Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

It’s Dr. Seuss birthday this week (it’s March 2nd), and I thought I’d share the awesome Seuss-wall I made at work for the occasion. Here it is! The SEUSS-TASTIC wall in the children’s book department at Vromans Bookstore (where I work):

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. SEUSS!

Celebrate Seuss’ birthday birthday this week and read some of his books!

What’s Your Intent?

At VCFA we talk a lot about writing with intention, about making choices, and thinking about affect. This is a topic that has been in the back of my mind lately, but was recently pulled to the front of it by the superb film Drive.

The film (directed by Nicolas Winding Refen and staring Ryan Gossling) is about a car stunt-man turned get-away driver who gets mixed up in the wrong deal. It’s not the storyline that struck me. What pulled me into this movie was its poetic quality, its economy, its precision. The music interwove with the imagery, the lighting transitioned you from one point of focus to the next, the dialog was spot on, and the silence was even stronger. This well oiled- machine was carefully crafted, and every choice on the screen was chosen, specific, and created with intent!

The effect was mesmerizing.

This movie got me thinking about words and how we use them. We don’t have actors and lighting equipment and soundtracks to illuminate our stories, we have words. So, which words can create the perfect flare of light, or punctuate a  shift of the eyes, or create the contrast between silence and violence? There isn’t a correct answer to that question, other than to consider your intent. What words, in what arrangement, and in what rhythm and pacing will best bring your intent to light? Every word counts! Every one!

I suggest renting Drive and paying attention to the choices, the pacing, the lighting, the framing of shots, the lingering of shots, and how it moves like a dance or a song. There is something very poetic about this film, pointing out that it is the way a story is told – the choices, the intent – that gives it its power to cast a spell over you. Then pick up a favorite book and pay attention to the words. What makes you feel an emotion? What words pull your focus? What rhythms make your heart race or slow it down? Does the intended effect work? Then think about your own WIP and how you can write with intention. One of the great lessons from Drive (in my opinion) is that every moment is essential, economical, and necessary! It’s a great reminder to avoid lazy writing and to think about the effect of each word we place on the page.

Just a quick warning, if you do choose to watch Drive, please know that it is a very violent film.

Aspects of the Novel

I just finished reading Aspects of the Novel, a compilation of writing lectures given by E.M. Forster. It’s a short and dense book on the craft of novel writing, filled with strong opinions. I loved it. In particular, I enjoyed some of Forster’s comments on the differences between novel writing and drama. I so often default to Aristotle and his concepts of what a story should be, yet I forget that the form of drama (a play) and the form of a novel are two different modes of communication.

The following are some ideas that really got me thinking and I thought I’d share:

“In the drama, all human happiness and misery does and must take the form of action. Otherwise its existence remains unknown, and this is the great difference between a drama and a novel.” (Forster, 84)

“In the novel, all human happiness and misery does not take the form of action, it seeks means of expression other than through plot, it must not be rigidly canalized.” (Forster, 94)

“The hidden life is, by definition, hidden. The hidden life that appears in external signs is hidden no longer, has entered the realm of action. And it is the function of the novelist to reveal hidden life at its source.” (Forster, 45)

“Sometimes a plot triumphs too completely. The characters have to suspend their natures at every turn, or else are so swept away by the course of Fate that our sense of their reality is weakened.” (Forster, 93)

“The plot is exciting and may be beautiful, yet is it not a fetish, borrowed from the drama, from the spacial limitations of the stage? Cannot fiction devise a framework that is not so logical yet more suitable to its genius?” (Forster, 97)

Interesting stuff, right? Most of these quotes come from the chapter about plot, but the whole book is quite wonderful.

Write At Your Own Risk

I just returned from my third VCFA residency, where I chilled (quite literally) in negative degree Vermont weather. Of course the true joy of VCFA residency is spending two weeks drinking up the sweet deliciousness of my brilliant VCFA friends, picking the brains of the esteemed faculty, listening to craft-boggling lectures, and overall being surrounded by the warm-fuzzy-chocolately-goodness that is the VCFA community. Love and more love!

It’s all going by so fast. It felt like just yesterday that I started on this journey and I can’t believe I’m half way through the MFA program!  Wow!

So, as I rest from the awesome-sauce that is VCFA residency, and prepare for the awesome-sauce of writing my critical thesis (which I will be writing this term – YIKES!) I though I’d share a few quick quips of writerly wisdom! Enjoy:

• Dialog is not your plot bitch.
• Don’t try to be funny in every line. Humor should serve an authentic purpose in the scene and story.
• Why is success considered more important than the beautiful possibility that exists before? Slow down.
• “Even the heart of Satan has a divine spark, even the heart of evil yearns to be redeemed.” – Rob Zalman
• Illustrators want to be intrigued by a picture book text and puzzle it out.
• When writing romance we need to move beyond the idea that romantic love can save us.
• Beware of your narrator owning your story.
• Poets are our societies prophets.
• Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not that it is raining, but of being rained upon.
• Children are an audience “in progress.” If you tell them something they are bound to believe it.
• “If you alter even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” – James Baldwin
• You are allowed only one convenient coincidence in a book.
• “The only way to fail is to not write the book you care about.” – Libba Bray

Happy 2012! I hope everyone has an inspired, productive, and growth-filled writing year!

Secrets of a Children’s Bookseller: Adults Buying for Kids They Don’t Know

When you work in the children’s department of a book store it’s a little different than if you worked in any other section of the store. Most other sections of the store consist of adults buying for adults (and usually themselves). The children’s section, on the other hand, is full of adults buying for kids. And frankly, adults often have no clue what they should buy for their kid. The majority of my interactions with customers in the kids department start like this: “I’m looking for a gift for a _____ year-old (insert age). What do you suggest?”

That’s right the kids department is all about recommendations and hand selling!

I’m always armed with a series of questions to help find out what would be a good book for the customer: Is the child a boy or a girl? Do they like fantasy stories or ones that are more realistic? What other books have they read and liked? What extra curricular activities does the child participate in? Etc. Etc.

But during the holidays something really interesting happened. I came across a whole plethora of customers who didn’t know anything about the child they were buying for. It was a grandchild they hadn’t seen in two years, or their boss’s son, or they just didn’t know the answers to my questions. This is a very unique opportunity for me as a bookseller. First off it’s a challenge, a little like finding a needle in a haystack. But it also means I get to suggest the books that I think are awesome!

That’s right, I get to sell the books I love!

But here’s the catch 22 with this scenario. I only know the books I know. There are hundreds of books on our shelves and as much as you’d like to think I’ve read every single one of them, I have not!

So here’s a little bit about how I find out about books (so that when your book is published you can make sure booksellers know about your book!):

• I read as much as I can. Picture books are easiest (because they only take a few minutes – I read a lot of them on my breaks).
• I also read advanced reader copies (ARCs). Share your ARCs with your local bookstore, we try to read as many as we can and we do pass them around the department. (But also tell us why your book is awesome. We get lots of ARCs, usually from publishers, and we can’t read all of them. But I am ALWAYS influenced by authors who come in personally and share a book. I always want to sell books by someone I’ve met personally. It makes me more invested in the sale.).
• Publicity helps – NPR interviews, Newspaper Reviews, Internet Buzz, Twitter Talk, and Blogs! Anything that’s peaked my interest I can use to peak a customer’s interest.
• Author visits and signings. Hearing an author pitch a book always makes it easier for me to pitch a book to a customer. Plus, I can talk about all the fun facts you shared during your author visit.

It’s amazing the power booksellers have. For example, I’ve pulled books off the shelf, said less than four words about them, and had customers snatch them from my hands and head for the registers. Those customers weren’t even interested in knowing what the book was about. All they really cared about was the fact that I said it was good. This always surprises me, but it’s true that many adults don’t know the kids they’re buying for and only want validation that a book is worth-wild.

Yes, the “moral” of this blog-post is to befriend your local bookseller! We want to share your spectacular book, so do your part to point it out to us so we know about it and can recommend it when the opportunity comes!

Secrets of a Children’s Bookseller: Adult Nostalgia and Book Buying Trends

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood? It could be Ferdinand the Bull by Munro Leaf, or maybe it’s Miss Rumphius  by Barbara Cooney (that’s mine!). Thinking about that book probably makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You LOVED it! So, of course your son, daughter, granddaughter, grandson will love it too!

This holiday season I found a large percentage of customers making gift purchases based on these exact emotions. They’d ask for that treasured book (be it out of print or not) with hopes of sharing the feeling they had as a child. On Christmas Eve, I walked into our classics section and found it plucked bare. Little House on the Prairie, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte’s Web, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables – all had been purchased, wrapped, and now sat under trees with bright shinny bows.

I think there are two ways to look at this trend. On one side, these books DO stand up against the test of time. They’re classics, timeless, and just plain good! But on the other side of this discussion, I think some might argue that not all classics appeal to today’s kids. Some are slightly outdated and harder for today’s audience to relate to. In this second case, I think adults are buying classic books because they feel nostalgic about them. They hope their kids (or grandkids) will love the book as much as they did, and it’s that hope that gets them to take it home and put it under the tree. Ultimately, this comes down to why someone buys a gift (or any product). In this case its about the feelings and memories the gift-giver has about a book. There’s a ton of great new books on the shelves these days, but sometimes that can’t compete with the joy of sharing a loved classic.

This leads us (as writers) back to the age-old point that books need an emotional punch. Books we loved as kids stay with us because we are connected to them emotionally and something in them has resonated over the years. Look back at your favorite classic and see if it still holds up today. Why? Why not? What about the book makes it timeless? What makes it memorable and worth sharing?

Secrets of a Children’s Bookseller: Hot YA and Holes in the Market

Continuing my review of popular children’s books this holiday season, today I’m gonna talk about YA. I’ll cover the individual titles that were really popular and mention a few common request that I had a hard time fulfilling (that’s right – holes in the market that need to be filled!!).

Hot YA Titles this Holiday Season:

• Legend by Marie Lu (this is a debut novel and it’s doing really well!)
• Blood Red Road by Moira Young
• The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
• The Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
• The Hunger Games by Susan Collins
• Apothecary by Maile Meloy
• Inheretance by Christopher Paolini

Holes in the Market:

The following are common requests that I had a hard time fulfilling for customers (please write these books so we can sell them!!).

• Sport books for girls. Usually this is for a customer who has a daughter who isn’t into romance themed books. This reader plays sports herself and wants to see strong female characters!
• Dance books for girls. I did have Bunheads (Sophie Flack) and Audition (Stasia Ward Kehoe) on our shelves to recommend. However, some customers wanted dance books without too much romance, or dance books that were not about ballet.
• Books with Latino protagonists (this goes for both girl and boy books). We need more!! Please write them!