Scatalogical Stravinsky and the Taste of Crayons

This past weekend, at the Rhode Island Festival of Children’s Books and Authors, I had an amazing time talking with a bunch of great authors and illustrators. So, what do writers talk about when they hang out together? Books, naturally, and rainbow loom. And whether one should drop lemon wedges into glasses of water or just squeeze in the juice. And this guy, the Irish novelist Flann O'Brien, on the left. Another writer turned out to be a fan and I don’t often meet too many lovers of The Dalkey Archive. At one point, a few of us were stuck trying to remember the library song from Beauty and the Beast. That's when I knew I was with my kind of people. The author/illustrator Laurie Keller and I also had a great conversation about the necessity of working on your weird stuff, the art or writing out there on the fringes, which is often the material that keeps you inspired. So I’m going to spend a little time on the adventures of a character named Tim this week. He’s very odd.

Speaking of illustrators, a few months ago I met the artist Greg Hildebrandt, who, along with his brother, created the iconic Star Wars movie poster with Vader looming in the background. At the time I was actually interviewing an amazing kid named Justin Beckerman, who built his own one-person submarine, and kind of thinks with his hands. If Justin wants to understand how a motor works, he doesn’t look it up online. He takes the motor apart, moves things around, cleans different parts, replaces things, and then just gets it. The final story is here, and I probably could have written it without visiting, but I just had to meet this kid. Naturally, he was standing outside in his driveway taking apart a broken jet ski when I arrived (at night!), and it was quite a bonus when he took me next door to meet Hildebrandt, his neighbor.

The artist shared a few great stories about his youth, including the time he ate crayons because he wanted to know what the colors tasted like, and this little pearl of wisdom about creative work:

“It’s not all about inspiration. It’s about slow, steady, forward movement.”

Now on to the latest installment of Emersonian Reading Series. At the Providence Atheneaeum, a wonderful library, I read the first few pages of the famous composer Igor Stravinsky’s autobiography and found this delightful passage:

"...one of my earliest memories of sound will seem somewhat odd...I can see it now. An enormous peasant seated on the stump of a tree. The sharp resinous tang of fresh-cut wood in my nostrils.  The peasant simply clad in a short red shirt. His bare legs covered with reddish hair, on his feet birch sandals, on his head a mop of hair as thick and as red as his beard - not a white hair, yet an old man. He was dumb, but he had a way of clicking his tongue very noisily, and the children were afraid of him. So was I. But curiosity used to triumph over fear. The children would gather round him. Then, to amuse them, he would begin to sing. This song was composed of two syllables, the only ones he could pronounce...he made them alternate with incredible dexterity in a very rapid tempo. He used to accompany this clucking in the following way: pressing the palm of his right hand under his left armpit, he would work his left arm with a rapid movement, making it press on the right hand."

That's right, ladies and gentleman, one of history's greatest composers was drawn to music because of some guy making fart noises.

A nice image early in Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October:

"The water was coated with the bilge oil of numberless ships, filth that would not evaporate in the low temperatures and left a black ring on the rocky walls of the fjord as though from the bath of a slovenly giant."

A fragment from a great passage in one of Roberto Bolano’s big books:

"...and he dreamed that to escape the bullets he ducked underwater and let himself be carried along by the current, coming up only to breathe and going under again, and in this way he traveled miles and miles of river, sometimes holding his breath for three minutes or four or five..."

And here’s the Irish playwright JM Synge, in his memoirs of time spent on the Aran Islands, noting what sounds very much like an early minimalist running trend:

"Michael walks so fast when I am out with him that I cannot pick up my steps, and the sharp-edged fossils which abound in the limestone have cut my shoes to pieces. The family held a consultation on them last night, and in the end it was decided to make me a pair of pampooties, which I have been wearing today among the rocks. They consist simply of a piece of raw cowskin, with the hair outside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of fishing-line that work round and are ties above the instep."

Is anyone surprised the Irish were early proponents of minimalist running, though? They invent everything first.

Finally, after much internal reflection, I have arrived at an answer to a question a budding writer named John posed to me earlier this year during a school visit: How do you research a subject that is entirely fictional? So, to back up, in my talks I stress the importance of becoming an expert in whatever subject you happen to be writing about. Cryptography or baking supply chain logistics, for example. But John was confused because he wanted to write about mages and mages don’t really exist. To most people, anyway. So when John first asked me the question, I suggested gathering as much information as he could from other works of fiction.

Now I’ve got a better idea. John, you might not like this, as it does mean more work, but I think you have to write the book you would need to read to write your book. Hmmm....let's try that again. So, to become an expert on an imaginary person, place, or thing, you have to really think through and flesh out that subject. If you want to write a book about an alien planet, you have to build that planet in your head. As for mages, I’d at least sketch out The Complete History of Mages or Mages 101 or The Guide to Becoming a Mage, or maybe even all three, before you start writing your book. Look at that Rowling lady. The imaginary book Tales of Beedle the Bard became so real in her head that she actually sat down and wrote it out!

Sorry if that’s disappointing John, but I could tell you were a bright kid, so I’m sure you’re capable. 

Oh, and in other news, I found out one of my articles from last year was cited as a kind of honorable mention in the Best American Science & Nature Writing 2013. So that's nice.

The Little Wooden Fish in Novels

On Tuesday I had a fun Skype visit with a boys book club down in Oklahoma. Fish is up for that state's prestigious Sequoyah Book Award, and a bunch of kids in Duncan, Oklahoma took a break from the sweltering summer heat to talk about the novel. I love the idea behind this book club: It's just for boys, with no girls allowed. That strikes me as a pretty clever way to convince a bunch of young ruffians to get together and talk about a book when they'd probably rather be out playing baseball or basketball or tackling each other into the local pool. I was as bookish as anyone when I was that age, but I'm not sure I would've let my parents talk me into heading to the library on a nice day. Now, if they'd told me my friends were going? Well then I probably would've given it a try.

We talked about their favorite characters and scenes, and what it takes to write a novel. Near the end, one of the boys asked a question I'd never heard before. In fact, I'd forgotten about this moment in the story entirely. Before he leaves the family farm, Fish's sister Roisin gives him a small, wooden carving of a fish. This  young Oklahoman wanted to know where I'd gotten that idea.

My great uncle loved carving, and taught my siblings and I how to whittle when we were young. I became hooked. For years I would bring my chisels and Dremel and spare driftwood with me everywhere. (This half-finished carving of Dr. Zaius, the legendary Planet of the Apes villain, is one of my favorites; I call it the Zaius stick and envisioned it as a tool to be used in debates on evolution.) My driftwood art became something of a joke among my friends, in part because I enjoyed turning so many weathered branches into characters from Planet of the Apes. I was also carrying a harmonica at that point in my life. Did I know how to play? Of course not. Yet I thought I had some sort of hidden talent for the instrument that might appear at any moment. I wanted to be ready.

Anyway, the point is that - yes, there's a point!! - the wooden fish is one of the little personal details that can make a fictional world or a story seem more complete and believable. My books are all set in different time periods and places, but they're filled with tiny details often borrowed from my own life. I'll stick my friend's nose on one character, turn Roisin into a wood-carver, or make one person walk like my father and I. (Feet turned out, proudly.) In my first book, the main character dons a pair of yellow rubber gloves to wash the dishes in his office. Why? Because my mother always used gloves like that when I was growing up and those gloves are a strong sense memory. The gloves were real to me. Visceral, and a little weird. And those kinds of powerful feelings attached to random objects often come through in your writing. They make certain details pop within the story, and resonate with readers, like that wooden fish did with this crewcut-topped young man. A novel isn't all details, obviously. But these powerful little notes can help bring it to life.

Before our Skype visit was finished, I also extended my condolences regarding the Thunder's devastating loss to the evil Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. No one seemed too broken up about that. I'm still upset, though. I might name one of my next villains after LeBron. Or I could always shake my Zaius Stick at the TV screen when he's shooting free throws.

To all the other librarians and teachers covering Fish or Dangerous Waters in the coming year, let me know, I'm always happy to pop in for a free virtual visit.

Where do you write?

Where do you write? I've been visiting a bunch of schools for the past few months to talk about reading, writing, and my new book, Dangerous Waters, and this question has turned up some wonderful answers. I try to encourage kids to find a spot in their home where they can work uninterrupted. Writing requires total focus, and it's hard to concentrate if your brothers and sisters (or, in my case, the kids) are running all around you. You need to find a spot to unplug, disconnect, and completely dedicate yourself to the assignment, whether it's a few pages for school or a novel-in-the-works.

My own spot is this horribly mundane, disorganized collection of tables and books and devices in the photo. I'd prefer dark wood and old leather, perhaps a collection of cloth-bound volumes with uncut pages in the background and a large window overlooking a tranquil body of water, but that's not happening. And it's not really necessary. I'd probably just stare at the water until I fell asleep. And the books would make me sneeze, I'm sure.

Back to the kids. And their answers. A few of my favorites:

-One girl said she works on her stairs. This sounds like a poor choice at first, but if you think about it, no one stops on the stairs. They pass by, heading up or down, and leave you alone. Brilliant.

-Several kids cited their bedroom closets as the ideal locales. Sure, this might be a fire hazard with the wrong lamp, and you'd need a decent-sized space to stretch out, but it could be a delightful place to focus. Bunch a few fallen sweaters or coats against one wall, lean back, relax, and write.

-Two kids like to sneak under their beds. I thought this was brilliant, and when I told another class about it a few weeks later, one of those kids wrote me to tell me he has now begun doing his homework under his bed as well. I tried it myself, in fact, but I soon began sneezing and promptly extricated myself.

If anyone else has any unique writing spots of their own, let me know!

FISH Wins Carol Otis Hurst Book Prize

A few weeks ago I learned that FISH is going to receive this year's Carol Otis Hurst Book Prize, awarded to the best in children's writing by a New England author. Hurst, who died in 2007, was a renowned librarian, teacher, storyteller and author. The award started out with a focus on books that centered on the New England experience, but it has since been broadened; which makes sense, given that Fish never visits America. Needless to say, I'm honored and excited.

The Westfield Athenaeum, an amazing library out in western Massachusetts, runs the process, and I'm looking forward to heading out there in September for a reading and talk.

In other news, my next novel, DANGEROUS WATERS, has moved on to the proofreading phase, all set for a March 2012 publication, and I'm working hard to make sure there aren't any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors for my parents to find.