The Trips of a Lifetime

In 1999, when we were all worried that Y2K was going to wreck the world as we knew it, maybe even blow it up, my family went to the Galapagos. My husband, who had written a book called The Beak of the Finch, about scientists Rosemary and Peter Grant studying Darwin's finches in the Galapagos, was invited to go on two back-to-back one week trips (on Lindblad Expeditions) and give some talks. He was allowed to bring our family along. Our sons were then 14 and almost 11. We all went for two weeks--Christmas week into New Year's week. If the world blew up, we'd be on the equator, in the Galapagos. What a way to go.

It was a magical trip. Our older son, in true teenager style, said to his father while walking on a gorgeous beach New Year's day, 2000, "Well Dad, short of taking us to the moon, this was the most amazing thing you could have done for us."

Writers are mostly poor. I don't know if you realize that. Especially if one writer is not married to, say, an investment banker. We two independent writers brought up our sons often wondering if we were going to be able to keep the show going. Some days (what am I saying?, some months, some years), I would go to the grocery store and panic--how was I going to buy pasta, cereal, laundry detergent, and still pay the electric bill? And then came the Pulitzer Prize, with all its shine. And still not a lot of money. We worked very hard, both of us, and loved our jobs, but.... not a lot of money, not a budget for luxuries like expensive family trips. But then. The Galapagos. Every once in a while, we were thrown a plum, and that trip to the Galapagos was a whole bushel of plums every day for two weeks. That bushel of plums lasted for years afterwards--unlike real plums. Someone once said, spend your money on experiences because experiences last longer than things. Let me chime in and say: YES! Because in our case it was really true.

When Jon was asked again to go to the Galapagos and yes, he could bring the family, I didn't know how the boys--now young men--would react. Could they commit, a year in advance, to spending two weeks with their parents? Would they even want to? Jon barely got the sentence out of his mouth. They each said YES without thinking about it. The Galapagos is that amazing a place.

So we went this past summer, again for two weeks. An added bonus was that I was also asked to speak, about Charles and Emma. To tell that story while on a ship in the Galapagos was pure joy. And going back with our now-grown sons (25 and 22) was also pure joy. It was epic and monumental and perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world. For what the Galapagos is about, for me, is the essence of life. As you walk the paths of the islands, paths lovingly created, guarded, and protected by the Galapagos Park Service and the Guides, without whom you would not be able to visit, you are surrounded by nature in all its glory--and brutality, sometimes. The animals are not at all scared of humans, so you can walk right next to (and I mean RIGHT NEXT to) a Blue-footed Booby

Or a Red-Footed Booby and chick:

You have to be careful not step on an iguana

or a sea lion.

You can see, up close, from literally inches or feet away, the Waved Albatross's mating dance, a male-Frigate bird's red-sack display, a sea-lion pup nursing. You snorkel with sea lions and angel fish, sea turtles, sharks and eels and octopi, and your grown sons. Who watch out for you. Who help you scramble over boulders on land and make sure you are not far away if there is something beautiful to see in the water.

(I have no digital photos from the first trip. But younger son brought a copy of a photo taken back then of a sea lion kissing his knee. With the help of a guide, we found the exact spot where that photo was taken. Tears-mine-were shed.)

The trip was so special that when Hurricane Irene forced us to drive, the four of us, from Miami home to New York city, we didn't balk. We packed our stuff into the trunk, our long-legged sons into the back seat, and drove home. It took us two and a half days and we had. A. Great. Time. Really.

Recently there was a story in the paper, a story that my husband had researched back when the boys were 4 and 1, the first time he went to the islands (that time, not on a gorgeous ship, but on a rented fishing boat that he found out later had sunk the previous year). He did not use the research in The Beak partly because it was not yet finished and partly, I think, because it was so gory. The researcher Jon toured the Galapagos with that first time, David Anderson, has been studying Nazca Boobies

and their cycle of abuse on a beautiful island called Española. As you will see if you read about his study, abuse begets abuse in birds. Not a surprise, really. Scientists are now saying that abuse seems to beget abuse in humans as well. Also not a surprise. Happily, the converse seems also to be true. Love begets love, and good experiences lead, one hopes, to more good experiences.

Of course when we write books for children, we are hoping to do the same thing. We can't take the world's children with us to the Galapagos, or to meet an historic person, or even to personally hang out with living scientists, but we can try to bring those experiences to them through books. By writing them, and by reading them. (Read to a child today!)

I know not everyone can go to the Galapagos. I can't believe we were fortunate enough to be able to go twice (and in my husband's case, three times). But I do know that taking children on trips, and exposing them to nature--in all its beauty as well as red in tooth and claw--will give them a lifelong interest in and support of the natural world. On our trip there were grandparents taking grandchildren around the islands.

Grandchildren.

Our sons.

I'm just saying.

Photos courtesy Jonathan Weiner and Lock McKelvey.

The Fall of the Year

So, as I begin to write, very late on a Sunday night, having just remembered that this posting is to appear quite early tomorrow morning – dang! – I'll note, by way of limbering up, as it were, that 218 years ago today (16 Oct.), Queen Marie Antoinette got it in the neck, had her head separated from her body, exited the ornate and filthy building, just a couple weeks short of her 38th birthday. And tomorrow (17 Oct.) which is your today, marks 162 years since the music died. Or at least Frédéric Chopin did and after a little over 39 years of life. The poor fellow is said to have said, when he had one slender foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel, "Comme cette terre m'etouffera, je vous conjure de faire ouvrir mon corps pour [que] je ne sois pas enterré vif." ("As this earth will suffocate me, I implore you to have my body opened so that I will not be buried alive.")

Pretty apt, all in all, considering the public squares are alive these days, protesting the heedless greed of oligarchs, comfortable and sneering; Halloween being right around the corner. A fine time for the pondering of downfalls, of being interred whilst breathing, albeit labored, white fingers moving in the dark, playing silently on remembered keys.

In any case, I'm just back in town from talking to one, two, three, four groups of school children at the Children's Literature Festival of the Ozarks, held at Missouri's university at Springfield.

Kid: "How come you're not a comedian?"

Snappy comeback: "What makes you think I'm not?" I mean, the little squirts laughed, God bless 'em; I plied them with history, implored them to revise whatever they wrote, "if you have any self-respect whatsoever," and I got paid for the gig.

I love America.

Then I drove the forty miles or so over to Mansfield, once the home of short-in-stature, long-in-legacy Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose books probably sit untouched by legions of school children, fearful of being bored out of their minds by an old-fashioned volume or, if they're boys, fearful of being thought gay if they should be seen by their lumpish peers, reading a book containing girls, girls wearing bonnets & petticoats, for crying out loud. It's all so dispiriting, but oh well. Anyway, I stood in the very room just yesterday (Saturday), where that stubborn little country woman wrote this about her slow-footed, horse-loving old husband, when he was an almost unbelievably sturdy 'farmer boy:'

"In the cold dawn, before breakfast, Almanzo helped Royal set up the big iron caldron near the barn. They set it on stones, and filled it with water, and lighted a bonfire under it. It held three barrels of water.

Before they had finished, Lazy John and French Joe had come, and there was time to snatch only a bite of breakfast. Five hogs and a yearling beef were to be killed that day.

As soon as one was killed, Father and Joe and John dipped the carcass into the boiling caldron..."

Happily for me, the book is all the richer now, because I walked about the little red house, the yard, the reconstructed barns, where the Wilders lived and worked. Happily for me, a lover of books with food in them, young Almanzo Wilder had a very healthy appetite. Speaking of which, do visit this link and go buy a little pumpkin. And happily for me, I had the chance to tell a bunch of kids [and will again on Wednesday], how rich history really, truly is – if, that is, it's souped up with some imagination & empathy, turbocharged by visits to the places where it happened; after all, a pan of pigment's bright and pretty, but it's flat worthless until you hit it with water & a paintbrush.

So yes, the fall of the year's a far out time to be considering the bloody, awful, inconvenient, battle-strewn, un-airconditioned past, all smelly with sweat, manure and wood smoke. What's good about it? It's gone - that was my grandmother's opinion of it. But what place is more seductive than one to which you can never, ever go? Filled with people, none of whom you can ever see? Knowing that they were every bit as alive, as fearful, as hopeful as we are, knowing that, for better or worse, their stories, their music, all their screwed up lives led us here.

Hooray for gardens--and gardening books!

A couple of days ago I started wondering what to blog about this month. I was feeling pretty smug about not waiting until the last minute this time, but guess what? No ideas, nothing, nada, nichts, rien, niente, nihil, tidak ada, wala, nic, ingenting, kitu. (Google Translate--so much fun!) Anyway, as usual when I'm feeling stuck or squirmy, I laced up my sneakers and whistled for my pup (that's kutsikas in Estonian). "Wanna go look for ideas? Wanna go look for squirrels?" Wise dog wagged his tail yes to both.

We took our usual route, heading east toward the Potomac River and River Farm, which was part of George Washington's huge estate in the 18th century. Now it's the headquarters of the American Horticultural Society (AHS). Aha, inspiration, less than a mile from home! The mission of AHS, according to its website, is "To open the eyes of all Americans to the vital connection between people and plants, to inspire all Americans to become responsible caretakers of the Earth, to celebrate America's diversity through the art and science of horticulture; and to lead this effort by sharing the Society's unique national resources with all Americans."

One way AHS seeks to fulfill these goals is by promoting youth gardening programs. It also paired up with the Junior Master Gardener Program to create the “Growing Good Kids – Excellence in Children’s Literature” award program, which honors outstanding children’s books that promote "an understanding of, and appreciation for, gardening and the environment." Of the 22 winners selected since the first awards were given in 2006, by my count four have been nonfiction titles. They are:

Big Yellow Sunflower, by Frances Barry
Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move, by JoAnn Macken, illustrated by Pamela Paparone
A Seed is Sleepy, by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long
Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America, by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by Joy Fisher Hein
Surely there's room for more nonfiction books here. I hope you'll help spread the word about these awards! (If I were April Pulley Sayre's publisher, by the way, I would definitely submit her wonderful RAH, RAH, RADISHES!) And if you're ever in the Alexandria, Virginia, area, I encourage you to visit AHS headquarters at George Washington's River Farm. Take time to enjoy the beautiful grounds and gardens, to learn from hands-on demonstrations about composting and raised vegetable beds, to play in the Children's Garden, to stroll through the Andre Bluemel Meadow down to the Potomac. You might see a bald eagle. You'll almost certainly be inspired.


P.S. In case you're wondering: nada - Spanish; nichts - German; rien - French; niente - Italian; nihil - Latin; tidak ada - Indonesian; wala - Filipino; nic - Polish; ingenting - Swedish, kitu - Swahili

Apprenticed

One of the joys of living in Portland is the community’s vibrant literary scene. Last weekend was no exception, and I spent two days at the literary festival Wordstock, listening to a wealth of authors talking about their craft and their passion for writing.

One of the highlights was hearing Barry Lopez speak. Lopez writes both nonfiction and fiction and has won numerous honors for his work. The San Francisco Chronicle has called him “the nation’s premier nature writer.”

When he spoke about writing, he referred a lot to place—and his attempt as a writer not to be an authority, but to “apprentice” himself to a place and seek out the story to be found there.

When I think about an apprentice, I think of Luke Skywalker in the bog with Yoda, or Mickey Mouse trying to control all those the bucket-wielding brooms. An apprentice is someone brash and enthusiastic, who still has a LOT to learn.

Until now, I’d never considered that an author is an apprentice, not just to an editor (though we are that, too) but also, when beginning a new project, to the story we are trying to tell: we bring our enthusiasm and the brash assumption that we will be able to tell it. But we still have a lot to learn.

In the section “On Writing,” on Lopez’s website, he says:

“If I were to offer any advice to young writers, it would be this: be discriminating and be discerning about the work you set for yourself. That done, be the untutored traveler, the eager reader, the enthusiastic listener. Put what you learn together carefully, and then write thoughtfully, with respect both for the reader and your sources.”

Untutored, eager, enthusiastic: in other words, an apprentice.

Hearing Voices

I think fellow INK writers will relate to this. Do you ever send in what you consider a really good first draft of a manuscript, knowing—fearing is a better word—that your editor is going to focus on a particular story, and tell you that story should probably be cut?

It happens to me, and the more I work with the same great editor at Roaring Brook, the more certain I am ahead of time about the passages she’s going to flag. Even as I’m writing, I can hear her voice in my head: “This is great, but aren’t you veering off the course of the narrative here?” Sometimes I’ll listen to the voice and make preemptive cuts. But not always. Usually I’ll send in a first draft with a couple of beloved bits that veer off course. Even when I know what she’s going to say—and that she’s going to be right when she says it.

Why do I do this? I think it’s just hard to let go of a great story. In my Benedict Arnold book, there was a scene, early in the Revolution, where a bunch of Green Mountain Boys set out to steal some boats so they could cross Lake Champlain to attack Fort Ticonderoga. The Boys go to a Loyalist’s estate and find a nice boat tied up at the waterfront. But then, realizing the place is abandoned, they decide to break into the mansion and see if there’s anything worth stealing. They bust into the living room—and find a lead coffin sitting there. Turns out the Loyalist, Philip Skeene, had married a woman from a rich London family, and the family agreed to continue sending the wife a hefty annuity “whilst she is above ground”—meaning alive, obviously. But when his wife died, Skeene devised a different interpretation, sealing the woman inside this coffin, which locked in the stench of her rotting corpse. Skeene was able to report to London that his wife was very much “above ground,” and her family money kept rolling in. Great business, but my editor was worried it slowed down the more important action of attacking Fort Ti. It did. So we agreed to cut it.

My new book will be WWII thriller about the race to make—and steal—the world’s first atomic bomb. There’s a lot going on, and early drafts threatened to balloon out of control. But still, I couldn’t part with chapter 17, “The Getaway,” possibly my favorite in the book.

In short, the Germans are using a cliff-side factory in occupied Norway to make a key component for their atomic bomb project. Ten Norwegian resistance fighters sneak in, blow up key equipment, and ski off into the night. That’s a crucial part of the bomb race story, so it’s in. But next, furious Nazi commanders send out a 10,000-man force to hunt down the saboteurs. In chapter 17, one of the commandoes, Claus Helberg, is spotted by a German patrol. There’s a day-long ski chase, a shootout, and a series of Indiana Jones-style close calls finally leading to Helberg’s capture and one more escape.

It’s incredibly exciting, but while writing the chapter I definitely heard my editor’s voice. As the first draft took shape, I kept putting the chapter in and taking it back out. Finally I put it back in, and sent in the draft. Now it’s back out again. I knew all along it would be. The successful attack on the factory is vital to the story; the post-attack escape is not.

I know, I know. Readers won’t miss stories they never knew were there. And narrative speed is certainly essential, especially when trying to convince kids that history can be as fun to read as any novel. So why is it so painful to let go? I’d be curious to hear any thoughts/advice. And I bet INK writers could make a great book out of favorite stories left out of their books. I’d love to hear a few.

Ooooops!

Did anyone else happen to read the September 30, New York Times Weekend Arts article about the new exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.? The exhibit is titled Manifold Greatness and its subtitle makes clear what it's about: "The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible."
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It sounds like a wonderful exhibit, especially for those who love words and real books -- manuscripts from the year 1000, the King James Bibles used by Queen Elizabeth I, King James' son, Henry, and Frederick Douglas, among others. And there's the history of how the King James version came to be, and especially the contribultions made by William Tyndale (who was condemned by the church and state for his English translation of the Bible and subsequently strangled to death by the crown, then burned. Talk about a bad review!) But what caught my attention and gave me a chuckle was the work of printerRobert Barker and his associate, Martin Lucas.
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Seems that Barker/Lucas printed a version of the King James Bible in 1613 where in one book he set "Jesus" as "Judas." Oooops, my bad, he probably explained to the authorities. He fixed the error by pasting Jesus' name over that of his betrayer. But the Barker/Lucas masterpiece of mangled setting was their "Wicked Bible" from 1631. In this version they managed to leave out a single word, "not," so that one commandment reads "Thou shalt commit adultery." I thought this sounded very 60s, but clearly it didn't please the authorites back then, since both men were fined for the error. Barker probably wished he'd hired a real proofreader when he was later put into debtors' prison where he subsequently died.
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Reading about Barker/Lucas made me think of errors that have appeared in my books. Usually a new book arrives and I leaf through it quickly, just to get an idea of what readers will experience. Later (a week, two weeks, sometimes longer) I'll go over the book start to finish with a red pen in hand. I read every word, marking sentences/paragraphs I wish I could have done better or that need to be changed in a subsequent printing. I remember being very embarrassed when I discovered that three sentences in a book began with "It was..." Two on the same page! How could I have possibly missed that, I wondered. Actually, I was really furious with myself and set about figuring out how to avoid the same thing ever happening again. Not that I really figured out how to do this. But at least I give myself a lecture about watching for repetitions whenever I'm readying a manuscript to be sent off to one of my editors.
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Then there was the endpaper map for Across America on an Emigrant Train. Oh, my, this one hurt. The map was a last minute addition (the book was actually at the printer when the decision was made to have it drawn), so I didn't get to see it before the book was finsihed. Not that that would have made a difference. When the book arrived I looked at the map, wanting to be sure the artist had gotten Rober Louis Stevenson's 1879 train trip across America correct. Satisfied, I glanced through the book, then put it aside. Several months later, a letter arrived from an alert twelve-year-old reader. "Dear Mr. Murphy. I really liked your book. I liked that Robert Louis Stevenson almost died while trying to get to his girlfriend in California. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that you put the state where I live -- Vermont -- in the wrong place. Thanks for...." But I didn't read his letter all the way through; I was already fumbling for a copy of the book and right away (and way too late) saw that we'd switched both VT and NH.
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Why hadn't I noticed this when I first looked at the book? I was too focused on checking RLT's route and had assumed that the map was correct. At a glance it looked correct (the state's all looked as I remembered them to be). It was a case of familiarity breeding a form of arrogance, or at least a form of laziness. No one could possibly mix up the states or fail to see them mixed up, so there was no need to check each and every one. But obviously, it happened.
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Once my publisher knew about the problem they started the process to correct the error. But it would take months before another printing would be scheduled, and there were already a lot of books out there already. As embarrassed as I was, I decided to fess up immediately whenever I spoke at a school. I would tell kids that there was a mistake in the map, that two states had their positions swapped and challenged them to find them. Which they usually did pretty quickly. Then I would tell them that we all make mistakes and how important it is to check whatever we're working on, be it written or drawn or whatever, very, very carefully. Even if we think we know the material inside-out. So at least I turned a public mistake into a bit of a learning lesson.
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Was the error ever changed. Yes. The only solution was to cut the VT/NH out of the map and stick them in the right state. This left all subsequent versions with those two states' initals gleaming white and very obvious, a little like the Barker/Lucas patch job over Judas.

To Market, To Market

Twelve reactions to my latest nonfiction work:
• “[This] made me quite teary. [I]t’s a beautiful [story], and very nicely told”
• “A great conversation piece, and I think boys would particularly like it”
• “I have to say, I think the story is fantastic”
• “Not only is [the] story an interesting, little-known slice of history, but the writing is quite lovely as well”
• “We all had very positive reactions to it overall. What we all really loved, and what I am sure appeals to you, is that it is a war story but it’s one about reconciliation. That’s really both a lovely and unusual notion”
• “I have read the story several times, and it is an unusual one with lots of good themes and excitement”
• “[A] lovely paean to peace coming out of war”
• “I was very moved”
• “Compelling and well told”
• “I was fascinated by this story of forgiveness and redemption. It’s so touching!”
• “Haunting”
• “There’s no question this has some compelling marketing hooks—and it’s a pretty unbelievable story in the first place”

I would be proud to say that these twelve comments were reactions to MY latest nonfiction work. But this is actually the way that Marc Tyler Nobleman started off a very thought-provoking post at his own blog.

A little later in the piece, he revealed that each reaction came from a children’s book editor—who was rejecting his manuscript. It wasn’t that they were afraid to take a chance on a newcomer; Nobleman has written many, many books including the highly lauded Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. So, why? Doubtless many reasons, but he was often told that nonfiction—especially nonfiction about someone who is not a household name—doesn’t sell.

Okay, it’s no news that the economy is in trouble and if that weren’t affecting publishing, the changes in technology still would be. No news at all. But Nobleman's post isn’t whining about it. Instead he created his own news—and hopefully a bit of buzz to pitch and call attention to the story he loves and wants to tell in print.

He turned to illustrators—some kids, some old pros with hundreds of books among them. He asked them to create covers for his book. There are twelve on his blog (interestingly, the same number as listed rejections). You can go to the link below to see them all. Since I’m just picking one to share here, I'm loyally going for the cover by Tim Bush, who illustrated my own All in Just One Cookie.

I'll let Marc tell the rest of his own story at the link below. But at the end, he closes with two questions:

Librarians: Is this a book you can see adding to your collection?

Editors: Is this a book you can see?

For me, Marc’s post, http://noblemania.blogspot.com/2011/09/picture-book-for-sale.html, also raises many more:

What about the stories that need to be told precisely because they are about people, who aren't household names but perhaps should be because they came out of mist to be heroes or do the decent thing? People like, say, you or me or the kid that is reading the book?

What is the author’s changing role in these crazy transitional times? First it was just creator; now our roles are equal parts promoters and “publisizers.” The Internet also gives Marc and all of us a platform for another additional role. But what is that role and what will it entail?

And, what will happen when the iPad (RIP Steve Jobs) and its equivalents make illustrated books a realistic digital commodity; how will that shift the roles of publishers and authors even more? What are some of the best case scenarios?

Come on guys, do we have a shot at a discussion here?

Insanely Great*

Credit: Darren Rovell on WhoSay

I am writing this post on an iMac. It’s a beautiful machine, sleek and imposing, with a magnificent 27-inch screen that is a work of art even when the power is off. But when the power is on, well, that’s when the magic happens. I can make movies and book trailers, take and edit photos, listen to and even create music, make video phone calls, and hopefully write a decent blog post, all without leaving my desk.

Yes, I am a Macophile, one of the legions of fans of Apple Inc. and all of its products who seem to be taking the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on Wednesday even more personally than the rest of the world. I wasn’t always such a devotee. For a long time, I straddled the PC and Mac camps, but I finally jumped in with both feet a few years ago, chucking my PC desktop and my lame MP3 player that for some reason displayed words only in Danish and embracing the iMac, iPod, and iPad. (I’m eagerly anticipating my first iPhone, too, as soon as my Verizon Android contract is up next summer.) I love this streamlining of my digital life almost as much as I love my streamlined iStuff.

Apple is that rare company whose products deserve the highest marks for both form and function. And Steve Jobs was the rare CEO whose vision always took the needs of his end users into consideration. He built a network of Apple stores that offer training and face-to-face technical support to anyone who can get to them, essentially providing a kick-ass IT department for those of us who are self-employed. Of course, it’s a bit maddening for the budget-conscious that a visit to the Genius Bar requires a stroll past all the new and improved products that Apple has to offer, but who can fault Jobs for being a brilliant marketer?

It’s also noteworthy that Jobs was always known for his groundbreaking ideas, rather than his net worth. Although his success certainly would have earned him the title of business magnate—the Wikipedia entry for the term has a photograph of Bill Gates—his public image was as more of an iconoclast than a tycoon. It’s fitting, then, that yesterday while thousands of people in the Occupy Wall Street protests leveled criticism at corporate greed, hundreds of others laid tributes to Jobs in front of the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue some six miles away. We’ve all learned so much from Steve Jobs. Perhaps the other “captains of industry” should do the same.

*"Insanely Great": Steve Jobs' description for the Macintosh computer

My First Book, Actually

When I speak at conferences and schools, I sometimes hold up my first published book from 1972 to show how much children's books have changed over time. But that really wasn't my first book. My entire eighth grade class of 24 authored a book way back in 1954 called "Shark Point and High Point." The title referred to our home towns, Tiburon, which means 'shark' in Spanish, and Belvedere, loosely translated into Italian/French as a 'high point' commanding a beautiful view. Our teacher, Miss Wilson, felt that this group of 24 students, could accomplish the goal of researching, writing, and illustrating a an accurate and valuable local history, and that's what we did.

In the process, we learned so many skills--how to research newspaper archives, carry out informative interviews, evaluate historic documents, write collaboratively, and so much more. Our history has become a landmark document, and creating it enriched and changed our lives.


When I look at one of my precious copies of our classic, I think about how different such a document would look today, with Google maps, color photos, actual book binding, professional type. We had to hand type, then mimeograph our pages; hand draw the maps, and hand assemble the pages into binders by collating as we each circled around a big table, picking up the pages one by one to create a single volume. I don't know our final "print run," but I imagine it must have been more than 100 copies. Each copy was created for a specific member of a family. I now own three or four of them, my own plus those of my late grandfather (shown here) and sister, and perhaps another that's in a storage box somewhere.

Creating this book taught us all so much we never would have learned otherwise, and I wonder how many young people today could be blessed with such an opportunity. I doubt many public school teachers could pull it off--modern concerns about tight budgets, law suits, teaching to the test, and so forth, keep such precious, creative, and priceless experiences out of the reach of most American children these days. Our book was revised by other Reed School eighth graders in 1958 and 1970, but to my knowledge not more recently. I just hope that any students today who are able to participate in special projects like this realize how fortunate they are. I am still grateful.

A Leap of Faith

Years ago, when publishing was in its heyday, established authors could sell from concept. Here’s how it worked. An author and an editor did lunch. (The publisher picked up the tab.) They discussed possibilities for future projects. When the editor liked an idea s/he said, “Write me a proposal.” That was it. There was trust that the author would deliver a book that they would be happy to publish. The author walked out of the lunch confident of an assignment with money to follow. That was then. Now even established writers have to do proposals complete with a marketing analysis, detailed outlines, maybe a few well-written chapters, and loads of background material. Then they wait for the proposal to be reviewed before a full committee, which seems to be more dedicated to why they shouldn’t do a book than why they should. In these hard times, the beleaguered publishers must constantly consider their bottom line when investing in a project.

The best editors, however, still know how to imagine along with authors. We all know that every book starts with a vision—a fleshed-out idea of how to create a work. Other parts of society are not quite so visionary. As much as we would like to think otherwise, most people don’t “get” innovative ideas. The popular show, Mad Men, about the advertising industry back in the sixties understood this. Fully articulated and illustrated presentations were required to in order to leave nothing up to the imagination of their clients. They knew that even when a concept has merit and is worth a try, every innovative venture, every work of creativity, requires a leap of faith in order to turn a concept into a reality.

What, then, is innovation? I have defined it as: Creating something new from disparate existing elements used in novel ways to solve a contemporary problem while forecasting its own future growth and development. In my outside-the-box proposal published last month in this blog I proposed using nonfiction literature in the classroom (nothing new here), combined with professional development from the authors themselves (nothing new here) to help teachers use their books effectively, and ending up with an author visit with the students after they’ve studied the books (this doesn’t happen often but there’s nothing new here, either.) What makes this program innovative? Its scale (school-wide, many authors and many books) and the timing of the professional development—just before the books are to be used by the teachers, so they can immediately apply what they’ve learned and the timing of the author-visits with kids (just when they’ve completed studying a book). The technologies that makes such an ambitious program possible and even more importantly, affordable, are interactive videoconferencing—face-to-face conversations between the authors and the school participants and a wiki, a collective online document that chronicles contributions from all the participants and serves as a written record of the project. The authors don’t need to travel and schools don’t need to pick up the travel expenses and the in-person personal appearance fees. All of us authors know the excitement of a school visit. It is often the highpoint of a school year. I’ve always wondered how the teachers took advantage, back in their classrooms, of the energy and enthusiasm generated by these visits. I believe that my program for Authors on Call does just that. What we’re really offering, beyond expertise and excellent writing is inspiration and excitement. My problem: I needed to find a school willing to test this idea.

Dave Kaplan, principal of the Edith A. Bogert Elementary School in Upper Saddle River, NJ is willing to take that leap of faith. I met him last spring when I did the traditional author’s visit at his school. Right away, I noticed something unusual about Dave: He was truly interested in me. He attended all my presentations, including my lunch with some of the children. (You should know that this is very rare. Most principals say, “Hello,” and disappear.) I mentioned that I had this idea of a huge collaboration between authors and teachers. Was he interested? He said, “Yes.” But he didn’t get back to me until July when we could make an appointment for him to hear me out.

After our conversation, Dave emailed me: “I just typed up my notes from this morning and as I was typing, I felt my excitement really mushrooming! I'm so thrilled about this venture.... Again, I'm so pumped about this innovative journey on which we're about to embark, and look forward to working with you!” When he introduced the concept to his faculty, he asked for nine volunteers (one to work with each author). He got 28! The entire school! So far, so good. We are currently in the book selection process, where the teachers are doing the choosing. This has only fueled the excitement. The teachers had no problem “getting” the idea and realize that they are part of an experiment; that no one has done what we’re doing. Ultimately, the measures of our success will be from the students and the books themselves.

We are mid-air in our leap of faith.

WRITING RIGHT, RIGHT?

Whoops—sorry. Look what I have gone and done. The title of this blog is grammatically incorrect!!! But even though I don’t like rules about writing, or rules about anything else for that matter, I think I can give our readers a few helpful tips by inviting eight famous guest authors to lend me a hand.

Let’s start with a tongue-in-cheek excerpt from Great Rules for Writers by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist William Safire:

Do not put statements in the negative form. Don’t use no double negatives. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!! Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.

Whoops—I’ve slipped up again. I already used too many exclamation marks in my first paragraph, and I’ve added two clichés to boot. Now I’ve done it again!!! No worries, though. I've invited another author to join in:

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. (W. Somerset Maugham)

That did not help. Besides, this is a nonfiction blog. I should probably go back to the beginning and start with tips about writing good titles. My own valiant attempt may not have been grammatically correct, but did it at least attract some attention? To find out, I looked up a rule about writing blog titles from Top 100 blogger Daniel Scocco:

It must be search engine friendly. Like it or not most people find information through search engines.

Hmmm…check it out. Google says there are about 1,040,000,000 results for the word “writing.” That’s pretty stiff competition. OK, so how about this writing rule from the great Mark Twain?

The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

I like this rule. But I think Mr. Twain is referring to fiction again, and this is still a nonfiction blog. Maybe these will do:

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (George Orwell)

So far so good (another cliché on my part, though). Will any of these writing rules help?

Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visualization of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book. (Margaret Atwood)

Never open a book with weather… The reader is apt to leaf ahead look­ing for people. (Elmore Leonard)

Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it. (Geoff Dyer)

Oh. Maybe none of these rules will do the trick. (I know, I know—another cliché.) So here’s the one final rule of the day. It’s from a dead journalist who wrote about war, boxing, and food. I try to follow his rule religiously:

The only way to write is well, and how you do it is your own damn business. (A. J. Liebling)

THE END

(Not) Confronting Controversy

What do you do when you set out to write about a topic that continually heats up the news with its controversial nature? I had to ask myself that very question when beginning my book Global Warming—A Personal Guide to Causes and Solutions.

Most global warming books I had read spent a huge deal of time proving that global warming is happening. After following the topic for decades, however, I felt that scientific evidence had passed far beyond the point of needing me to repeat that data for the gazillionth time. So, I made a bold decision. Right up front, I stated, “This book spends very little time trying to convince you that global warming is happening. The scientific evidence for that is overwhelming. Instead, I focus on what we need to do to solve this growing crisis.”

Simply stepping around the controversy was a liberating decision, and for a couple of reasons. First, I was able to explain to readers why so many people—and corporations—challenge global warming. (Simply put, coal companies, car manufacturers, and others make huge profits by continuing to generate and waste energy as they—and we—have always done.) The second reason this decision was liberating is that it freed me up to focus on what really matters—what we are doing and need to do to solve this overwhelming problem.

Of course, global warming will continue to be challenged, because there are still many people with a vested interest in ignoring it. As writers, however, we shoulder an especially important responsibility in making sure that young readers have access to good information, even if other people don’t like it. It may be no accident that a small publishing company, Lifelong Learning, published Global Warming. I’m not sure that a larger company would have allowed me the freedom to tell it like it is. Larger companies, after all, are owned by stockholders and are terrified of reactionary elements in educational systems across the country. This is reflected in extensive censorship of state tests, textbooks, trade books, and even magazines.

Anyone interested in our future has to fight this censorship wherever they see it. Letters, blogs, and petitions are all well and good, but it’s raw purchasing power that will make the difference. By making honest books a success, educators and consumers will determine just what information young people are and are not going to receive. That, in turn, will determine just how bad global warming and earth’s other problems are going to get. Meanwhile, I urge other writers to adopt a similar approach with “controversial” subjects. If that controversy is driven mainly by money or desires for power, simply state the obvious and step around it. Then focus on what’s really important.

Global Warming is not available through many of the usual channels. To order it, please call Lifelong Learning at 877-502-7477 or go to the following website: http://www.projectcriss.com/41-global-warming