A few more reading links for the day:
I’m looking forward to going to my first SCBWI conference later this month. I’ve been to AWP before, but that veers to the literary fiction side and I also attended with my fellow grad students. I’ve heard fantastic things about the SCBWI conferences and I’m psyched to attend a weekend of kid lit-related events.
In case I get bitten by the conference-bug (and find a huge amount of expendable income), I’ve got this fantastic list of 2012 conferences over at A Fuse #8 Production. Lifetime goals? Hit the ALA conference, Comic Con, and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.
What conferences or events are on your calendar this year?
Another reason it’s a great time to read and write children’s literature:
“In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) published a study titled Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, reporting that the number of literature-reading young adults dropped 20 percent between 1982 and 2002—the greatest recorded loss of readership in the country’s history. The decline represented 20 million potential readers and Dana Gioia, NEA Chairman, called it a “national crisis.”
Panic ensued and a flurry of reading incentive programs sprung up around the country, including NEA’s own The Big Read which now operates in all fifty states and even internationally. Then, in a 2009 report, Reading on the Rise, the NEA proudly reported a 21 percent increase in young adult readership which began in 2002 and has continued through 2008.”
The emphasis is mine, but the facts stand alone. Thanks to cultural touchstones like Harry Potter, more kids are reading and more publishers have recognize that this is a huge market that demands good writing. Also, in case you think technology is going to kill the book:
“In January 2010, the Kaiser Family Foundation published a comprehensive study of the media habits of more than 2,000 eight to eighteen year-old American children. The study found that the average time spent reading books for pleasure in a typical day rose from 21 minutes in 1999 to 23 minutes in 2004, and finally to 25 minutes in 2010. The rise of screen-based media has not melted children’s brains, despite ardent warnings otherwise: “It does not appear that time spent using screen media (TV, video games and computers) displaces time spent with print media,” the report stated. Teens are not only reading more books, they’re involved in communities of like-minded book lovers. The Story Siren, a young adult online book review authored by an Indiana graduate student gets 3,500-4,000 unique page views a day.”
The internet isn’t the end of the book. It’s helping teens explore books and connect with similar-minded readers. I find this all extremely hopeful for the next generation of readers and writers.
You know that feeling of hope when you craft a new blog post and hit Publish? Ah yes, you say, this will truly get them talking! This will be the post all my readers love! Viral, here I come.
And then you wait. And wait.
That’s the nature of blogging. For the most part, you put it out there without any kind of response. That’s why it should be something you find personally fulfilling, not just fulfilling because it gets you attention.
But!
The Fourth Annual Comment Challenge is all about spreading the blog love. The details: you comment on (at least) 5 kid lit blogs everyday for 21 days. Get conversations started. Let bloggers know their work is appreciated. Maybe they’ll even comment back!
Head over to MotherReader to sign up. I’m excited to find lots more awesome children’s/YA blogs to add to my rss feed. Please share any cool blogs you think I’d like!
If you are online and like YA, you probably know* John Green, author and internet icon. His new book The Fault in Our Stars is coming out next week (hurray!). To promote the release**, EW has an
exclusive book trailer. Unfortunately, exclusive means that I can’t post it here–maybe after the release?–but for now just click through to see the really lovely video, plus an interview with Green. I was already excited for the book and now I’m way psyched.
Also I need to download the song in the trailer.
From the interview:
I’m sure one of the things people are going to comment on most about this book is the humor. Was it difficult infusing humor into a story about teens with cancer, or did it come naturally?
It came pretty naturally. I don’t see them as separate in my life or the lives of my friends. Humor and sadness co-exist everywhere and always. It was really important to me that the book be funny, and that it be kind of celebratory of life and these people and their lives. The last thing I wanted to write was a dreary novel about illness. The world has those. I wanted it to be, you know, fun to read. That’s your first job as a writer: Write something that people want to read.
I love the combination of humor and sadness, which I think is something John captures well in his books. This is another reason I love contemporary YA–there’s a lot of that balance, and it’s all very grounded in everyday love, loss, and hope.
*If you don’t know John Green, just google “nerdfighter” and you’ll get a sense of the community of readers surrounding him.
**John is also going on a book tour for the release of The Fault in Our Stars. I’ll be at the Boston reading, and last night I had a dream that I was there. I had a great seat and there was a lot of excitement–cupcakes! balloons! songs!–but at the last minute I realized I’d left my bag on the train and had to frantically run to the train station. Now I’m paranoid about the real event.
One of my favorite bookstores is Brookline Booksmith, which is a short walk from my apartment. (Hurray!) On their blog today, Emily talks about how the best books are given from the heart. They create an intimate connection between the giver and the receiver–the giver wants to share something personal they felt, or wants the receiver to experience a similar joy, etc. Gifts, and books in particular, are personal.
Her post reminded me of my friend Akshay who always give books to friends–not just on their birthday, or because they did something gift-worthy, just because he thinks that person will enjoy the book. Sometimes the books are new; sometimes they’re his old copy. He doesn’t make a big show about it or expect anything in return. He’s a very generous book-giver. I think it would be great if more people swapped books with the same enthusiasm. Maybe that’ll be my resolution this year. (After losing not one but two copies of The Princess Bride, I have a tendency to hoard my books.)
What kinds of books do you give away, and to whom?
This post by Chuck Wendig has been making the rounds, and for good reason. It’s a good kick-in-the-pants approach to a new year’s writing resolutions. A few of my favorite points:
Stop Thinking It Should Be Easier
It’s not going to get any easier, and why should it? Anything truly worth doing requires hella hard work. If climbing to the top of Kilimanjaro meant packing a light lunch and hopping in a climate-controlled elevator, it wouldn’t really be that big a fucking deal, would it? You want to do This Writing Thing, then don’t just expect hard work — be happy that it’s a hard row to hoe and that you’re just the, er, hoer to hoe it? I dunno. Don’t look at me like that. AVERT YOUR GAZE, SCRUTINIZER. And get back to work.
Whether you’re writing family memoirs or historical romances or books about chicken feed or paranormal thrills, writing isn’t glamorous. It’s work. It’s easy for people to think it should just require a little time at a computer, maybe a heavy sigh or two, but it’s a lot of though and effort and revision. And then you have to deal with all the rejection. It’s certainly not a job for the faint of heart.
Stop the Shame
Writers are often ashamed at who they are and what they do. Other people are out there fighting wars and fixing cars and destroying our country with poisonous loans — and here we are, sitting around in our footy-pajamas, writing about vampires and unicorns, about broken hearts and shattered jaws. A lot of the time we won’t get much respect, but you know what? Fuck that. Take the respect. Writers and storytellers help make this world go around. We’re just as much a part of the societal ecosystem as anybody else. Craft counts. Art matters. Stories are important. Freeze-frame high-five. Now have a beer and a shot of whisky and shove all your shame in a bag and burn it.
Books save lives. Maybe not in the way that open-heart surgery can, but books and stories and art is essential to the human race. Think about all the great historical figures. At least a quarter of them are artists, right? So there’s no reason for people to scoff when you tell them you want to be a writer.
Stop Caring About What Other Writers Are Doing
They’re going to do what they’re going to do. You’re not them. You don’t want to be them and they don’t want to be you. Why do what everyone else is doing? Let me reiterate: do your own thing.
It’s really easy to compare yourself to your successful friends or that 22-year-old novelist with a huge book deal. I do it all the time. But no one’s career path is the same, just like no one’s ideas are the same. You can be happy that they succeed because it means more art in the world.
Stop Being Afraid
Fear will kill you dead. You’ve nothing to be afraid of that a little preparation and pragmatism cannot kill. Everybody who wanted to be a writer and didn’t become one failed based on one of two critical reasons: one, they were lazy, or two, they were afraid. Let’s take for granted you’re not lazy. That means you’re afraid. Fear is nonsense. What do you think is going to happen? You’re going to be eaten by tigers? Life will afford you lots of reasons to be afraid: bees, kidnappers, terrorism, being chewed apart by an escalator, Republicans, Snooki. But being a writer is nothing worthy of fear. It’s worthy of praise. And triumph. And fireworks. And shotguns. And a box of wine. So shove fear aside — let fear be gnawed upon by escalators and tigers. Step up to the plate. Let this be your year.
This is a hard one. It’s easy to be afraid: of the blank page, of the rejection, of never making it. But there’s no reason you should be afraid of wanting something. Of wanting to be an artist. So get your fireworks, shotguns, boxes of wine, and get to work.
Read the full post here for more ass-kicking inspiration.
I feel like this post should end with something hardcore, like bears on fire fighting old-timey ships. So here’s that too.
It’s hard to pinpoint the hardest part about writing a novel, but trying to craft the perfect first line is certainly up there. The first line can grab a reader; it can guide a reader into the novel; it can present tone and voice immediately. And for writers who are querying agents/editors, the first line can be the make-or-break moment for the manuscript.
At Fiction Notes, Darcy Pattison has put together an extensive list of great first lines, broken up by style and type. My favorite tends to be the “Set up.” Examples are from Catcher in the Rye, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and The Great Gatsby. Not bad company!
How do you start your novels, and which are your favorite opening lines?
(via NESCBWI Kidlit Reblogger)
Congratulations to author Walter Dean Myers, who has recently been named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature! Myers is probably best known for his novel Monster, which won the Printz and was a finalist for the National Book Award, among others. But his bibliography is very extensive; check out his website for the full list.
From a recent New York Times article about Myers:
“He will receive a medal at the Library of Congress next Tuesday. One of the first things he expects to say is that reading is not a Victorian pastime.
“People still try to sell books that way — as ‘books can take you to foreign lands,’ ” he said. “We’ve given children this idea that reading and books are a nice option, if you want that kind of thing. I hope we can get over that idea.”“
I love Myers’s assertion that reading isn’t optional. Reading is a necessary part of life and can deeply affect the everyday experience. I’m excited to see what Myers has in store as the National Ambassador.
Even if you don’t read much fantasy, you’re probably familiar with the name J.R.R. Tolkien. Author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, he basically created modern fantasy and influence many writers in following generations. And today is his birthday! The Hub has a great post about Tolkien’s influence on contemporary literature.
To celebrate, here’s the trailer of the upcoming movie version of The Hobbit:
Let’s all be a little more adventurous today!