbs, I sent it to Erin. Two parts of the
response glitter in my head. One was a single word: Dazzling. The
other was advice: Submit it for everything. (Ah, yes. Erin, I just
submitted it for something. “Everything” may take a little time. 

Which ambling preamble leads to this. Rather, these. Skip the lot or
pick from amongst them, as you will.

Again, in no particular order: 

You have, amongst other lauds, galaxies of Kirkus stars, a Governor
General’s Literary Award, and a Newbery Honor. Some might think
these would steer you forever clear of the Boundless Ocean of
Exhausted Blah, the Bog of Infinite Despair, and the rest of the Map
of Artists’ Miseries. What is your response to this? (I started with
“What do you say…” but “What is your response…” gives greater
allowance. “Response” can be interpreted in countless ways.)

Thoughts on success and the need (or lack thereof) for kith and
kindling when the coals run cold. 

Pressures, external and in, to develop and maintain a persona, mask,
act, truth, ___ of/belief in recognition having taken you beyond
those needs. An expectation that you will/can/should embody success.
There may or may not be some attachment to role-modeling in this. 

What (if anything) lights the fire for you, when it is dim? 

And one for Nancy: Would you be willing to expand on the echoes, the
overlaps, and the distances-between the writing of fiction and non?
This is, of course, entirely optional. This weaves with Erin asking
for shared insights from other writers, with this being a
conversation, about writers as community, and about learning from
one another about all of the flowers, fruits, vegetables, weeds, and
pollen that make this work just that: creative _work_. 

Also keeping near the forefront Erin’s “I want to hear from other
writers here about writing as a slate, like a movie studio slate --
managing various projects at various stages of commitment and
completion.” 

It is a very festival of choices. What is an Inkwell dipper to do? 
  

    
> and actually only wish it hadn't been in the book
> jacket copy which was quoted above, so the reader could discover
it
> at the same time that Simon's friends did.

In my case, since my wife and I read books aloud to each other if
they are worth it, this book was read aloud to me, and I never saw
the jacket cover until after. Of course my wife knew in advance that
I would not be unduly and personally traumatized by the story (not
the same thing as not shivering and breaking down crying, but I was
able to go to work the next day).

I think in this case it is reasonable, as you say.  And parents will
have the option to share or not share the jacket cover with their
children if they choose to read it aloud as a family.

I can't remember if I read the book before or after seeing the short
movie "If Anything Happens I Love You".  In any case, I am glad I
did not have to go work the next day after seeing that.
  

    
I listened to the audiobook, so I enjoyed every turn in the story
without any spoilers. (I made good guesses at couple of them ahead
of time.)
  

    
 <seanan> I will circle back with thoughts. Alas, I have to go
write. :-)
  

    
You are the only one who thinks this is “Alas”. 
  

    
This sprouts another wondering, and it is an open-to-all one. It
sits in the Betweens or, if you prefer, the In-Betweens. Whether
it’s a matter of obligations, inclinations, distractions, health ill
or otherwise demanding, mood, the needs of flesh or mind… and
writing. 

What lands in the land where you cannot write? The land where you do
anything but write, because writing is blocked or stands at your
mind’s door with excess baggage in its hands? Where you feel you are
failing or falling short in one area or another, because the regions
of your life want you in more than one physical or other place?
Where, perhaps, you cannot do the other thing with whole self,
because part of you yearns to be writing? Where baking and eating a
nation’s worth of chocolate chocolate-chip cupcakes sounds like a
better choice than facing your work-in-progress? 

What shape is your in-between, what lands you there, and how do you
free yourself? If you’ve noticed and can (and are willing to) name a
pattern or trigger, then what is it, and what helps to counter it? 

This may be a place where the creators in the room — and everybody
is creative, one way or another, and sometimes torn away — can both
learn that they are the opposite of alone, and share tricks and
tools that others can also use. 

Erin, you and I have talked about this time and time again. Times
change, as do people and work and life (change being the only
constant), and there’s always more to ponder. 
  

    <scribbled by seanan Thu 29 Aug 24 03:26>
  

    
As I’m inviting others to confide their truths, I’ll add this. 

For me, in the balm of my solitude, the luxury of stillness in a
sleeping world conflicts with a factor of time. 

I overslept — ‘til almost 05:00 — and have to cram in language
studies, exercise, an off-track errand with an imminent deadline,
awareness that the day includes revising a CV for a
research-and-writing job and judging a slew of short stories, and a
scratchy need to get my centuries-old Veronese teenager into a
deadly mess. 

The first part of the solution is “Get off the WELL.” The next is
all and only ticking my way down the list, with coffee jammed early
in. The safety net is a notebook in my pocket. As an adult, it’s
easier to listen to my mother’s voice, and remember that when I
think it is the time to _Write It Down_. 
  

    
I've been blocked for so long that I wonder if I'm still a writer?
Looking back at my written works, I wonder who wrote those lucid
bits of prose, it couldn't have been me? 

I tell myself that, if it was in me to be a writer, I'd be writing
every day, more than social media posts and odd bits of content here
and there. It would be a discipline and I would take time for it,
not as labor but as an inescapable part of my life, something I must
do just as I must eat, drink, and breathe. I don't have that feeling
anymore. I wonder if I'll have it again.
  

    
Greetings from the in-between.  It's the start of a travel day for
me -- an early morning ferry on the Georgian Straight heading toward
Vancouver.  WE're paused in dock at a tiny island, which I presume
is related to the "is there a doctor or nurse or anyone medical
aboard" announcement and the stern bustle of the stewards.  I find
myself crossing myself as my grandmother would have.  There are
otters in the kelp flats outside the window. By midnight I should be
in Toronto.  

And I haven't written in months. The whole of this year, really, has
been taken up in various care-giving tasks -- my elderly parents and
in-laws, my teens, both of whom are autistic.  I came to BC for most
of August to house-sit/cat-sit for friends and attempt to find my
writer self again, but I didn't.  Instead, my father died.  I rushed
to be there.  I came back and greived.  I have been staring at the
sea and hardly able even to journal.  

So, Seanan asks if my various accomplishments free me from the
sloughs of despond.  They do not.  I might be a bit more resistant
to imposter syndrome.  Once in a while it just feels like it's a
bigger height to fall from once my scam is uncovered, but mostly I
believe I am writer, and I will write again.  

I also try to think of it as a fallow season, not a blocked one - -a
cover crop on the field; winter in the garden.   I try to keep up
with morning pages (a la The Artist's Way) which I think of as
tending the soil as opposed to growing the actual work.  I keep a
commonplace book in the form of a stack of index cards.  There are
hard times when even that this too much.  

I believe they will end and I'll write again.  But I don't know how
to make that new season start.  Entering writing does seem to
require a different route every time.  
  

    
Thank you (plural) for your honesty and vulnerability. 
  

    
When I wrote my book (Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City), what worked
was opening up the working document every day, even for a few stolen
minutes, and looking at it. Something to fix, something to add, something to
condense or reword or move would seize my eye and compel my fingers into
motion. That daily bout with the monster would keep my subconscious rattling
along around the clock.

There's something to be said for fallowing, but the soil needs to be checked
every now and then or you're just procrastinating. I told my self for years
that I was nurturing a rich soil for the work that would sprout. I was busy
enough that I didn't need to consider a book. What got me moving was the
steady accumulation of birthdays and the growing wish to make something that
would live beyond me.

There's also reading. Whether my response is admiration, intrigue, envy or
scorn, responding is key. I often remind myself of what Walt Whitman said:
"I was simmering, simmering, simmering . . . Emerson brought me to a boil."
  

    <hidden>
  

    
Ramblings above hidden for length.