Line by Line, I'm Already Behind!

Keeping Our Writing Commitments Creatively

As I've already mentioned, routine and I remain at odds.  As a result, I've already missed a day of writing a poem a day (actually 2 since I started on the 12th of April), but to illustrate my commitment to the venture of writing 30 poems during National Poetry Month, I'm going to try for four poems for today.

Commitment is an essential of life in friendships, work, and avocation, but we can meet them creatively as long as we continue to make our commitment known and fulfill our obligations. We'll see if I have practiced what I preach at the end of the month.

Making Writing Goals So Our Writing Grows

One of my consistent efforts as a writer is to always set a goal when I start a new writing project. The obvious goal would be to finish the project and that's a given, but I also try to take on learning more about something new.  For this month,, I'll be exploring an element of writing poetry each day and offering an article and what little insight I can offer on the subject.

For today, I thought enjambment and line breaks might be a good thing to discuss. For me, line breaks are lead by pacing, narrative gap, impacing imagery, the strength of the last line, and irony. For insights another poet has to offer on the subject, please explore this article by Rebecca Hazelton "Learning the Poetic Line".

What's In a Line Break

Pacing often determines where you break a line to create a longer pause, leave an image on a line, allow your reader to focus and process it before moving on. You can also use a line break for disruption of the pace to get a reader to stop and consider the many different ways a poem can go in that moment which can create a narrative gap--an opening in the text that can be filled by the reader and the poet simultaneous. The reader gets to the end of the line thinking one thing will happen and has that image in mind when they get to the next line which may offer another image. When a poet intentionally fills a narrative gap by inviting one image in the reader's head, then offering an alternative, they not only make use of irony, but they create impacted imagery--two images for the price of one. Gary Soto does this wonderfully in the poem "Oranges".

When the young narrator arrives to walk to the store with a girl he's sweet on

She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rogue. I smiled,
                              (13-15)

Here, we see a general gap after pulling--what's she pulling? But with "face bright" we may be thinking happiness, nervousness, or other emotional states, but then we find out it's "rogue" creating of the double meaning of emotion and make-up (a young girl of 12 acting older).

So, now for the hard work, trying to apply what I've learned in my own work..

Breaking the Surface (Poem 5 of 30)

smoldering
flameless
built of chemicals, moments of friction
words barked over spilled
intentions
reaching for a glass
filled with why can't I?
The world is not scaled to her size
your hair's too big to fit in
Math has ten's place, tens frame, ten ways
to reach the other side of an equals sign
And I watch her struggle with
fitting in, filling in that blank line
The father fumes, his fire soul-scorching
sound to make her fold like a
pill bug seeking a log
I sit in stiff silence
knowing a vacuum waits to be used
a carpet uncleaned, strewn with
controlers, wrappers, and half-spoken promises
swept away by a game-filled screen
to them, these couch riding teens,
he says, "Good night"
Offers them money for work
they won't do right.
And tonight, the smoldering hits
hi-temp ignition point
breaks the surface, shooting flames
that will not bend to my will
for it is warped and ready rail

Pickle Pucker Promises   (Poem 6 of 30)

My mom, smiles, opens the fridge, saying,
"It's tradition.."
And in a family with post-turkey
belching contests, why should her retrieval
of a pickle jar surprise me?

Handing one to wispy-curled toddler
she laughs, just wait for the pucker face

That does not come.

She tastes, eyebrows raised,
chomps, chews, and shows us a palm
that's raised,
"More?"

Mom's amazed.
Me, I believe a promise has just been made.
This one.  The girl with 100 words
where 25 reside
with eyes that see the fly above her bed
sings her own lyrics to "Jesus loves me" when
her grandfather is dead
She will not pucker when life is sour
She will chomp and chew
suck out the seeds from which
good will grow
and say,
"Is that all you've got?"

After the Rain   (Poem 7 of 30)

Standing on the edge,
warped, well-watered wood
varnish washed away weeks before
my feet, resist splinters, perch
toes bending, nails sun-bathing,
waiting for the burning pollen call
of spring to bring summer
like a kite on a rain chased wind

Pucker (Poem 8 of 3)

Possibilities
a flaked tag of dried skin to be pulled
a candy to sour to keep
a kiss
       of good-bye
               greeting
                    tell me I'm loved
lipstick lining in blood
orange colors left on
napkins, collars, and notes
pinned to the fridge by a
magnet, saying,
"tomorrow"

A Poem a Day Keeps The Imagery in Play

Writing daily, it's like exercise, rest, and vitamins--it's good for you, you're supposed to do it, and I, sadly, usually don't. I'm quite bad at routine--I can't even breathe routinely (allergies and asthma), so I'm the last one to talk about "sticking to a routine" and expanding your writing ability and dexterity by writing every day.

 Still, just because it's not something you've been able to achieve before, it doesn't meant you shouldn't try again and again and again. So, Here I go, AGAIN to attempt to practice what I've been told is good for the poet within--writing every day for the rest of the month as part of National Poetry Month.

Since I'm already nearly two weeks behind, I'm going to dive right in and do two poems a day to get "caught up." But I also want to invite each of you to check out the Poetry Foundation. Not only do they have one of the best poetry magazines in the country, if not the world, but they also have excellent articles, interviews, audio poems, and an amazing anthology of poetry. Not to mention the fact that they have an entire section on poetry for children, so check them out today--tomorrow--as often as you like. Dive in with pen, paper, keyboard, and open mind at the ready! Visit the Poetry Foundation

The imagery in my fiction is what often prompts readers to say, "I felt like I was there" or "Reading your book was like watching a movie"--I write for kids, so this is a great compliment from a young reader who might prefer film to books. Imagery didn't come naturally to me. I learned to create vicarious imagery through lots of practice--describing things in my head, reading lots and lots of fiction, but my ability to create memorable imagery didn't really hit a high point until I learned to read poetry for the purpose of analyzing the construction of the imagery and once you've done that with poem after wonderful poem--they're like good chips, you can never read just one. For some insight into imagery, check out this great article from Rachel Richardson "Learning Imagery and Description".  Once you've learned to unpack the mysteries of imagery, then the best thing to do is practice...practice...practice, so here I go--a one, and a two....

Poem 3 of 30

Image
Imagine
Mage of the I before the ine
they used to think creativity
was only divine
then co-created
God and I
on a tear
to find the right image
the rose that opens
like a book dropped on a
table to stand, pages suspend
by curiosity
peaked even
the golden wire bowl
centered around the eye
of the rose
the I of prose
who turns the
ideas around to catch
the sun of inspiration
with a smile,
a sigh,
and my eternal thanks


Poem 4 of 30

I know of
sentence, word, morphemes
cell, atoms, nucleus
what parts lie with in the slices of
sound--
what is the calcium rich skin of a
laugh
peeling
the thin walled segments of juice
in the belly oft bell-like
sound of humor
ah, now it rings back to me
decibel
and below that?
in the base
electron, the drop of juice
so tiny the wetness
doesn't register
hmmm,
yes,
I know...
joy

April: National Poetry Month and Diving In!

Check out this great site! Napowrimo

From the site:

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April. 

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired byNaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

This site was designed by the very nice people at 2the9design, who know waaaaayyyyy more about back-end coding stuff than Maureen does. But this site isn’t meant to be “official,” or to indicate ownership or authority over the idea of writing 30 poems in April. There is no corporate sponsorship of this project. No money is intended to change hands anywhere. Maureen just likes poems and wants to encourage people to write them. The site doesn’t ask for your email address, or any other personal information. Heck, you don’t even have to give your name.

From me:

This is such a great idea, I'm going to give it a go, even though I'm 12 days behind. Can I get caught up? Well, let's see!

I'll have to do a few poems a day to get caught up.

Catch up Poem of the day 1 of 30

Catching

A cold grows old 

one sneeze-snatched tissue at a time

calls for cough-filled naps

cups of O.J. heated with tea

ages

with voice-filling changes in the throat

the welcome of scent of vapor

fading to tulips turned up

to the sun

Time to catch a ray!

Poem of Day 12  (2 of 30)

The road to work-a-day-care drop

winds away from home

we, you and mirror-me,

wing with words

w-a--w-a

"way"

This is the way we go

Go! Go! Go!

'cause I know

S-T-O-P has got 

the sign

and in time

I'll find "you"

"like"

"love"

because 

I love you, 

"Mom"

& 

Mom loves "Me"

On to tomorrow!  Let's go!

Who is ready to join me?!  If you write a poem for every day in the month of April, I'll enter you into a contest to win an autographed copy of my novel-in-verse Pretty Omens

Writing a Story in 50 Precious Words

Writing a Story in 50 Precious Words

Growth as a writer is often about taking on new challenges push you 
to try new things or old things in new ways. The alchemy of writing 
picture books has long eluded me, so I decided to take a challenge 
offered by fellow author Vivian Kirkfield the 50 PRECIOUS 
WORDS WRITING CONTEST.

Inspired by my youngest daughters exhilarated discovery of words
 in her environment, pointing and shouting "like!" "me!" "you!" 
"love!" in signs, the hymns in church, the mail, I've created this
 brief story in infant-draft form for this contest.

WORD SNATCHER

Gobble a banana

"Snatch it, Hannah"

Walk the Park

Snatch the arc

Shopping Loop

Snatch a hoop

Scoot to school

Snatch it.  Cool!

Dance, Twirl

"Snatch it, Tutu girl."

Stir, sip.

Snatch the tip.

Bubble Bath Ballad

Snatch a song!

Jammie Jumble of

Snatched words, 

Hannah stumbles,

"Hannah Banana walks..."

Question is, can you tell this is the story of a preschooler going
 through the day, snatching words along the way, and reading 
them as a story that night?

Care to take up the challenge?  Jump right in
 Writing a Story in 50 Precious Words

Or choose a challenge of your own!

Feel free to share the results in the comments below!

Acting Your Age: Writing Across the Ages of Young Readers

Kicking, screaming, and spinning tantrums are totally appropriate in a picture  book—though surprisingly sparse in children’s literature for how prevalent the are in the life of most children (Is that because parents are the ones how buy the books?), but we don’t expect to see a teenager spinning on the floor throwing a fit because the ‘Rents won’t extend curfew.  This hyperbolic example will illustrate the necessity of really knowing your audience when you write across the ages/genres of children’s and young adult literature.

For instance, when does a child learn “conservation” and how does that affect the readers ability to know when a repeated image of a child learning to dance (Hoffman and Binch’s Amazing Grace) or walk (Meyer and Frazee’s Everywhere Babies) is really just one kid and not a whole group of them? And when do children start to understand abstractions that would allow them to  comprehend that two people can have different opinions and still both be right? How does this new emerging skill affect the psychology of a middle grade novel? The answers to these questions illustrate the essential need for understanding the psychological and cognitive development of children and adolescents.  Too bad they don’t have a Child Psychology for Dummies—oh wait, they do (Child Psychology for Dummies).

Seriously though, you can learn so much about the psychology of kids from raising them, working with them, visiting schools, and various other essential interactions with your target audience and these relationships are key to our own happiness and the development of a natural and organic understanding of what it means to be a kid or a teen in our society today.  And is really important that you consider the “today” component because writers for young readers are often writing to rescue or relate to their own childhood self when our childhood is world’s away from the experiences of today’s child. The current six year olds were born in a world that can’t recognize a landline phone, has probably never used a point and shoot camera, and can’t remember a world when there weren’t 40,000 television channels targeted to children that are usually watched on a game system or tablet. 

We need to know the kids of today by getting to relating to real world kids in their own environment. Personal connections are a must. But you can also pick up a lot by watching their shows, reading their magazines, studying fellow authors, Youtubing videos until far too late at night when you should be doing the laundry, sleeping, or revising your own writing! 

I’m all for the organic—understanding of young people, dialogue and imagery in writing, and food, but there is something to be said for academic/book knowledge or that’s just the geek in my talking and quite frankly it never shuts up, so listen here, if you want to know more about child psychology—don’t take my word for it.  Learn a thing or two from a specialist in the field, realizing that three specialists will have at least six different opinions so read up on what folks have to say.

Here are a few suggestions:

“10 Best Books for Thinking Parents”

To be truthful, I probably only picked this because the author said “geeked out”

Recommended Parenting Books

A veritable panoply of books to choose from. Which I of course chose so I could say 

“panoply.”

Books on Adolescent Development from Amazon not a parenting site because who has the time to be reading parenting magazines when you have teenagers in the house?

And most importantly, read the work of writers who get kids—what they like, what they want, what they need. Don’t just read the most popular books for teens because those books most often address the wish fulfillment , adrenaline rush, romantic angst driven elements of teen life. You also need to study the writing that addresses the deeper social issues of teen life. I’m even a bigger fan of YA World Literature because, perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that too much of the YA literature in the US focuses on me, myself, and my friends versus what the next generation could do to make the world a better place. Internationally, adolescent literature focuses less on how a teen can become an individual and more on how a teen can learn to contribute to society.  But that’s my “taking care of the world” bias coming out again.  I just want to take care of everybody.

Speaking of everybody, which is much easier than speaking to everybody, but as a writer you’re trying to do both—portray the world as it really is, address as wide an audience as possible, and provide an authentic , accurate, and compelling look at the diversity in our society today, not just in the US, but globally.

Never go for diversity for diversity’s sake.  Do it because you’re writing realism and the reality is our world is very diverse and that diversity should be reflected in our writing from books for babies to novels for teens. For instance, Everywhere Babies is an adorable celebration of infants and their families and it shows an enormous range of diversity, but I wonder, where are the parents with tattoos? The folks who live out in the country? The immigrants who wear the clothes they grew up with? No book can show the whole world, each book can only be a window into part of the world, but it helps to know not only the “universals” of youth development, but to also learn how class, religion, ethnicity, gender orientation, and other cultural elements influence a child’s development.

Here’s a place to get your started:

Diversity Resources form the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators

who would probably be open to suggestions on expanding these resources

We are, after all, a society of artists—writers, illustrators, readers, and critics, who are engaging our world one word, one line, one book at a time. I’m hoping this blog gives you some ideas on how you can genuinely writer for any age you care to target in a way that’s diverse, compelling, and if you’ve practiced your literary alchemy well—best selling. Good luck! And remember, let your characters act their age!

Alexandria LaFaye, is an author of a baker’s dozen of books for young readers from Walking Home to Rosie Lee (Cinco Puntos, 2011), the picture book about the reunification of African American families at the end of the Civil War to the young adult novel-in-verse, Pretty Omens that’s a retelling of the myth of Cassandra in a coal mining community in Virginia in 1911. She’s also an associate professor of creative writing for Greenville College and the Hollins University summer MFA in writing for children and adolescents.  You can catch up with her on social media at www.alafaye.com

@artlafaye

www.facebook.com/alafayeauthor

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0rs916zLi2y7tMAKb2aDeQ

Or be old fashioned and e-mail her a@alafaye

AUTOGRAPHED BOOK ALERT:
I'm offering an autographed copy of WALKING HOME TO ROSIE LEE a book that's no longer available in hardcover to one of the folks who joins the discussion about this blog.

Share your thoughts with grace and kindness and you're name will be entered to win the book. I look forward to discussing this topic with you!

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