Quote of the Day

 Something we should all ponder for the New Year?

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” 

T.S. Eliot

Historical Fiction...

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.

from JOHN HERSEY 

 (My thought for the day...)

Maybe writing with quill and ink will speed things along?

Elizabeth Strout

Loved Olive Kitteridge. The book and the TV series.
Just finished Abide With Me.
I am now reading The Burgess Boys. 

Perfect airplane, packing, distracting novels for my life right now.

Here's what Strout says in her Reader's Guide to the Trade Paperback edition of Abide With Me.  Something to remember, for sure.


"A book, once finished, belongs to the reader, and each reader will bring to it his or her own life's experiences... it should be a different book for each person who reads it."

And this.

"Through the telling of stories and the reading of stories, we have a chance to see something about ourselves and others that maybe we knew, but didn't know we knew. We can wonder for a moment if, for all our separate histories, we are not more alike than different after all."

 Perfect, right? 

And guess what- she has a new book, coming January, 2016. Can't wait!

Leaning In

I hope non-Facebook people will be able to see this link to Kate DiCamillo's Author Facebook page. But I'll cross my fingers and share because it's so truly wonderful.

I, too, was told to stand up straight. I was the tallest girl in my class for a very long time. My godfather was an orthopedic surgeon. I loved ballet.
All those things "told" me to stand up straight.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/robertcorm219373.html

But Kate reminds us that if we're looking closely, it's okay to lean down.
The better to see with!

And leaning in is a sure sign of paying attention.

Paying attention and writing slowly= two lessons I'm taking away from Facebook today.
 

(Maybe it helps that I'm looking at a lot of trees this week?)

Here's Kate DiCamillo's Facebook post. What do you think?

"I took this picture when I was up at the cabin. I like this tree. It leans. I was always told to stand up straight; and..."
Posted by The Official Kate DiCamillo Page on Thursday, June 25, 2015

Welcome to the world, BLUE BIRDS.

My friend Caroline Starr Rose's beautiful new middle-grade verse novel publishes today.

Thanks to her gracious publisher, I had a pre-publication sneak peak.

I've written about it HERE. But now you can read it everywhere!
Tell your library, your independent bookstore, your teacher friends. Such a good story.

In honor of all our books going out into the world this year, I'm borrowing Caroline's quote. I love this thought via Katherine Paterson.


Once a book is published, it no longer belongs to me. My creative task is done. The work now belongs to the creative mind of my readers. I had my turn to make of it what I could; now it is their turn. I have no more right to tell readers how they should respond to what I have written than they had to tell me how to write it. It’s a wonderful feeling when readers hear what I thought I was trying to say, but there is no law that they must. Frankly, it is even more thrilling for a reader to find something in my writing that I hadn’t until that moment known was there. But this happens because of who the reader is, not simply because of who I am or what I have done.

-Katherine Paterson, A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing Books for Children


 

 (In honor of Caroline's new novel, I'll share bluebird art from Adolf Dehn,
"Winter Song," 

from a Christmas card I love.)

The Always Quotable

Katherine Paterson:

"I think you tell your story and then the reader gets to decide what he or she will learn from your story. And if they don't want to learn anything from it, that's their choice."

- Katherine Paterson
from an interview with NPR

(via Jan Fields' interesting newsletter this week)

I often post quotes from Katherine Paterson. CLICK HERE for a link to one I particularly like. Or type her name into my search box for even more inspiration.

Nerdy Books: Top Ten

Do you follow the folks at the Nerdy Book Club?
They welcome bloggers, teachers, writers, librarians.
Their posts are about everything and anything bookish.

I'm especially drawn to their Top Ten lists.

Top Ten Reasons to Marry a Nerdy Book Club Member.
Top Ten Book Characters Who Would Be Awesome Friends
Top Ten Ways to Research.

See what I mean?

Here's one I just read:
TOP TEN OR SO QUOTES ABOUT READING.

This is my favorite:

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” – Mortimer J. Adler. I’d rather discuss one book with a student for twenty minutes than listen to a student rattle off a list of all the books they’ve read.

I'll be sharing the room with a whole bunch of Nerdy Book People at the National Council of Teachers of English conference in a couple of weeks. Can't wait.

Quote of the Day

I love this from my writing group buddy, Teddie Aggeles, on a chapter I sent to my Skyway Writers SCBWI critique group last week:

"I’m not sure we can completely know a Main Character the way we need to until the story unfolds. 
...even when we think we know our characters, there’s always more to discover about them, just like in real life."

 

(I'm trying, really.)

Diving In

Sharing a quote I copied from Bruce Black's WORDSWIMMER blog. 


"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water."
--Rabindranath Tagore



 

(Which seems entirely appropriate from where I sit today, not far from the water, not having a clue how to get on over and end this story.)

Revision Thoughts

TIP:
Keep in mind that characters need to change along the way to their story's end. As a certain brilliant editor says, "A curtain must lift" and enable them to know something they didn't know when they started this journey.




And then there's this quote, from writer Richard Peck:
“A young adult novel ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life left to be lived.”

(Thanks to Cheryl Klein's website for the quote. Here's another quote to ponder, from Cheryl herself:  Being obvious is the quickest way to be dull.)
 

Quote of the Day

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."

Anna Quindlen

(On the other hand, are there EVER enough bookshelves? I am sorting through books today and dropping a few off at the library, sharing with friends, deciding what stays in my own pile. Ah, the problems of a booklover...)

Happy Valentine's Day!

My quote for the day:

"Always take your heart to work."
                                                           (Meryl Streep)

                                                            (Me.)

The Dali Lama's Quote for the Day

January has buzzed by so quickly I haven't really looked at my Quaker Motto Calendar.
One of this month's quotes seems just what I need for today:

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. 
Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.
(Dali Lama XIV, 1935- )

 Reading this today, when I was given a jar of homemade fig preserves, reminds me of my funniest story ever. About figs and sort of about the Dali Lama. Sort of.




If you have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, here's the link:http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/2008/10/great-fig-fiasco-im-writer.html

Quaker Motto Calendar

Some of you may know of the Scattergood connection to this wonderful little wall calendar.

They are small. They hang perfectly over a writer's desk, a kitchen drawer, a bedroom chest. Or they tuck nicely into notebooks, totes, briefcases. 

The quotes are pretty ecumenical. You know those Quakers.
Everybody from Sirach (I'm sorry. I had to google that. I was raised in the Episcopal church and we didn't know much about Bibles...If all my friends hadn't been Baptists and Methodists and I hadn't regularly attended BTU and MYF and VBS, who knows if I'd ever learned a thing.):

"May the Lord grant you wisdom of mind to judge his people with justice."

to
Maya Angelou: "Let nothing dim the light that shines from within."

I've blogged about these before. Several times. 

For example
Here:  http://ascattergood.blogspot.com/2010/09/quaker-motto-calendar.html

And guess what? I over-ordered this year. I have a few motto calendars to spare.
If you'd like one, leave me a comment. I'll see what I can do!

(Depending on how many comment, I may have to draw names. Or see if my amazing sister-in-law, Marion Scattergood Ballard, has any extras to share.)

Let's let this run from right now until December 31st. Comment here or on FACEBOOK, and I'll add your name to the hat.

Thanks, and have a happy, healthy, productive, fun 2014!

How To Write

Pretty much everything you need to know about writing is 
RIGHT HERE.  ☜ (click this link)
(Well, almost.)

Love this. One of my favorites.

Revision: Quote of the Day

A writer's best friend is a wastepaper basket.
Isaac B. Singer. 

Mine's been emptied five times today.
Revision, I love it.

Pretty much everything you need to know about a great way to revise, via Laurie Halse Anderson:

http://madwomanintheforest.com/wfmad-day-18-revision-roadmap/

Writerly Quote of the Day

Remember all those notebooks and files I was sorting through this summer?

Here's one from a conference near and dear to my heart. 
Maryland/ Delaware/ West Virginia SCBWI, July 2008.
Where I met my agent and friend, Linda Pratt.

And got to hear Cynthia Lord talk about writing RULES.

I wrote this down, but of course had forgotten it. 
Now any time I catch myself saying (only to myself!): I'm not a big fan of fantasy, science fiction, etc. I'm remembering this.

Cynthia Lord, quoting Sarah L. Thomson, author of Dragon's Egg: 

"Fantasy is just reality wearing cooler clothes."

October Quote to Remember

via LOREN EISELEY: All the Strange Hours

"October is a traveling month for both birds and men."

More on THE END

According to my scribbles in a notebook, this quote about ENDINGS came via Virginia Euwer Wolff.

(But since I can't verify it, please don't quote me.)

I love it, no matter who said it.

"It's not exactly a WOW! or an AHA! 

But it's a cross between them, a WHOA!"

Click here for a few more words about endings, via my week with Ann Hood et al at WRITERS IN PARADISE a while back. And guess what-- they're already accepting applications for the 2014 conference in St. Petersburg, in January, with great writers.

HERE's the link to that excellent conference:

http://writersinparadise.eckerd.edu

Speaking of Endings:

Wouldn't you like to spend a week in January, learning and writing, 

looking at this at the end of your day?

Quotes for the Day

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him. – Mel Brooks

via Cheryl Klein's terrific post listing so many great quotes about characters.

http://chavelaque.blogspot.com/2011/11/quote-file-characters.html