Picture Book – Artists and Authors Tour

Two weeks ago, I turned forty.

Since I have dedicated this year to my children’s book writing, it seemed only fitting that I spent the day on a tour of the studios of local children’s book authors and illustrators. Granted, it was a requirement of a graduate course, but it certainly was the easiest assignment I’ve ever completed! Hear directly from six children’s book writers and illustrators? Happy birthday to me!

by David Hyde Costello

I’m on the far right! We are standing in front of an Eric Carle painting in the Great Hall

The cover of my son’s sketchbook

Kathryn Brown sketched Tough Boris to inspire my son, Dexter

Me and Kathryn Brown with her sketch for my son

David Wiesner’s lecture at the Eric Carle Museum

Encouraging words for my son, the aspiring illustrator

I’ve been deeply involved with the young adult book world since I began teaching in 2002, and at first only as a consumer: I was reading and suggesting young adult books to my teen students. Then I had children (five of them) and started hanging out in the picture book room at the library. When I started writing books for teens, it was really just as a creative outlet. When I finally committed to the Simmons College graduate program in Writing for Children, I began to get serious about my own writing for children, and I came to know people who were authors and illustrators. Hearing about their process and vision for their work will always be exciting, but in the three years since I have started, I have shed much of the “fangirl” feelings and have come to see these people as fellow writers who happen to have been recognized by their work through (mostly traditional routes to) publishing. However, the excitement of an autograph hasn’t worn off for my son, a nine year old whose artistic talents and love of words have already made him an author of several (self-published!) picture books and comics. So, I took his sketch book along with me and the artists were kind enough to write him words of encouragement within.

Our first stop of the morning was Jane Dyer’s home and studio. She invited us to begin our tour with a look around her living room — where her own watercolors share the walls with other great artists who happen to illustrate picture books. We then climbed the stairs to her third floor studio for a peek into her reference library and creative process. She showed us dummies of her work in progress, pulled out the antique books that have been her inspiration, and turned on her light table to demonstrate how she transfers her sketches onto watercolor paper.

Then we went across the road and up a winding staircase into Kathryn Brown’s studio. One wall was lined with full-size sketches of her work in progress. It was a treat to see the scrapbook she made documenting her work on one of my favorite picture books, Mem Fox’s Tough Boris. I really appreciated hearing about how she developed the violin subplot, and how the illustrator’s market has changed with all the emerging technology of the past two decades.

We were lucky to have lunch (and decadent dessert!) with Jeanne Birdsall, National Book Award winner for The Penderwicks. I had seen her give a lecture this summer at the Simmons Summer Institute, but sitting in her darling cottage talking about the state of children’s literature was so much more inspiring. It was practical as well — she gave me some book recommendations for my nine year old son!

After chocolate torte, we had to dash off for David Wiesner’s lecture over at the nearby Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. I’ve always been a fan of his wordless picture books, but I was delighted to hear the stories behind the creation of his newest book. He started out by saying, “No one is more surprised than I was when I wrote a book called Mr. Wuffles!” While a cute cat might seem a strange topic for the three-time Caldecott winner, the book itself is absolute Wiesner. Brilliant, funny, quirky, and delightful!

Our next stop was with the prolific Diane DeGroat. Her studio is a bit different than the others for two reasons: it’s full of taxidermy (mostly small mammals) and she has given up pencils and a light table for a high-tech computer sketch pad. Seeing what she can do with the computer and how she uses it as the base for her paintings was fascinating!

At our last stop of the evening we all crowded into a tiny room David Hyde Costello calls his studio. We sipped mugs of hot mulled cider and looked at the dummies and some of the final art for the new picture book he is illustrating  (A Crow of his Own) for author Megan Lambert, who just so happens to be my instructor and the person responsible for the outstanding day. He was engaging, funny, and interactive – he showed us a video (that you can see here) and together we played the scribble game. When he signed my son’s sketch book, he drew a knight running in fear – and left plenty of room for my son to draw whatever it was that was chasing him!

To sum it up? Best fortieth birthday. Ever.

Reading Advice for Writers

Today I “took a break from working on my manuscript” to check my email. It linked me to a writing advice article by Paul Harding. Good stuff. This is what rang most true to me:

“It is true even though everyone says it is that you need to read and read a lot and read the best books. Not only do you need to read the best books, you need to read them well…. Aspire to be a world class reader.” Read the rest of the article here.

Being able to read something critically and with deep attention to craft is one of the best ways to become a better writer. That is one of the things that is so wonderful about being involved in an MFA program – it forces the academic-style critical analysis that can transform an average reader into a reader for whom every text is a lesson. Therefore, I see ever book I read well as another step toward becoming a better writer.

I know that not everyone agrees, and here’s the rub: Won’t that take all the fun out of reading? I don’t think so. Jane Doonan wrote “Finding the source of the experience does not diminish it in any way.” She was writing about picture books, but I am sure she means to refer to all kinds of literature. Figuring out what works (and what doesn’t) is the surest way to make good choices in your own manuscripts. I mean, if you wanted to become a great magician, you would learn how to perform the illusions, right?

Okay, now back to my own revisions…

Work

My favorite stone in the Highlights Foundation poetry garden.

How I got the idea for my book… the Mill River Disaster

How did I come to write this book, Fly to the Hills?

About four years ago, I participated in a Teaching American History program that encouraged interdisciplinary projects. One of the speakers was woman named Betty Sharpe, and she was scheduled to discuss her book In the Shadow of the Dam. In fact, the entire day would be devoted to discussing water power and its history, particularly in the northeast. We were given an excerpt of her book – the chapter describing the flood and the heroes who, at their own peril, decided to warn residents and workers in the mill towns. It was thrilling, exciting, and a bit of local history I never knew. I quickly read her book, and thought that children should know this story. 

It took a great deal of time to figure out how to tell the story. I began researching the event, reading Sharpe’s book over and over, thinking about the various characters who show up in the true events. Another book, Sarah Kilborne’s American Phoenix also covered this dramatic flood. Two nonfiction books for adults that tell the story carefully and with great attention to historical detail. I also read some primary documents to get a feel for the time period and the response to the disaster. Overwhelmingly, the newspapers of the time and the articles that appeared on the anniversary of the event focused on the four heroes – the men who pushed their horses in a dramatic race to alert others. 

There was my hook – what if there was another hero, someone we never heard about? Who would that person be? Why was her story forgotten? This led me to create the character of Catherine, a mill girl who would have been in town on the day of the flood.

 

Okay, if this is a mill girl story, which mill? Which of the four villages did she call home? And why does she go to the mill in the first place?

 

Once I understood that the mill girls often felt great personal satisfaction by earning wages and living independently, I knew that the adventurous spirit of my mill girl would be the factor that would ultimately prod her to moments of great bravery and great empathy in the moments of death. This spirit, this drive to celebrate her independence would be one of the deciding factors in where she landed. 

 

The book American Phoenix was the impetus for placing Catherine in Skinnerville. Not only did the smallest of the villages have a silk mill which hired women, the larger-than-life mill owner, William Skinner, was a compelling character himself. Thus, I did not need to create a mill owner; he can well-formed as a beneficent employer with a fascinating history. Not only did he rise from the extreme poverty of his Spitalfields (check spelling later!) home life, he immigrated to the states and became a wealthy business owner. Furthermore, his own belief in the power of education, particularly for women, makes him likely to be encouraging of women who seek education. Furthermore, I would have set her in Haydenville if I’d thought her journey ended with a career in this mill town; Hayden, another wealthy mill owner rebuilt where his destroyed mill once stood. Skinner, however, was a shrewd businessman and rebuilt his business in a town a dozen miles away, even dismantling and rebuilding the mansion that survived the Skinnerville flood. That mimics the growing and wide-reaching goals I had in mind for my main character. 

 

Even as my research at Wisteriahurst, Skinner’s mansion, shows that his employees often showed great loyalty, Catherine’s loyalty would be to her family, and her drive to further her own education would be to support and encourage her brother to get his own education. She would not be tied down to obligations as a servant or a wife whose primary job is to “keep house” – which is why she went to work in the mill in the first place. Furthermore, she is not seeking recognition, she is seeking opportunity, and by the time the climax of the book hits, she is becoming more clear and more motivated about claiming some opportunities for herself. In accepting the lack of recognition for her role in saving lives, she is claiming something else – her own education and her new purpose in life.

 

It is only in creating the character of Catherine that I was able to move from the events of the flood, which are well-documented, and get beyond a voyeuristic view of this disaster in history. I toyed with the idea of multiple voices, each offering their own experience of the spring of 1874. Instead, I settled on a first person narration, focusing on Catherine herself. Through that choice (and others), I am attempting what I think many historical fiction authors are interested in achieving: making history real and tangible by offering the historically-accurate experiences of a character to whom they can related deeply. If I wanted to invite you to come to know the details of the flaws in dam design or the specifics of the devastation that ensued, I would have carefully crafted a nonfiction book that reproduces primary sources and offers photographic evidence of the flood. I would have offered transcripts and interpretations of the trial of the reservoir company and the dam designers. There is a place for that book, but that is not the book I am trying to write.

 

Instead, through this character-driven piece of historical fiction, I invite my readers to consider this: What if you wanted more freedom? And what if it was limited by your gender? And what if there was an opportunity to work in a mill that was safe and reputable? And what if that mill happened to be downstream from a faulty dam? What if taking your only opportunity for independence meant living with the threat of flood every day? And what if that dam gave way? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

 

I hope that Catherine allows you to imagine the answer to that question.

 

Stepping Back

Everyone knows that taking a break once in a while from the everyday responsibilities is important, right?

It’s also so hard to do.  As a parent I don’t make myself  take breaks often enough, and that’s pretty much true of my writing life as well.  

RIght now, though, I’m forced to take a break, forced to step back from the historical fiction novel I’m working on.  I think the only reason I’m willing to do it is because I HAVE to.  You see, I’m off to a writing retreat that includes a manuscript review/crit by a working agent.  That means I gave the agent my piece and now I have to sit on it until we meet in early November.  How crazy is that?  This thing that I know is way underdeveloped has to be set aside – because what good would it be if I show up with a radically revised manuscript to get her feedback on the work I’ve already written?

It’s the same anxiety I have when I leave my children with babysitters – will everything go okay?  Is this really necessary?  Isn’t there something more productive I could do with my time?

But the other thing that I have to do before I go to the retreat is go back to a manuscript I’ve set aside since November.  I didn’t set it aside because it’s lousy (like my first three books – may those files never resurface on this computer!) but because I was focusing on my historical piece.  I have to submit the first 25 pages as a mentorship proposal by November 1st.  Will I feel like I am seeing an old friend?  Or will I wonder why the hell I decided to come to this class reunion anyhow?  I hope I still like it…

I’ll check in with that metaphor in a week.  

Manuscripts

I’m at this point in my writing life – the point where I start using the term “manuscript.”

That doesn’t mean I’m using the term “working writer” but I do have a complete manuscript.  One that real people are reading. People other than my classmates, my partner, my kids, my students.  People who have a career in the publishing field.

You’d think I would feel excited!

And I do, but I also feel nervous.  Most days I feel my manuscript is so underdeveloped I might as well have given them a story written by my eight year old.  I get paralyzed with the fear of being exposed as a horrible writer.  I give in to every horrible thought I ever had about myself, as a writer, as a student, as a person.  It’s pretty horrible.

But then I remember this: when I sent out my manuscript, no one laughed.  No one tore it up and told me to go back where I came from and stop putting words to paper.  And then I remember that even if they did, I would still be putting words down.  here, and in one of my notebooks, and on the sticky notes I can’t seem to stop using.  Asking me to stop writing is a lot like asking me to stop walking.  Yeah, I did it once when I was confined to bed rest, but I didn’t completely stop, and I still walked to the bathroom, and I knew I would start back up again. 

So I go back to writing, and writing when I feel good and, now that I have deadlines for revision, writing when I feel vulnerable.

I may not be Kate DiCamillo, but I can try to write as beautifully as she does.  After all, it’s those moments of getting words down that finally add up to that elusive thing: the manuscript.  

Now, if I could only *sell* it…..

Banging Out A Picture Book

This week’s task – take four colors of construction paper and retell a fairy tale with five pages.

Deceptively simple. 

I’ve taken on Rapunzel, and enjoyed every minute of it.  I used only scissors, but if I could have found my exacto knife, it could have been even better.  But never mind the detail work, it was a fun activity and a good reminder that stories can be distilled into five scenes.  

But now I have to write a process paper to explain myself.  But before that?  The Sunday night glass of wine…

The Bird and the Cage

In writing historical fiction, I have learned a new layer of writing skills – levels of responsibility to a world I have never known, to people I will never meet, and to a truth I can’t create as I can with my other fiction.  

In his book on the sinking of the Titanic, Allan Wolf articulates it this way.

 

“In order to write The Watch that Ends the Night, I’ve allowed fancy to play within the confines of fact.  When it comes to historical fiction, history is the birdcage; fiction is the bird.”

This metaphor resonates with me, because I see that creating fiction (story that exists within our head without observable corroboration of fact) is very much like creating a bird – something that can fly and sing and actively participate in the world.   The history is far from being as static as a bird cage, but it is the container for the thing that we want to fly.  And because there is something containing it, the story is different than it would be if I wrote a story about a world that wasn’t restrained by the artifacts of the past.

I also like this bit:

“Writing a historical novel is like making soup.  You spend a lot of time gathering the ingredients, but eventually you’ve got to start cooking, even if you are missing one of two spices.”

Another metaphor that fits for me, on this day when so many of my research books can not be renewed by the library.  At some point I have to return those books, sidle up to the computer, and get down to revisions, even if I can’t imagine exactly the right turbine that the silk mill used, or whether the boots Catherine wears have buttons or laces.  Since my last draft went off to the editor, I’ve been gathering more ingredients, more ingredients, just a few more ingredients.  Now I need to dip back into the soup pot, have a taste, and start seasoning.

A Poet’s Concerns

Because I am writing about a flood in 1874, and because there is flood outside my friend’s door, I think of this quote:

“The Poet turns to the natural world, pays close attention, and is rewarded with instruction.”

-Mark Doty, The Art of Description (p.16)

Indeed.  May the waters here and Boulder, Colorado, teach us to pay attention and reward us with new knowledge.

 

Great Swaths of Time!

Today I am at home waiting for my partner and twin 4 year olds to come home to have lunch with me.  It’s been quiet and I’ve been writing since 9:30 am.  That’s about two and a half hours.  Wow.  That’s one of the longest stretches of not talking to another person I’ve had in, well, nine years. 

Of course, I didn’t “get everything done” that I’d hoped to accomplish.  Of course, there is still a giant stack of books to go through on my other writing desk (the desk where writing never happens because it is covered in research books).  Of course, I want to add another 2,000 words (in edit, not in substance) before this draft goes out on Tuesday.  Of course, there are about fifteen different writing projects that have a first of the month deadline, so those are still looming.  

But get this!  I read 50 pages of primary research for my historical piece.  Important, juicy pages that added a good 250 words to my manuscript because I was so moved about one little detail from 1874.  And get this!  I finally realized that a bunch of writing books that I don’t need to read but looked really interesting can go back to the library.  I love writing books.  I love blogs about writing.  I love thinking about writing and revising what I’m going to cover in my writing workshops this month.  But those books can go back, too.  I know how to do the writing thing, now I’ve earned myself some time to do it.

So, today I’ve learned that great swaths of time are even more precious than small swaths of time.  I might as well do more of what really needs to get done, and that’s blending the research with the writing, and getting even more words to page than usual.  

That’s starting new habits, like doing core exercises as a break when my bum goes numb.  Wow – my bum went numb!  When was the last time I had that happen?!?!?