LESSON FOUR: SLEEP ON EVERYTHING
(Or: What Time of Day Is Best for Doing Creative Work?)

I love Eleanor Farjeon’s poem “Cats Sleep Anywhere”:

Cats sleep anywhere, any table, any chair.
Top of piano, window-ledge, in the middle, on the edge.
Open drawer, empty shoe, anybody's lap will do.
Fitted in a cardboard box, in the cupboard with your frocks.
Anywhere! They don't care! Cats sleep anywhere.”

 My cat Miguel, for his lazy catnaps, preferred a lap, a cardboard box, or the window ledge, in that order. Patches simply followed the sun. No sun? Any warm, soft spot would do—a pillow, a fleece blanket, the laundry basket.

Sleep is essential to the creative process. The dreaming hours and those fuzzy moments between full wakefulness and sleep are the times when our subconscious does its very best creative work. A writer sleeps on everything. I’ve gone to bed at night thinking about a knot, in my life or my work in progress, that needed untangling. More often than not, I’ve wakened in the morning with the untangling done.

Bad reviews and rejection letters are especially important to sleep on. At first reading, a rejection or a bad review is like a stab to the heart. I’m not certain I’m going to survive it.

Several years ago I stumbled on a snarky online review of one of my romantic comedies: “Ms. Hicks really ought to be writing for children,” the critic had written. “No one else could possibly appreciate such silliness.”

Believe me, I slept on that one. I went to bed, pulled the covers over my head, and swore I’d never write again. But when I finally crawled out the other side, I took the reviewer’s words as a challenge: I wrote a children’s story. That book, Jitterbug Jam, has sold more copies than any of my adult books, been translated into five languages and published in nine countries, and sold audio and stage rights. Sleeping on it made me able to see the review as honest feedback and ask myself what I could learn from it. 

My cats are clearly of the opinion that everything looks better after a good nap; I couldn’t agree more. And those moments just before I fall asleep and just before I'm fully awake are the absolute most creative moments of the day for me.

How about you?

Tune in next week for Lesson Five: Stretch! (Or, Never be Bored, and You Won't be Boring!)

THIS IS THE FIFTH IN A SERIES. FOR THE INTRODUCTORY COLUMN ON "EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT WRITING I LEARNED FROM MY CATS," CLICK HERE. FOR LESSON ONE: BE CURIOUS, CLICK HERE. FOR LESSON TWO: MAKE DARING LEAPS, CLICK HERE. FOR LESSON THREE: SCRATCH WHERE IT ITCHES, CLICK HERE.

LESSON THREE: SCRATCH WHERE IT ITCHES
(Or: What Do You Do when an Idea Won't Leave You Alone?)

Cats scratch in public. No matter where it itches. Not very couth, but there you are.

I don’t recommend that writers follow this example literally. But metaphorically, I think it’s a good idea to scratch where it itches.

I write about those things. I write what I need to write, what I can’t NOT write about. I write about what itches.

The itch I needed to scratch that resulted in my first concept book, I Like Black and White, was an image: Miguel, my tidy tuxedo cat, looking incredibly black and white against the lush, rain-fed lawn of our Seattle home. Without knowing what I would do with them, I began to collect pictures of black and white animals and objects. The pictures eventually inspired descriptive words, and then relationships between the words. Before long I had a poem, a rhyming picture book that simply celebrates the beauty of black and white.

The itch that resulted in my inspirational romance China Doll was highly personal. I was newly divorced and not ready for another relationship, and the old biological clock was ticking. I wrote parts of this book, about a single woman who desperately wants a child, in tears of grief over my childlessness. By the end of my final draft, I had written my way through my grief and started thinking of ways other than parenthood that I could have children in my life.

When it comes to choosing what I write about, I follow my cats’ lead and scratch where it itches. Sometimes the ideas that won’t leave me alone are the ones that have the power to transform both my writing and my life.

What do you do when an idea won't leave you alone? If you're a writer, you write about it. If your creative outlet is in some other form, maybe you paint it, or bake it, or knit it, or landscape it.

Whatever you do, don't leave your itch alone!

Tune in next week for Lesson Four: Sleep On Everything (Or, What time of day is best for doing creative work?)

THIS IS THE FOURTH IN A SERIES. FOR THE INTRODUCTORY COLUMN ON "EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT WRITING I LEARNED FROM MY CATS," CLICK HERE. FOR LESSON ONE: BE CURIOUS, CLICK HERE. FOR LESSON TWO: MAKE DARING LEAPS, CLICK HERE.

LESSON TWO: MAKE DARING LEAPS
(Or: Are you a Planner or a Seat-of-the-Pantser?)

Cats are powerful jumpers—some more than others. Making the leap from the floor to the bed was as daring as my cat Patches got. The new pillow-top mattress, a scant two inches thicker than the old one, made her nightly leap a major challenge.

Miguel, on the other hand, was born to leap. With the right motivation—a Great Dane with a basso profundo bark, for instance—Miguel could sail over an eight-foot fence without touching it.

I approach my writing that way. Some writers are planners, but for me, planning too much takes the “juice” out of writing. Starting a story is an adventure, a leap into the unknown. Writing is a process of discovery. I start with a curious bit of dialogue, a vivid image, a word or phrase that tickles my funny bone. Before I have any real idea where I'm going, I'm on my way. The act of writing teaches me what my story is and how it wants to be told.

I honestly can’t say, for instance, what inspired the opening sentence of Jitterbug Jam. I had a vague story idea—a monster afraid of the boy hiding under his bed. But I made no conscious decisions about the story arc or how the tale would be told. I simply began:

Nobody believes me,
and my brother Buster says I’m a fraidy-cat,
but I’m not fooling you:
there’s a boy who hides in my big old monster closet
all night long,
and then sneaks under my bed in the morning,
on purpose
to scare me...

The story would not have unfolded the way it did without that sentence. It sets the tone. It establishes the rhythm. It contains the kernel of the entire monster universe the rest of the story reveals. It survived seventeen revisions almost completely intact.

And those daring leaps in my personal life? Prime fodder for story ideas. For a veritable catalog of my dates with inappropriate men, one need look no further than my romantic comedy Loves Me, Loves Me Not. “DWF Seeks Family Man” may not have got me the man, but it gave me a lot of darn good stories.

So far, making daring leaps doesn’t seem to have harmed the cats or me. In truth, those leaps can be downright exhilarating!

What about you? Planning is all well and good, but sometimes making a daring leap is the only way to move forward.

Go for it!

Tune in next week for Lesson Three: Scratch Where It Itches (Or, What Do You Do When an Idea Won't Leave You Alone?)

THIS IS THE THIRD IN A SERIES. FOR THE INTRODUCTORY COLUMN ON "EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT WRITING I LEARNED FROM MY CATS," CLICK HERE. FOR LESSON ONE: BE CURIOUS, CLICK HERE.

Today we remember them.

Today we thank them.

And today we pray, for those who continue to serve in the most dangerous of places, a safe journey home.

LESSON ONE: BE CURIOUS
(Or: What's So Wrong About Eavesdropping?)

Cats are endlessly curious, sniffing about, exploring every nook and cranny that presents itself. My cat Miguel loved to reconnoiter the basement of our old house in Seattle and forever had cobwebs in his whiskers. Patches, lacking a basement in our Southern California condo, discovered the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, which she opened with her dainty little paws before disappearing inside. (The liquour cabinet seemed to be her favorite.)

We read like writers. First of all, we read what we want to write, as many examples as we can find. Secondly, we read beneath the surface—not only for the who, what, where, and when, but for the why and how. Why did the writer choose this word, this example, this technique? How did the writer achieve this effect?

We observe. We listen. Sometimes we even eavesdrop. My years supporting my writing habit as a waitress gave me plenty of opportunities for primary research. I’m convinced that to most people, waitresses are invisible. How else to explain all those private conversations I was privy to?

Writers ask questions, the most important being, “What if?” It’s a question with a universe of possibilities instead of a single answer.

What if my cat could talk? What if he has opinions about his life with me? What if his eerie self possession hides a rich inner life and a really great imagination? These questions were the genesis of another picture book, The Secret Life of Walter Kitty.

Be curious, my cats have taught me. And so I read, ask questions, look for answers. Sometimes I even eavesdrop.

Crawling into the liquor cabinet? Optional!

Tune in next week for Lesson Two: Make Daring Leaps (Or, Are You A Planner or a Seat-of-the-Pantser?)

THIS IS THE SECOND IN A SERIES. FOR THE INTRODUCTORY COLUMN ON "EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT WRITING I LEARNED FROM MY CATS," CLICK HERE.

from the writing files of

“Books. Cats. Life is good.”

I can’t bear to part with the faded old book bag that bears that quote. Doesn’t it say it all? My family didn’t have much when I was growing up; nine of us lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house. But we had each other, we had books, and we had cats. I didn't even think about asking for more.

I’ve never gone book-less, but I’ve been cat-less. In fact, I'm cat-less now. College dorm life, apartments with no-pet policies, and housemates who didn’t like cats or had cat allergies all conspired against me. (Fortunately, I do have friends with cats!)

For ten years of my adult life, though, I shared a home with a partner who was both a book lover and a cat lover. In those ten years, our library reached over a thousand books, and we adopted two remarkable (at least to me!) rescue cats. Each of them lived with us for about five years.

In fact, Miguel and Patches taught me five invaluable lessons about writing (and living) creatively:

Be curious.
Make daring leaps.
Scratch where it itches.
Sleep on everything.
Stretch!

Over the next five weeks I'll share more specifics about those lessons. In the meantime, think about a few things in terms of cats and art--for instance:

What's so wrong about eavesdropping?
Are you a planner or a seat-of-the-pantser?
What do you do when an idea just won't leave you alone?
What time of day is best for doing creative work?
What does it mean as a writer or artist (or a human soul?) to "stretch"?

See you here next week!

NOTE: THIS IS THE FIRST OF A SIX-PART SERIES.

When holidays roll around, I usually share a poem that relates to it. Sunday is Mother's Day. Before I started looking for a piece for today's blog post, I read something written by my colleague and Facebook friend, children's author and illustrator Nina Laden, and it moved me so much that I decided I wanted to share it instead of a poem. I hope it moves you as it did me.

Nina lives in the great Pacific Northwest, which I am soon to call my permanent home. She is the author/illustrator of 15 picture books, including such great titles as The Night I Followed the Dog, Private I. Guana, When Pigasso Met Mootisse, Peek-A-Who?, Roberto the Insect Architect, An Ant's Day Off, and her most recent, Button Nose.

Nina's mother died when Nina was only 24. One of the things she left her daughter was a library of books, complete with handwritten notes. Recently Nina came across a letter her mom had written her and stuffed in a book of Walt Whitman's poetry. It's a wonderful love letter from a mom to her daughter, and Nina has kindly given me permission to share it. I hope you'll visit Nina's blog and read the entire post. It's lovely! And it's no wonder that Nina is a writer and artist.

It’s the last weekend of National Poetry Month for 2013. I’ve enjoyed talking about poetry and sharing poems here and on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/barbarajeanhicks) throughout the month of April. Poetry has a language all its own, and even if the writer in you doesn't consider you a poet, understanding and employing this special language can make any piece of prose you write sing like a poem.

Like many other forms of literature, poetry makes use of imagery, metaphor, symbol, allusion, connotation and tone to communicate an idea and produce a desired effect. It is the music of language, however, that some writers feel sets a piece of writing apart from its literary counterparts as the thing we call “a poem.” Edgar Allan Poe described poetry as “music combined with a pleasurable idea,” for instance. Laurence Perrine’s classic text on poetry, Sound and Sense, posits that the poet uses verbal music to enhance meaning and communicate an idea more fully. 

But musical language is not just for poetry. If you have a story draft completed, particularly if you write picture books, check it against the list below. Does your manuscript utilize any of these musical devices? Can you find ways to tweak your language to include more verbal music?

My picture book Jitterbug Jam opens with a long sentence employing alliteration, with many “b” sounds repeated. (You’ll also find alliteration in “fraidy-cat” and “fooling”):

Nobody believes me,
and my brother, Buster, says I’m a fraidy-cat,
but I’m not fooling you:
there’s a boy
who hides in my big old monster closet
all night long
and then sneaks under the bed in the morning
on purpose
to scare me.

Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds (free and easy; mad as a hatter)

These lines from my picture book Monsters Don’t Eat Broccoli illustrate a combination of alliteration and assonance:

We’d rather snack on tractors
or a rocket ship or two,
or tender trailer tidbits,
or a wheely, steely stew.

Those particular lines also illustrate two additional poetic devices:

Consonance: the repetition of final consonant sounds (tractors, tidbits)

Rhyme: the repetition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds (two, stew)

A Short Lesson on Rhyme

All rimes are not created equal. In masculine rhyme, the repetition of sounds involves only one syllable (two, stew or support, retort). Feminine rhyme involves the repetition of two or more syllables (spitefully, delightfully). Rhyming words can come at the ends of lines in a poem (end rhyme), as above, or occur within lines of poetry or prose sentences (internal rhyme), as in the example below from my prose work in progress, Abelard and the Bad-Weather Why-Bother Blues. Notice the alliteration and assonance in this short paragraph as well as the internal rhyme:

Winter loped in like a lean gray wolf and circled the town. It howled and it growled and it thumped down on its bony behind and stayed.

One more note: Approximate rhyme includes words that have any kind of similarity in sound (yellow, willow or lightly, frightful), and is probably more appropriate for most prose works than is true rhyme.

The trick to using rhyme in a way that doesn’t annoy editors who say they “don’t like rhyme” is to use it in such a way that it doesn’t call attention to itself and it doesn’t compromise the meaning you’re trying to convey. Nothing is worse than a contrived, tortured rhyme!

One of the nicest reviews I received for my concept book I Like Black and White noted that the rhyme seemed “organic,” that is, that it grew from the text rather than being forced on it. You’ll also notice alliteration in this short poem that comprises the full text of the book:

stinky, slinky, large and small,
wiggly, woolly, short and tall
stripes, patches, squares and spots—
lots and lots and lots of spots!
twinkly skies, snowy lands,
music, dancing, feet…and hands!

Because I grew up in a home filled with music and literature, including poetry, I find that using musical language comes naturally to me, and using it in my writing gives me great pleasure. My best advice for writers who want to enhance their works with musical language: Listen to music and read more poetry!

FOX FOREVER, by Mary E. Pearson, is the final installment of the Jenna Fox Chronicles, which had its most excellent beginning with The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Fox Forever follows the journey of one of Jenna's friends, Locke Jenkins, who was also preserved in a black box, to be regenerated 260 years later in a more perfect body. This is a worthy conclusion to the series--it has action. mystery, and a love  story set in a futuristic dystopia. Read this trilogy in order tho.

At Gwen Dandridge's suggestion, I read THE DEMON KING, A Seven Realms Novel, by Cinda Williams Chima. Absorbing fantasy, and I am really sad that I didn't have the second book at hand to begin immediately when I had finished the first.

And I have also been enjoying the first two books of the Ashfall trilogy, by Mike Mullen, specifically ASHFALL, and ASHEN WINTER. They're fast paced, action-oriented books set after the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. These are plot driven books that relentlessly describe the lengths people go to for survival.

Picture books:
NIGHT SKY WHEEL RIDE, by Sheree Fitch, with illustrations by Yayo. I liked everything about this fun picture book. The text is a poem describing the first time a pair of children rides the ferris wheel at a fair; it's full of sound and color and movement, and so are the quirky illustrations.

SLEEP LIKE A TIGER, written by Mary Logue and illustrated by Pamela Zagrenski, won a Newbery Honor this year, and it's a real treat. A little girl who doesn't want to go sleep, talks with her parents about how other animals manage to do it. The text is simple but descriptive and fulfilling, and the illustrations are completely gorgeous.

RED HAT, by Lita Judge, is wordless except for the sounds made by the animals, who play with a child's red hat hung outside to dry. It's full of action and fun perspective. Seems like it would be a really good story time crowd pleaser for younger kids.

UP! TALL! AND HIGH! by Ethan Long won the Geisel Award recently, and it's a pretty great example of a picture book that functions as an easy reader. The story is succinct but complete, and the illustrations do a terrific job of portraying what the words say. The flaps are a novelty, but they enhance the story.

from the inquiring mind of

It's still National Poetry Month and I'm still thinking about poetry!

I grew up in a family that loved music and poetry. My dad went to school in an era when poetry was memorized, and I remember him quoting poems when I was a child that he had learned as a child. One favorite memory from my childhood is the image of my father knocking on my door to wake me in the morning, poking his head in the doorway and quoting Omar Khayyam:

AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight…

As he approached the end of his life and lost many of his memories to Alzheimer’s, my dad didn’t forget the poems of his childhood. I could begin Robert Frost's “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening”:

Whose woods these are, I think I know…

and he would immediately respond with:

His house is in the village, though.

And he could quote the King James Version of the 23^rd Psalm from beginning to end flawlessly. What’s more, quoting poetry seemed to give my father pleasure at a time in his life when most pleasures were forgotten.

Now my mom is suffering memory loss, and although she didn’t attend a school that emphasized memorization the way my father’s did, I find that one of the things she enjoys most is having stories and poetry read aloud to her. The poems she most responds to are the silly ones she and my father read to us when we were very small, like Lewis Carroll’s “The Owl and the Pussy Cat,” or this from Gelett Burgess:

I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one!

She likes the vivid images found in more serious poetry, too, like these in “The Eagle” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Poetry was for my father and is for my mother a bridge to the past. It is a bridge to my past as well; it connects me to my childhood and to my parents as they were. As someone who writes for the pleasure of sound as well as sense, poetry is my legacy—one worth far more to me than any physical legacy could ever be.

Thank you, Papá and Mama. I love you.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, I gave myself the gift of three new books of poetry: 100 Selected Poems by e.e. cummings, 100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda, translated by Stephen Tapscott, and Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology, translated and edited by David Hinton. A wonderful, eclectic mix!

Spring has come to the little corner of the world where I'm living, and I'm loving it. Days are getting longer, the flowering cherries and the rhododendrons are in bloom, the spring showers are a bit warmer than the winter rains and the world is "puddle-wonderful"! So for those of you enjoying Spring in your corner of the world--and those of you who haven't yet seen Spring!--here's one of my favorite spring poems from e.e. cummings.

BY E.E. CUMMINGS

in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
licious the little
lame balloonman

whistles        far        and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far        and        wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

        the

                goat-footed

balloonMan        whistles
far
and
wee

April is National Poetry Month. To celebrate, I've been posting poems on my Facebook page--so far some haiku from the Japanese masters of the form (one of my favorites) and a couple of book-spine poems.

Never heard of a book-spine poem? Poetry lesson of the day: Book-spine poems are just one example of a poetic form called a "cento"--a poem made up entirely of lines from other people's works, arranged to form a new work. I think of it as "word collage."

Here are two examples, compiled from books on my own shelves. If you're inspired, compile a book-spine poem of your own, snap a picture, and hop on over to Facebook to post the image on my Wall. (Teachers--this is a great activity for kids, encouraging them to make connections between lines of prose to form their own poem.)

2:

I love Easter. It's all about resurrection, rebirth, new life--concepts that inspire and excite me as a person and a writer. And George Herbert, the 17th century Welsh-born Anglican priest and metaphysical poet, is one of my favorite wordsmiths, well remembered from my days as an English Literature major in college. So what better combination on this Good Friday than an Easter poem written by George Herbert?

I've posted "Easter Wings" twice below, as images. It's a shape poem, a poem in which the form as well as the content have meaning. The first image is a scan of the poem as it appeared when it was first published in 1633 in a collection called The Temple: Sacred poems and private ejaculations. The second is more easily readable although it doesn't have quite the same visual effect.

Blessings to all in this season that celebrates life!

NAVIGATING EARLY, by Newbery medalist Clare Vanderpool, is an inspiring coming-of-age odyssey through the backwoods of Maine. When Jack Baker's mother dies, Jack finds himself uprooted from his home in Kansas. Taken to boarding school in Maine, he becomes an outsider, "with nowhere to call home, at a school with no baseball, unable to row a boat straight." Then Jack meets Early Auden, a strange boy who lives in the school's basement and makes up stories about the mathematical number pi. This is a story about finding one's way through landscapes both mythical and real, while learning the true meaning of friendship.  

NEVER FALL DOWN, by Patricia McCormick, is a hard-hitting look at Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge march in. What makes this subject inspiring as well as heartbreaking is the narrator, Arn Chorn-Pond, a real person whose story is told through the skillful writing of McCormick. Though it's called a novel, Arn was in fact captured by soldiers who took him, his family, and many entire villages to labor camps to be worked to death or shot on a whim. But Arn is a survivor, and an adult now, he travels around the world, working for humanitarian causes and speaking about his experiences. It's beautifully written. Patricia McCormick also wrote Sold, a previous Book Talk book about Nepalese girls sold into slavery.

Lynn

from the bookshelves of guest columnist

 A friend sent me a link last week to an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, the award-winning writer whose memoir Eat, Pray, Love tells the story of a woman losing and then finding herself during a journey that was both physical and spiritual. Her words reminded me of Julia Cameron's book on creative recovery, The Artist's Way, which led me to an article on beliefnet.com by Tibetan Buddhist Chantmaster Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within. Today, for your contemplation, I offer quotes from these three writers on the interconnectedness of creativity and spirituality:

Julia Cameron - from The Artist's Way

"Mystery is at the heart of creativity."

"The Artist's Way is a spiritual journey, a pilgrimage home to the self."

Elizabeth Gilbert - from "The Stubborn Gladness of Elizabeth Gilbert" by Karen Bouris for the Spirituality and Health blog:

"I was given a contract, and the contract is: 'We are not going to tell you why, but we gave you this capacity. Your side of the contract is that you must devote yourself to this in the highest possible manner, you must approach it with the greatest respect, and you must give your whole self to this. And then we will work with you on making progress.' That's sort of what it feels like for me. With the exception of the experience of four months of meditating in Inda in an ashram, there has never been anything in my life that's even approximated the sense of the miraculous that I feel running deep in this work and the contract that has played out. It's beautiful."

Lama Surya Das - from "What's Creativity Got To Do With It?" for the beliefnet blog:

"It takes time and practice to learn to 'get out of the way' and enter into the state from which true art emerges. The total attention, precision, and discipline required for true creativity to blossom through one's own craft requires fully inhabiting the present moment, free of self and other, past and future, in a non-conceptual state of wakefulness--just like meditation practice."

What's your experience with creativity as a spiritual practice? Do the words of these three writers speak to you? Have you experienced transcendence in your creative life--a time when you felt you were a vessel for a life-force outside yourself, or you felt your work sprang from a deep place within that you were not consciously aware of? Have you ever created works inspired by dreams?

You've heard it a thousand times: "Write what you know."

  But what does that mean, really? Does it mean you have to know a subject inside out before you have anything worthwhile to say about it? Does it mean you can't use settings you haven't traveled to? Does it mean your characters all have to be clones of yourself?

I say no, no, and no again. Our writing--and our lives--would be awfully dull if we wrote only about what we already know.

Writers are curious creatures. What interests you? What intrigues you? What do you NOT know and wish you did? That's what you'll want to write about. It gives us an excuse--as if we needed one--to research. To enter a different time in history, a different place, a different set of circumstances, a different world from our own. To enter the mind of a different sort of person from ourself and experience the world in a whole new way. To be wildly creative!

There is a way in which we must write what we know, however, if our writing is to be effective. And how is that, you ask? In what way must we write what we know?

Writing what I know means writing from my emotional and sensory experience, whatever the subject matter, wherever my story takes place, whatever form my characters take.

Writing what I know allowed me to channel my experience of fear into the character of a little monster named Bobo, who heard something under his bed and made a choice to confront it (Jitterbug Jam: A Monster Tale).

Writing what I know allowed me to express my contradictory desires for independence and intimacy through a cat named Walter, who realized he didn't have to give up one to have the other (The Secret Life of Walter Kitty).

Writing what I know allowed me, in my novels for adults, to express the pain of my personal losses through characters as diverse as, for example, a man who discovered a family secret that disrupted his life (Coming Home), a recovering alcoholic struggling to keep her child (Snow Swan) and a woman working through her inability to conceive a child (China Doll).

When it comes to your outer story, write what you don't know. Enjoy the research. Milk the process. Learn!

When it comes to your inner story, write what you know. Write from your heart and from your physical sensations. Be true to your experience of life. That's the kind of truth your readers will recognize, the kind of truth that will reach them, the kind of truth that will cause them to suspend their disbelief and enter the world you have created and get lost there.

And isn't that every writer's wish?

I'm going to try to introduce CODE NAME VERITY, by Elizabeth Wein, intelligently, but I have just been crying my way through the last quarter of it, so let's see how I do.

"Verity," a spy for the British during World War II, is captured by the Nazi's when she looks the wrong way crossing a street in France. To buy herself some time, and perhaps avoid more brutal interrogation tactics in prison, she writes her confession. This includes information on the British war effort, but also describes her close friendship with Mattie Brodatt, a pilot who flies for the Air Transport Auxiliary. This is a very human take on World War II--the story concerns the lives of some of the pilots who flew for the British, as well as the French Resistance, but especially the effect of the war on these two outstanding female main characters, who were operating in a man's world. (Or, more specifically, as the Jamaican rear gunner says near the end, "It's a white man's world.") Verity and Maddie prove their competence and heroism over and over again through the course of this very complex novel.

Which brings me to my main point that I'd like to make in this post: the joy of reading a really good book for the second time. For me, the first time through, I'm mostly caught up in the plot. I'm paying attention to what's going on on the surface, but the subtexts are not always apparent, at least not completely. When I read through a second time, since I already know where the plot is going, I can pick up on all of the clues I missed. In an artfully constructed novel, there is a lot to pay attention to the second time around--especially in a book like Code Name Verity, where the true story is partially obscured, and fittingly so, because of the spy aspect. I have also just finished reading NAVIGATING EARLY, by Newbery medalist Clare Vanderpool, and the complexity of that story led me to an immediate, and entirely rewarding, second read. Better the second time around, for sure! (I will talk more about Navigating Early when I post my next column, in a couple of weeks.)

As writers, I think we can learn a lot about the process of structuring a novel by reading it through a second time. It's so much easier to study the craft when you already know where the plot is going--you can to go back and have lots of "aha!" moments, seeing why the author put this point here or that statement there, to construct a wholly satisfying story.

Lynn

What makes a picture book great? I heard illustrator and art director Laurent Linn (Simon and Schuster) speak on this topic at an SCBWI conference several years ago.  He answered the question by listing his all-time favorite picture books and what it is that makes them great.

As a writer of texts for picture books, it was good for me to think about great picture books from the point of view of an illustrator who also manages the text and illustrations in picture books. Writing picture books is hard work, I think especially for non-illustrators. Since picture books are as dependent on the illustrations as they are on the text, it helps us to think like illustrators as we write. Even though, in general, we have little control over the choice of illustrator or the direction the illustrations will take, thinking like an illustrator will make our texts accessible to the illustrator and art director. That can only be a good thing!

What do you think of Linn's list? Are you familiar with all his choices? Is there a book he's left out that belongs on this list? (For me, it's Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, a wonderfully illustrated book steeped in the psychology of children, a book that in my opinion changed the course of children's publishing...)

10. The Napping House, Don and Audrey Wood. Every page is the same setting but explores it from different perspectives and in a different color palette.

9. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Bill Martin and Eric Carle. A book that draws children in and engages the senses with spare language, lots of white space and an accessible medium (collage).

8. Madeline, Ludwig Bemalmans. Energetic art, rendered from the child's perspective, that makes an emotional connection.

7. The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats. Sophisticated but very child-like and accessible artwork (again, collage) depicting a day in the life of a child.

6. Corduroy, Don Freeman. Creates a sense of safety for a child discovering the world in a story that culminates in friendship/love.

5. Alexander and the No Good, Very Bad Day, Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz. Told in the perfect child voice, yet philosophical (without being preachy!). The sketchy, energetic art balances the darkness of the mood.

4. The Three Pigs, David Wiesner. Depicts a full journey as the pigs leave home, change their world, and come back home again. The text tells the traditional story while the illustrations turn the story on its head as the pigs take charge of their lives by pushing the panels of art around, creating three-dimensional space in two dimensions.

3. The Monster at the End of This Book, Jon Stone. The child controls the destiny of the character as they simultaneously turn the pages. Energy and humor of the illustrations suits the text.

2. Harold and the Purple Crayon, Crockett Johnson. With very spare text, the illustrations, for the most part, tell the story. The child and the character together create things that both frighten and comfort them. Again, a full-journey story in which the character leaves home, changes his world, and comes back home again.

1. The Possum That Didn't, Frank Tashlin. Published in 1950, this was Linn's favorite book as a child. A story children connect with, and even then, Linn loved the different visual perspectives. 

What do you think? What favorite picture book needs to be added to Linn's list, and why?

from the inquiring mind of

I'm fascinated by the process of creativity. The TV shows I most enjoy are the ones that document the creative process in action, whether in fashion design, cooking, interior design, dance or music. I believe that creativity is a spiritual endeavor, something that arises from and engages the spirit or soul, and I find the creative journeys of others inspiring to my own.

A couple of years ago, I researched master's programs that I thought might deepen my creative experience. I didn't ultimately choose to pursue a degree, but I found an almost irresistible Recommended Reading List at one institution of higher learning that offers an M.A. in Engaged Humanities with an emphasis in Depth Psychology.

I realized that even without pursuing a degree, I could still read the recommended texts on my own--but I discovered it wasn't as easily done as considered! I needed accountability. What if I read these resources NOT on my own, but with a group of like-minded writers, musicians, designers and other artists I could discuss them with?

Here's a list of some titles that intrigue me. Some are classics I've heard about for a long time and even have on my bookshelf but have never read. Others are new to me, but sound intriguing. All are on that Recommended Reading List I mentioned earlier. Please let me know if you're interested in joining me in an in-depth reading and discussion of a book on creativity, and which of the following you would be most interested in--or others you'd like to suggest:

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, Twyla Tharp
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Stoking the Creative Fires: 9 Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination, Phil Cousineau
The Call to Create: Listening to the Muse in Art and Everyday Life, Linda Schierse Leonard
Sparks of Genius: The 13 Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People, Robert and Michelle Root-Bernstein
Free Play: Improvistaion in Life and Art, Stephen Nachmanovitch

It will probably be May or June before I get a reading/study group started, but it takes some organizing, so if you're interested, let me know!

CHICKADEE, by Louise Erdrich is the fourth book in her mid-grade Birchbark House series. The entire series is a terrific counterpoint to Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. Erdrich follows Omakyas as she grows up and has children of her own, one of them being the title character of this new book. And Chickadee has won the 2013 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. (Erdrich also took home the National Book Award this past December for her adult book, Roundhouse.) All four books in this series have been a real treat to read.

CREWEL is Gennifer Albin's debut fantasy about a society tightly controlled by Spinsters, who weave the very fabric of life in Arras. Adelice Lewis has the gift, and she is taken away to begin her glamorous new life at the loom. But when she discovers the unjust conventions imposed upon her, and upon all of the Spinsters, by the ruling men of the Guild, the feisty Adelice refuses to play along. Crewel, the first in a series, is a fun and suspenseful read.

THE BRIDES OF ROLLROCK ISLAND, by Margo Lanagan, is a fascinating take on the Selkie story. When witchy Misskaella calls the first seal woman up from the ocean, all of the men on Rollrock Island are lost. They will pay her anything to possess one of these strange beauties. With gorgeous prose, the story is revealed through successive generations of Rollrock inhabitants, the men, women, and children who are so affected by Misskeala's wrath.

Picture Books:

RED KNIT CAP GIRL, by Naoko Stoop, was on the list of NY Times Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2012 and it's clear why. The illustrations are beautifully done in acrylic, ink, and pencil on plywood, with the grain allowed to show through. The author/illustrator uses her talents to bring us a story about the moon, and a girl who solves her own problems, too.

NIGHTTIME NINJA, by Barbara DaCosta with art by Ed Young, is anther striking picture book. Illustrated with cut paper, textured cloth, string and colored pencil, this is a powerful story with a very few, perfectly placed words.

THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN, by James Agee is full of goofy fun. Beginning with a backwards cover, we follow a taxi cab driver as he takes his passenger through the Finkon Tunnel to the other side of town. Where the Spankees play baseball, the roads are full of spot holes, and when it gets dark, you need to turn on your nog lights. This book reminds me of all the time I spent reading The Hungry Thing, by Jan Slepian, to my kids, and also recalls a favorite episode of Dan Greenberg's The Zack Files, which featured that very famous baseball team, the NY Yunkees. Agee is also the author of a number of my family's most cherished books, including Palindromania! Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog! and Who Ordered the Jumbo Shrimp?

Lynn