The Writing Life

I came late to the family of I.N.K. bloggers, and the fatigue of posting hasn’t quite caught up to me yet. Even so I’ve marveled at the creativity and fortitude of the old-timers. You’ve made it look easy to create fresh, thought-provoking material. Well done, everyone!

One frequent question children ask me during school visits is, “Do you get writer’s block?” Even young scribes have heard of this affliction.

“No,” I tell them. “I’ve got deadlines to meet. I don’t have time for writer’s block,” and I’m not just cracking a joke.

So here I sit, writing later than I’d like because I spent the day working on a deadline. Now, with the windows open and darkness newly upon us, I’m thinking about all the places where I’ve created books. Tonight I write from my fourth office space, a second-floor chamber with a wall of wooden window portals that became my creative home last year. It and my life today are miles away from the country home where I started writing when my children entered school.

I remember feeling slightly superstitious when our family moved out of this home a dozen years ago. Would I be able to write as well, or even ever again, away from the nature-inspired views of my original office? Maybe the two books I’d written from that site would become my entire body of work. When Book Number Three took forever to take form at our new city dwelling, all my anxieties seemed about to come to pass. And yet, after settling in to that 2nd-floor tree house of an office, I managed to birth not just a third book but five more.

Then came another move and another office, this one located without countryside panoramas or a tree house perch. Yet even from there, with my sons off in college and beyond, the books continued to flow. Others have followed since from my latest roost. May it always be so.

Wherever I land next, I’ll maintain a home on the Internet. These days you can find me post-I.N.K. through my website, www.AnnBausum.com, and at my Facebook author page. Plus you can watch for my upcoming title about gay rights history and the Stonewall riots of 1969, to be published next year by Viking. A 50th anniversary look at James Meredith and the 1966 March Against Fear will follow from National Geographic.

And so the writing life continues. For me. For other I.N.K.ers. For the rest of those folks who feel most at home when they ignite paper or pixels with words.

Thanks Sue Macy, Marfé Ferguson Delano, and Linda Salzman for encouraging me to join the I.N.K. family, and thanks to everyone for creating such a valuable body of work.

May the words just flow and flow for all.

Submitted by Ann Bausum

A-HA! The Eureka Moment

As the story goes, for Archimedes, it was the moment he sank into his tub.  For Newton, it was that falling apple.  Eureka!  Aha! In a flash, the answers (displacement and gravity) became clear.  To Archimedes and Newton, anyway.  For them, that lightning bolt of understanding was accompanied by joy and amazement.  Other people, half as brilliant or educated, might have simply thought, “Oy, I hope the water doesn’t overflow” or “Ouch, that’s what I get for sitting under a fruit tree.”

I’ve been mulling over Eureka moments lately.  Products of pioneering thinkers like Archimedes’ and Newton’s may corner the market, but epiphanies come in all shapes and sizes.  It doesn’t always have to be and original discovery that leads to Eureka.  A gifted explanation can go a long way to create an aha moment for others.  

An example was when physicist Richard Feynman appeared before the Senate Committee hearing convened to figure out what caused the Challenger Disaster.  If you remember, the

space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986, killing all aboard.  The question was why and everyone dithered about it for months.  During his testimony, Feynman revealed the problem in moments.  He used a C-clamp to bend the type of rubber O-ring used to seal joints in the rocket, then plunked it into his glass of ice water.  He pulled it out, unscrewed the clamp and showed how the now 32-degree rubber was too cold to bend for valuable seconds.  It had been 32 degrees on launch day.  No effective seal, leaking gas, fire, death.  

Was this an epiphany for Feynman?  I have no idea; it might have just been a satisfying, logical conclusion.  But for the people who wanted to know what happened and couldn’t assemble, sort and understand all the factors, it was a mind blower. QED, game over.

As nonfiction writers, and especially as nonfiction writers for kids, wouldn’t it be great to be able to create aha moments for our readers and open up new parts of the world to them? Sorry, I wish I could simply print the recipe at the bottom of the page.  

The best I do is guess about the necessary ingredients.  Here are a few I’ve been thinking about:

1.  Curiosity—not just coming up with facts, but also a compulsion to flip them over in your mind and study them from every angle.  

2. Wonder—wondering about situation and having a sense of wonder about it so you might be able to get some poetry into the mix when you try to get the idea across.  

3. Expansion—somehow leaving enough room for a reader to get invested and involved and find his or her discovery amidst your own.

Anybody have a few more suggestions?  I’d love to hear (and use!) them.

hiStorytelling

This post isn’t about the Common Core or rubrics or other pedagogical concerns. It’s about storytelling, which, when it comes right down to it, is what all great writing should be—even nonfiction.

Stubby, on display at the Smithsonian Institution

This past year I’ve had the good fortune to become an hiStoryteller twice on the same topic. My unusual escort has made the journey pure pleasure, trotting forward on four feet as he’s led me back to 1917, across the Atlantic, through the Great War, and home again. As with so many topics, accident and good fortune led me to discover Stubby, a stray dog smuggled with American troops to France who returned to the United States and became a post-war icon. I stumbled across him while doing photo research for Unraveling Freedom, another book set during World War I. Even though I was not a dog person, I could not get this intrepid creature out of my mind, and that meant only one thing: I was destined to write about him. More than that, I was, apparently, destined to write about him twice.

First I researched and wrote about Stubby the War Dog for young people and then, at the request of my publisher, I embarked on another telling of his tale, this time for adult readers. The National Geographic Society will publish both books next May.

I’ve learned a lot about storytelling from these projects. My subject left behind an historical record riddled with contradictions, omissions, and hyperbole. Just sorting out the narrative was a job. Figuring out how to share it with two very different audiences was a challenge, as well. Keeping the story fresh became a particular concern. I knew I needed to stay in love with the topic for the readers to love it, but, after writing the first book, I feared I would find myself trapped in a sort of Groundhog Day nightmare for the second one.

I follow a definite mental and physical trajectory when writing a book. Part of the challenge is pacing myself so that I don’t run out of stamina or enthusiasm before the project’s completion. Once a book is done, there is a natural let-down that shares kinship with the postpartum feelings of childbirth. Exhaustion. Relief. Satisfaction. Plus a sense of aimlessness after losing the connection to a goal long-in-the-making and now achieved. No mother would want to go right back into labor, and no one ever has to give birth to the same baby twice. Yet there I was, facing the same topic again.

It turned out that my greatest challenge was overcoming the sense of panic that gripped me at that prospect. Once I’d slain the apparition of repetition, I found myself liberated to write in new ways, from simple things such as the freedom to construct complicated sentences and use big words to the rewards of writing for an audience that could appreciate a more sophisticated rendering of the history. I fell in love with my subject all over again, generating the energy and motivation required to explore Stubby’s story along new research and writing avenues.

Sometimes I think we forget that writing, at its best, is storytelling. Writers such as those at I.N.K. don’t park their passions at their office doors; they infuse their work with them, and that’s why such incredible books emerge from their fingertips. Nothing but the facts, true, but the facts can truly inspire—sometimes even twice—when we write from our hearts as well as from our heads.

In the wake of standards, and testing, and benchmarks it can be hard to remember that the best reading, the best writing, the best teaching, and the best learning come when we are most inspired. My new year’s wish for all is this: May writers, educators, and students alike be allowed to fall in love with facts through wonderful, wonderful storytelling.

Who was The Mad Potter of Biloxi?

 

Back in the 1980’s an art dealer in L.A.  invited me to see his collection of pottery by an artist named George Ohr, who had died in obscurity in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1918.  “Ohr called himself The Mad Potter,” my friend told me. “The ceramics establishment thought his personality, as well as his pottery, were too flamboyant. He was ahead of his time.” Fascinated by the Arts and Crafts Movement, I had started my own modest collection of green matte pottery from that era, which I found at various flea markets, “antique” malls and junk stores. But I’d never seen anything quite like the crinkled, wrinkled, distorted, abstract pots by George Ohr that lined the shelves of this man’s study. I ended up buying a small mug with a metallic glaze and a whimsical snake wrapped around it.

 

A few years later when Sandra Jordan and I began writing books together, we often took breaks by going on what we called “field trips.” Museums, galleries, movies, plays, bookstores, gardens, restaurants, even a party or two constituted these forays away from the computer, out of the study.  Wandering around flea markets or antique stores were favorite outings.  Sandra was on the lookout for glass fan vases, while I hunted green pots. In Lambertville, NY, after a presentation at a Children’s Literature Festival, we stopped by David Rago’s gallery and discovered we both were fans of George Ohr’s pottery.

And so the years went by, as we wrote twelve books on the arts and settled into a collaboration that sometimes makes us behave like an old married couple. At an ALA conference in New Orleans several years ago, a field trip in and of itself, we had a free day between an award ceremony and a panel, and decided to drive to nearby Biloxi, Mississippi, where the architect Frank Gehry (we’d written a book about him) had designed a museum in honor of George Ohr.  It had been leveled in 2005 by a gambling barge that had been lifted off its’ moorings during hurricane Katrina.

 

The Gehry museum buildings finally were in the process of being rebuilt. We’d been invited for a hardhat tour. There we discovered through vintage photographs and reference books that not only were George Ohr’s pots wild and interesting but so was his life.

 

Then there were coincidences, besides our shared interest, along with Frank Gehry, in Ohr’s work. When we researched Andy Warhol’s life for Prince of POP, we discovered Andy collected Ohr pots. Here is a photo of some pieces that were in his house in New York City.

 

 

 The artist Jasper Johns collects Ohr pots and even reproduces them into his paintings.

 

Now The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr Eccentric Genius is out and people are saying Who? Who is George Ohr? It seems like a remarkable turn of events to find out that he died in 1918, mostly unappreciated, and more than fifty years later was heralded  America’s most important turn of the century potter.  A tale of redemption for an artist, who, like Van Gogh, believed passionately in his own talent, worked hard, and finally received the attention he deserved.

 

FYI: If anyone happens to be in Pittsburg, visit the Carnegie International art exhibit, where a French artist, Pierre Leguillon, has created an amazing artwork, a vitrine filled with photos of George Ohr and pieces of his ceramics, placed on a sandy surface, perhaps a nod to the beaches of Biloxi. 

 

In Biloxi, Mississippi,  visit to the Ohr/ O’Keefe  Museum of Art  designed by Frank Gehry. https://www.georgeohr.org/

For the Kids

 Susan E. Goodman shared a wonderful tribute to mothers recently, and the coincidence of my youngest son’s upcoming college graduation inspires me to add a note of recognition for children.

Whenever I do a school visit, I include a brief introduction about myself. “Here’s me in fourth grade,” I say, soon after the session begins. “If you’d asked me then what I wanted to be when I grew up, the first thing I’d have said was, ‘I want to be a children’s book author.’” It made perfect sense. I loved books. I loved to write. Why not write books for kids? Case closed.

And yet, I tell the school children, I didn’t immediately become a children’s book author when I grew up. Instead I turned, upon finishing college, to what I call “more practical writing,” and then I describe the work I did for ten years with the marketing of books, academic public relations, and the editing of an alumni magazine.

“It was only when I took a break to have kids,” I tell my audience, “that I reconnected with that childhood idea to write for young people.” So I have an easy answer when kids ask, “What made you want to become a children’s book author?”—“My kids,” I reply. Then I show a childhood photo of Sam and Jake “reading” Winnie the Pooh together. Hearts melt.

What came next, I tell the students, is the birth of my writing career. “While I watched my kids grow up, they watched my career grow. Now they’re in middle school/high school/college (fill in the blank depending on what year I’ve been speaking), and I’ve published seven/eight/nine books (add corresponding number of titles).”

Then I show a photo of my two sons at their present ages, contrasted with the photo of them as young children. Kids eat it up, of course, because they can see themselves in such a narrative, and I never tire of telling this story about my life and the lives of my sons.

Sam, Class of 2011, now with City Year

Jake, Class of 2013, Pitzer College

Silly me.

When I first became a children’s author, I thought that my story was unique. Now I’ve met and heard about dozens of authors who were inspired to write because of the children in their lives. Their own kids. Their grandkids. The children they teach. The children who visit the libraries where they work. The 10-year-old child embedded in their own hearts. You know what I’m talking about!

Yet here we are, writing away for the archetypal young while our own original sources of inspiration grow toward adulthood and beyond. This Saturday my youngest son graduates from college, and the narrative of my school visits will have to be updated again. From cuddly boys to grown men. There’s a tale to celebrate!

So it’s no wonder I’m drawn to visit schools, and you may be, too, for the same reason. Instantly we are surrounded by the little people who remind us why we write.

Yes, it helps that our work can pay the bills, and yes, we write because we were meant to be writers, but we write for young people because, at the heart of it, we care about their future. If we can just give them good stories, good history, good science, inspiring knowledge, we will have, we hope, made a difference.

I always say that being a parent was and is the best job I’ve ever had. Probably the hardest, too, but by far the most rewarding. Writing for young people is a very close second! Like parenting, it is a labor of love, born of the idea of passing on the joy of life to the youngest among us.

Thanks, Jake and Sam, for inspiring me to be a better parent and a better writer. While I'm at it, I commend my fellow authors for writing and sharing your hearts and minds through your own works, and we all thank those in the wider publishing community who connect our creations with those smaller hands across the land. All are causes for celebration!

Literary Mood Swings

As kids’ book writers, when we think conference, we usually think NCTE, SCBWI, IRA, or ALA.  Now that I teach at the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, I’m also a member of AWP (the Association of Writers and Writing Programs).  Last week I went to my first AWP conference—a crazy confab of over 550 readings and panels with 12,000 writers spending four days trying to find connections, inspiration, and bathrooms at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center.    

Writing for young people is a relatively new addition to MFA programs so the proportion of programming devoted to our genre is much smaller.  I also noticed that many of our sessions were the first and last of the day, seemingly less desirable times.  Interpret that as you will.

Hating Your Writing: A Love Story didn’t have a children’s book author on its panel, but still seems a useful discussion for any of us. Five poets and prose writers (Richard Bausch, Molly Peacock, Daniel Nester, Melissa Stein, and Chuck Sweeney) discussed that hideous moment when your euphoric assessment of your draft somehow plummets from brilliance to dross upon the next reading.  What are these literary mood swings?  Is there ever an upside? Can dejection lead to breakthroughs and better writing? 

If any of these writers were feeling literary despair on Saturday, they kept it to themselves.  Instead they tried to share their insights on managing the emotional ups and downs of creative life.  Here are some of their points that struck me:

Chad Sweeney likened these emotional downswings to exhaustion, then commented that exhaustion is sometimes a healthy reaction, especially if you are trying to write to anticipated criticism or expectations or in a style that once fed you but no longer does so.  It can be a sign you have to figure out how you’ve gone off course—dig in or dig out—and come up with something new.

Melissa Stein suggested that there are two types of internal critics: one is discerning and can make helpful comments you should consider, the other is the bad parent (think Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest) who insists you don’t even have the talent or right to tell this story.  Give yourself the time and space to figure out which critic is in your head and act accordingly. 

Richard Bausch spoke like a veteran.  He said it’s working that is important.  Put in the time and at the end of the day, ask yourself, “Did I work?”  If the answer is yes, you’ve accomplished your goal.  Develop a sense of calm; you can’t mess your writing up because you can always do over.  If all else fails, lower your standards and keep on going.  Remember, revision is all.

Molly Peacock agreed.  Keep your standards high and your expectations low; it helps you keep going.  But allow room for dormancy; it’s all right to walk away for a while with the intent of returning.  Furthermore know yourself and how to interpret your energies and feelings.  Peacock is a morning writer.  As a result, she refuses to make any judgments or decisions about her writing after 3 p.m.

Donald Nester said he sometimes gets unstuck by changing the form that he’s writing in a little.  Let yourself get lost again and something new might happen. Even journaling can transform material into the nugget you need to find your way.

Other miscellaneous tips:

--Be kind and compassion, give yourself permission to fail by reaching into new areas.

--Create the conditions you need for good writing--good food or walks--anything that makes you feel more open and engaged and closer to the source.

--Banish the critic and get it out there.  Then draft by draft by draft, things proceed toward grace.

--If you can’t turn off the critical voice, acknowledge it and go on.

--Always remember, things may not be as bad as you think.  Vladimir Nabokov dumped his manuscript of Lolita in the garbage, only to have it rescued by his wise wife. In other words, wait a week and read it again.