She Knows How I Feel

I'm heading off to New York City tomorrow to attend my very first Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI--yeah--a mouthful of an acronym) conference. So how's it feel? Let's let the always funny Debbie Ridpath Ohi tell it like it is:

 

Thanks, Inkyelbows. You made me laugh today.

For more of Debbie's cartoons and other great stuff, go to her site.

Review: INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH by Luis Alberto Urrea

Contemporary Fiction

Back Bay Books, 2009

338 pages  $14.99

I’m always astounded by how many great writers exist whose work I’ve never read and never heard of. Luis Alberto Urrea was one of them until I ran across Into the Beautiful North on some list or other and requested it as a Christmas gift—in 2010. I know, I know, I’m behind on my reading. Shut up. But this book was worth the wait.

First of all, I admire with a little teeth-grinding jealousy someone who can write such lyrical prose in English and yes, in Spanish, too! Both this book and Urrea’s The Hummingbird’s Daughter  (now also on my reading list) are available in both languages. Because he’s just that good. The sentences flow, the descriptions blossom into pictures right before your eyes, and besides all that, the story is eminently readable, suspenseful, exciting.

It begins in a small, dusty, forgotten Mexican town called Tres Camarones. Most of the able-bodied male population has fled north, leaving the mostly female community vulnerable to drug bandits and negative population growth. Nayeli, a plucky 19-year-old, decides after seeing Yul Brynner kick butt in The Magnificent Seven that there’s only one way to save this dying town: Go to the USA and bring back seven magnificent Mexican men to drive out the banditos and spawn a new generation. So she packs up and braves a journey across the border with her homegirls and their gay male buddy to do just that.

A great road-trip novel like this one wouldn’t be complete without wacky characters and dangerous experiences, but the book is anything but formulaic. It’s funny, original, and peopled with folks you wish you could know outside the pages. Those of us who live in Los Yunaites and take it for granted get to see it through the eyes of outsiders—the good and the bad. Are Nayeli and her fellow “wetbacks” treated well? Sometimes. Is the Beautiful North all it’s cracked up to be? Again, sometimes. This is one of those books that you alternately savor and race through, wishing the story went on and on after the last page. And, like all good stories, it does. We just don’t get to read about it.

Congrats, Johanna!

A great big CONGRATULATIONS  to Johanna Harness, the recipient of Beyond the Margins' first annual Above and Beyond Award! I have corresponded with Johanna on Twitter, and she is always kind, responsive, and supportive. Follow her yourself here, and visit her #amwriting site here. You'll be glad you did.

Writing What You Know

If you’re a writer, you’ve no doubt heard that old saw, “Write what you know.” I’ve been writing since I was quite small, and now that I’m quite not, you’d think I’d know a lot more.

Well ... sort of.

That is, I know quite a bit more about world history, American literature, good grammar, the subway map of New York City, and a few other things. But in the Great Ocean of Knowledge, it doesn’t amount to a whole lot more than I knew at age five. A few drops, at most.

But perhaps the old saw refers to life experience, not knowledge. In other words, don’t write about life aboard a 19th-century whaling ship. Write about your life.

Here’s my life:

18 years living in the suburb of a midsize American city

4 years living as a student in a bustling American university town

3 months living as a student in Paris (France)

6 years living as an editor in New York City

18 more years living in the suburb of a midsize American city

20 years of marriage

17 years of parenting

46 years of companionship to dogs, cats, hamsters, budgerigars, white mice, goldfish, and parrots

Sure, there are a lot of interesting experiences in those years, but are they all I want to write about? No.

So I’m amending that old saw:

Write what you can get to know.

My mother is a deceptively wise woman who, like Mark Twain’s father, gained a lot of wisdom after I turned 21. She always told me that smart isn’t what you know; it’s whether you know how to find out what you don’t know.

So, educate yourself. Learn your research tools.  Read read read. Listen to people talk. Master the internet and yes, even your local library. Study old photographs, read biographies, learn history. Make up your own world.

Then write about it.

I Ain't Gonna Love You No Mo

I know this interview was awhile ago, and I posted it on a previous blog, but it's still funny. The Rock Bottom Remainders is a rock(?) band made up of several writers, among them Dave Barry, Stephen King, and Amy Tan. Below, Steve Martin calls these writers to task for their grammar.

The Need for Zen

A deluge of information. Constant stimulation. 700 channels, ordering with 1-Click, blogs and Twitter and Tumblr and Pinterest and Facebook. RSS, DVR, ROI, BTW, CIA, PSP, ROFLMAO.

Tired yet?

Focus is a dirty word in our lightning-fast world. Who has time to focus on anything? Take an hour to concentrate and you could miss an email.

But here is the fact: Writing takes focus.

Often, trouble with finding time to write is really more about finding focus to write. So many other things jockey for our attention that we can’t find the quiet space inside that nurtures creativity. When you do find it, even your 15 or 30 minutes of writing time can yield amazing results.

How do you create that focus? One way is to create a discrete space. You may need a door. I have one, as well as a doorknob sign that reads, Do Not Disturb. Writer at Work. At the very least, you will need some quiet. A trip to the library or coffee shop may be in order. More than that, you need mental quiet. Turn off your email, your phone, your Google alerts. Writing takes two: You and the blank page. (Okay, and maybe a pencil. Or keyboard.)

Here’s another Zen trick: the Time Map. I borrowed this technique from organizer Julie Morgenstern. A Time Map is a simple table that breaks down my day into half-hour increments, like a detailed day calendar. Each day I fill it in. If I schedule writing from 10:30 to 11:30, then I drop everything else for that hour. It’s dedicated to one task.

You’ve heard before that you need to schedule your writing time. That’s important, but the Time Map allows you to schedule your other time as well. This is crucial. Along with writing time, my Time Map includes things like “Check email,” “Call doctor,” and “Go to the dog groomer.” When I’m in my designated writing zone, I don’t worry about the doctor or dog groomer because I know that’s taken care of later in the day. Right now I’m doing one thing.

That’s what Zen is all about: concentration and focus. Try it and see if you’re not more productive in that limited time zone.

And while you’re at it, turn off the TV.

If this post sounds familiar, you may have read it before. Sorry. I've been doing some blog tinkering, merging, etc. It's still sound advice.

Book Review: SARAH'S KEY by Tatiana de Rosnay

Contemporary/Historical Fiction

St. Martin’s Press, 2007

320 pages  $13.95

On the nights of July 16 and 17, 1942, French police rounded up over 12,000 Jewish citizens and brought them to the Vélodrome d’Hiver, an indoor stadium not far from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. After a few days, these Parisians—over four thousand of them children under the age of 13—were deported to holding camps outside the city. From there, parents and children were separated, shipped to Auschwitz, and killed in the gas chambers.

This incident is known as La Grande Rafle (“The Great Raid”) du Vél d’Hiv. It is one of several wartime incidents that brought such shame to Frenchmen that it was not openly acknowledged for 50 years. Finally, President Jacques Chirac admitted to the responsibility of the Vichy government in a commemorative speech in 1995.*

These events form the backdrop of Tatiana de Rosnay’s startling novel Sarah's Key. Ten-year-old Sarah is arrested by French police on July 16; but before she is taken, she hides her younger brother in a secret cupboard, promising she will come back for him. Her story is juxtaposed with that of Julia, a modern-day American journalist investigating the Vél d’Hiv atrocities as her marriage to a Parisian begins to crumble.

With two such riveting stories—Sarah’s race to save her brother and Julia’s obsession to uncover her story—it is hard to find fault. This is a book that can be swallowed nearly whole. De Rosnay creates engaging characters, even if they seem a bit stereotypical. (The charming yet philandering French husband and the grouchy but good-hearted managing editor come to mind.) Complex, guilt-wracked Edouard, who was a boy in 1942 Paris, is endearing, and Sarah’s grit comes across as genuine, not some Anne Frank-wannabe. The novel’s problems lie mostly in its prose; de Rosnay has a better gift for plot than for the turn of a phrase. The Holocaust is such well-trod ground that, shockingly, we all know what to expect, even if the events are all new to the characters themselves. It requires a deft writer to avoid stereotypes and melodrama, and de Rosnay sometimes comes up short.

On the other hand, the Vél d’Hiv story is largely unknown, which makes this novel relevant even now. The author gives the facts as they happened, inserting her characters into the action, and our hearts race along with theirs. It is a story to cry over, an unbelievable chapter in our collective humanity’s history. Strange that it has become fodder for fiction, for entertainment. But we come to the end of Sarah’s long journey not exactly entertained, but brought up short, astounded and horrified once again. Why dredge up these darkest moments in our past? It is because the darkness lingers still among us, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Darfur. We cannot afford to forget.

*With thanks to JewishGen.org for historical information on the incidents at Vélodrome d’Hiver.