Nowhere Else to Go--more thoughts on Retreats

I'm in the Internet coffee place by the beach where so many vacationers are checking their email that it's shuddering in and out. The luckier folks have iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, Droids and plain old PDFs so that they can check their email without slogging to the coffee joint. Or are they luckier?

The genius of this writing retreat is that there's nowhere to go when you want to dither, consternate, digress or just plain avoid your manuscript. And traveling to the avatar world of twitter, facebook, Huffpo, even this wonderful blogspot, is definitely going "somewhere else."

(Look, I've gotta post once week or so. Uh, yah!)

Come to think of it, I feel less obsessive, not being able to tweet every day. Even though the big black flies are biting my ankles and the seat of the rocking chair is hard, and the pacing and sighing and chuckling of my fellow writers is slightly distracting, the fact is, I've gotten a lot done. A 286 page revise finished and four pages of a new project.

I'm reminded of the artist whose wife used to lock up in a room, so he had nothing else to do but paint masterpieces (or rip his hair out in chunks).

We're not always producing masterpieces, but this retreat offers us the time to try!

Writing Retreats!

It’s that time again to pack up for the writing retreat I attend in New England. I look forward to this more and more every year, especially when my teaching schedule is reaching its stressful peak, with the reading and correcting of long student research papers.

So my two computers are packed, one for manuscripts, one for illustrations rendered in Photoshop. I’ve got my lightbox, my white gouache touchup paint and brushes. Then there are my beach towels, suits, sunblock and special sunhat from the Philly Flower show.

The schedule? Morning coffee on the terrace, while blabbing with my fellow scriveners, followed by three hours of writing on the wraparound porch. We lunch in the cool of the old, dark dining room, with more time to chat. Then I head back to my spot in the middle of the porch in the creaky rocking chair because rocking helps me conceptualize. Three more hours of intensive writing, while watching the occasional bunny rabbit hop across the yard to the woods. Then, ah! The group trek to the rocky beach for a dip. We take turns cooking dinner, reading our pieces, and we chat about writing, books, characters and plot concepts. When the cool breeze comes in off the nighttime woods, it’s off to bed in the camp style horsehair beds.

I highly recommend trying a retreat! You can choose one with cushy rooms, fabulous star authors and lots of clever writing exercises, or one that offers you hours of solitary writing time on a wraparound porch followed by a group beach swim like the one I attend. Even though it’s darn hard work, it’s essential community, and absolute play.

Fun Ways to Teach a Class-Write a Rap Song!

My son has been taking Arab class during these last two years of high school. The teacher, Anna Swank, is exceptionally creative and inspiring. She's taken them to a Lebanese restaurant in Queens, where they ordered food, and spoke to the staff in Arabic, on trips to the neighborhood deli, to chat with the owner, a Christian Egyptian, who makes wicked good sandwiches, and even to Syria and Tunisia.

For senior project, my son and his friends, many of whom are also musicians, http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/new-amsterdam-pt-1-2/id357356419?i=357356427&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

decided to write and perform an Arab rap, which underscored the importance of learning the language. Of course, they were determined to totally entertain themselves while doing it. And isn't that the part of the learning process that ultimately cements the subject in your mind? (My son is the tall one in the wheat-colored shirt, and then in the black soccer shirt). Their lip-synching is a bit off, but hey, this is video art 101. (They recorded the soundtrack and then tried to synch the video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMRQlxS61ao

In addition, here is a link to today's New York Times article on Anna Swank's class. Kudos to all. Teaching and learning should always be this fun!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/nyregion/12bigcity.html

Most of Anna's students will go on to study the language and culture in college. I know my son will take Arabic 3.

Which begs the question, what have your teachers, your kids' teachers, and you done to reach out to your brother and sisters across the globe? And how creative can your teaching really be? I know I'll be stretching as I ready myself for teaching Writing & Lit this fall to college freshmen. My students are mostly film and art majors, struggling to write and make sense of the literary cannon. I intend to bring in film, and art right along with the books. And I'll use Anna Swank as a true inspiration as I proceed.

The Fine Points Between YA Dystopia and Sci-fi

What distinguishes a YA dystopian novel from a YA sci-fi novel? And is there a difference between hard-core genre sci-fi, and creating a futuristic world, conceivable by scientific standards? What is the prevailing mood towards these genres?

Dystopias are almost always cautionary tales—utopias that have soured—and tropes for real life scary cultural trends such as fascism, climate change and technology run amok. Interestingly enough, the ancient translation of the word utopia is “no place”, which suggests that a utopia cannot actually exist.

A classic example of a dystopia that almost all high-school students read—and end up loving—is George Orwell’s 1984. Written in 1948, Orwell warned people of the dangers of totalitarian government a la Stalin’s Russia, and the loss of one’s personal independence in a repressive style of communism. Control in 1984 is obtained through mass brainwashing, and Big Brother’s ultimate desire is to have a person die loving the Party; this, so that there’s no danger of the “vaporized unperson” becoming a martyr and fomenting rebellion. Does Big Brother succeed? Ah! For the answer to that question, you must read Orwell’s very clever afterward.

Some current YA dystopias are THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, set in an alternate USA, where teens fight to the death for the richest district’s entertainment, and BIRTHMARKED by Caragh O’Brien, a world where life is reduced to helping birth babies for the exclusive set inside the Enclave by “Unlake” Michigan.

So, what about YA sci-fi? I believe it’s slowly but confidently creeping into the YA canon, despite some editors fears that teens won’t “get” the science behind the stories, and therefore must be limited to YA fantasy where there is no steep learning curve. Quite the contrary, I think teens are itching for this kind of concrete, yet visionary material. After all, the classic authors such as Sir Arthur C. Clarke ended up inventing satellite technology. I mean, how cool is that?! In Clarke’s own inspiring words: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Who wouldn’t want to explore the magic of the real world?

There’s no need to fear that pages of details will overrun the genre on how to build a robot from scratch, or power a rocket. No current author wants to mimic the old-school adult genre. So, there’s no need for authors writing YA sci-fi to hide it under names like “futuristic thriller”.

Current examples of YA sci-fi run the gamut from Cory Doctorow’s LITTLE BROTHER, a sort of cyberfest for Internet geeks (And major nod to Orwell’s Big Brother), and THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX by Mary Pearson, which explores the ethics of using new science in medicine, and the nature of the soul.

And now, onto the difference between YA dystopia and Post-apocalyptic fiction… for this discussion, I will ferry you onto the excellent post by YA Highway:

http://www.yahighway.com/2010/06/dystopian-and-apocalypse-whats.html

But before running off, you may want to answer this challenging question: Is S.A. Bodeen’s THE COMPOUND post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, or simply a thriller?

BOY, THOSE KIDS ARE SMART & INSPIRING!

I did a presentation last week for 4th and 5th graders. Instead of reading them something of mine that was already published, I decided to read a couple of chapters from a work-in-progress and show them my illustrations that go along with it.

This is a project that I'd put away for months following a random publishing professional's comment that she was looking for middle grade material a la WIMPY KID, and I replied that I had something along those lines but it was fantasy and probably young middle grade. She responded with a tone of disdain. "No one's looking for any younger middle grade than WIMPY KID." After which, I put my project in a closet and didn't do any more pictures for it. Maybe she was right.

But my intuition told me otherwise. I was wondering what she'd think of CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS, and FERGUS CRANE, and the amazing HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, all aimed for a slightly younger middle grade audience than WIMPY KID.

I kept arguing with her in my head. But I wasn't sure enough of myself to get the darn project, which had been my joy, off of the dusty shelf. Until...

Until I did that school visit last week and read my three chapters... and realized that the kids were eating it up and wanting more. And loved the illustrations.

Not only that, but they had inspiring answers to my questions about the project.

I took a poll; "How many want a scary ending?"

A few hands shot up.

"How many want a funny ending?" A few different hands went up.

"How many kids want a funny AND scary answer?"

Every hand shot up and the kids cheered.

It's a no-brainer. Deliver that funny-scary ending (Which I already have!).

So, now I have my sketchpad back out, and my inking pens and the white gouache that renders all of those wiggly, blotchy lines super-sharp. Hey, I even installed Creative Suite 4 (Which I bought last December!) so that I can import the illustrations into Photoshop and make 'em sparkle with wacky backgrounds and airbrush shading. I know, I know, Creative Suite 5 is already out. No problem, I'll upgrade soon.

The moral of the story? Don't let one person sway you off your dream project. Especially if you've gotten great feedback from a lot of other people--and from a set of cheering 4th graders who are whip-smart and full of hilarious suggestions, like "Put some spikes on that rat's leather jacket!"

LOST, a study in brilliant and sometimes lazy writing

The last mega episode of LOST aired a few days ago. I already feel very nostalgic for it, even though I thought the end was a demonstration of lazy conception and writing.

Before I describe the reasons why I thought the ending was less that it should be, let me backtrack.

I learned much about good plotting from this show, which had a bevy of out-of-the-box writers, such as the amazing graphic artist and writer of EX MACHINA, Brian K. Vaughan. I learned that plot should have breakneck pacing, unexpected twists, poignant moments of backstory, exciting love affairs, and inventive details.

After all, Lost brought us smoke monsters, magnetically-charged islands, hippie communes a la BF Skinner gone incredibly sour, sideways universes in gritty Los Angeles, and the flash forwards that inspired the new show of the same name: Flash Forward.

LOST writers took inspiration from so many hi-brow literary and lo-brow TV sources it boggles the mind. To name a few: Alice in Wonderland, Lord of the Flies, Cast Away, Gilligan's Island, and the ancient myth of Pandora's Box. I learned that it's okay to cull inspiration from other sources as long as the resultant material is not too derivative.

Okay, now for that ending. After devoting years of my TV viewing time to LOST, I found out that the characters were already dead, lurching around in a kind of puragtorial head-space where they worked out personal dramas with the members of the doomed Oceanic flight. Hey, I guessed that ending about three years ago! Plus, it's too close to the ending of Jacob's Ladder--too derivative. Too easy. Too flat.

Still, there was some comfort in seeing all of the couples who had been torn apart by death or estrangement, magically rediscover each other. I guess certain cheeseball plot devices are appreciated. Which proves that audiences, at least in part, want their preconceptions affirmed.

Float on into the sideways, topsy-turvy, mad universe that belongs only to you, LOST, and where we can find you just a wormhole away.

Post Thanksgiving Thanks List

I'm thankful that they had a can of cherries at the country store yesterday, to complete my apple-cherry pie, even if it did have Splenda in it.

Thankful for my Vietnamese potbellied pig, Thistle.

Thankful it's not snowing up here yet.

Thankful for a break from NYC, and to be away from the crush of the Macy's Parade.

Thankful for my family, and that one son is half-finished the college app process, while the other one likes to talk politics.

Thankful for my writing group.

Thankful for eccentric friends who live in houses with names like the "Museum of Unnatural History." And I'm also thankful for my not-so-eccentric friends, who own cars and houses and make their credit card payments every month.

Thankful for new ideas, new plots, new characters percolating in my head.

Thankful that Thanksgiving is over.