Category: Writing

School, Writing

You say dumb, I say pre-frontal cortex

sashikaufman

A couple of years ago I did some professional development work around brain-based teaching.  One of the things I learned about adolescents is that their pre-frontal cortex, or the part of their brain responsible for long term planning and decision making, is still developing.  Talk about an “ah ha” moment.

Today, on a field trip, I watched a student run straight through a foot-deep puddle.  “I didn’t think it would be so deep,” he reflected while staring down at his drenched pants. “Don’t worry, ” I told him.  “Your pre-frontal cortex is still developing.”  Not really.  I mostly just shook my head and gave him that wide-eyed teacher stare.

The lack of development in the pre-frontal cortex is why, when I assign a book project and give the students three weeks to do it, so many of them get this gleam in their eye.  Great, they’re thinking, I don’t have to worry about this for three more weeks!

This relates to writing YA because I find that I read a lot of posts about what adults think teenagers would or wouldn’t do.  It’s important to remember that most teenagers have a brain that is different from our adult brains.  Things that make perfect sense to adults, do not necessarily compute in the world of a younger person.  Adolescents often make decisions based on their emotions; more specifically the emotional state they’re in the moment a decision is required.

Sometimes the results are heroic, amazing, tragic, disastrous.

Sometimes your pants get wet.

Writing

A trial separation

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Before you get all hot and bothered worrying about my home life – this is a post about writing.  I started to write a post earlier this summer about how committing to write a novel is like committing to a relationship.

Your first 15-30 pages are like the early dating phase.  Everything is exciting and new and of course you haven’t hit any of the relationship pitfalls that befell you in earlier relationships.  These characters have depth and complexity!  This plot is cruising along, exciting and well structured.  The dialogue zings at every line!

Around page 80-100 the doubts begin.  I think it starts with boredom.  Is is always going to be like this?  When do the good and fun parts happen?  It wasn’t like this in the beginning….

This is when you really have to buckle down.  This is when you remind yourself of why you started writing this novel in the first place; you remind yourself of those fine characters, and the excellent pacing.  You go back and re-read your favorite moments from those first 15-30 pages.

Normally I would advise any writer, myself included, to finish what you start.  Not to doubt, but to keep on trucking because you don’t have anything to revise until you have at least completed that shitty first draft.  But something felt different this time.  With my other works in progress I kept on slogging when things got tough because I felt truly connected to these characters, dedicated and committed to telling their story.  This time, not so much.  I like what I’ve written so far, but perhaps I’m not as in love as I need to be to continue doing the work.  So this novel and I are having a trial separation.  It’s conveniently the beginning of the academic year, which is always a tough time to get any writing done.  We’re taking a break – a couple weeks, maybe a month and then I’ll see if I really want to be in this relationship.  Because truthfully anything that occupies this much of my time and thoughts is, in fact, a relationship.

In the mean time I’m doing some other fun essay type projects on the side….ooh on the side, what a hussy I’ve turned out to be!?

Random musings, Writing

Writing snacks

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Saw this great graphic in the NY Times book review this weekend detailing the favorite writing snacks of a random assortment of famous writers.  Including:

Walt Whitman: meat and oysters.

Emily Dickinson: Home baked bread.

John Steinbeck: Cold toast and stale coffee.  On purpose?

My favorite writing snack is a little bowl of cheezits and peanuts.  Sometimes it gets a little greasy but it always hits the spot.  When I was little my favorite reading snack was a box of wheat thins.  It seems like a natural evolution.

Your favorite writing, or other work, snack?

Reading, Writing

Writer’s crush

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I just finished David Mitchell’s latest book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  It’s really amazing to read 2 or 3 of an author’s books and really observe and enjoy them as they hone their skills.  Mitchell just keeps getting better and better.  He demonstrates his skills in the complex plotting of this book, the unusual and meticulously researched historical setting, and the beauty and attention he lavishes on individual sentences.  I have to share one of my favorites; an introductory sentence used the first time we meet a character.

“Arie Grote had a grin full of holes and a hat made of shark’s hide.”

This sentence epitomizes the title of my blog “Ideas in Things.”  “No ideas but in things,” is a quote from William Carlos Williams about writing. The way I understand it is the same way Mitchell uses the grin full of holes and the hat made of shark’s hide to show us his character rather than tell us about him.

Brilliant, just brilliant!  Gush, gush, gush.

Writing

I’m a slow cooker

sashikaufman

2 pages of writing a day.  This has always been my goal when I’m in a writing mode.  Sometimes I accomplish a little more, but I try never to write less.  This summer I’m getting writing time in bigger chunks spread farther apart.  So I’m faced with a dilemma; dare I try to adopt a bigger goal?  I would like to have a first draft on my new w.i.p. finished by the end of the summer.  Dare I do the math and see what that would require?

240 pages (approximate estimated length of novel) – 60 pages (already written) = 180

180 (divided by a number I never like to count -days of summer) = About 5 pages a day.

Whoa, that’s two and a half times my current goal!

Ambitious, a little scary for me, but certainly possible.

School, Writing

Voices from the middle

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I’ve been getting some really great feedback on the voice in my new novel; The Freegans.   The voice in this case, is that of a 16 year old boy, so I take it as a really high compliment when someone says that my thirty-four year old female self has really captured that voice.

A lot of writing is about listening and observing and some of my greatest listening and observing comes at work.

Me: So we’re almost done reading this novel and since it’s the end of the year we probably won’t start another one.

Student: So what are going to do?

Me: I thought we might to a short unit on reading poetry.

Student: Who invented poetry anyway?

Other student: (heavy eye roll)  Somebody with absolutely nothing to do and no life whatsoever.

Reading, Writing

The essential hook

sashikaufman

I’ve been hearing this phrase a lot lately.  A book has to have an “essential hook” which I interpret as a reason to keep reading.  What makes this story essential?  What makes it the one you have to keep reading because you have to know what happens.

In the YA book I’m reading right now, Trash by Andy Mulligan, the main characters; boys who live and work in a landfill, find a mysterious parcel that may be worth a lot of money.  So far the book is about their decision to withhold the package from the police and solve the mystery on their own.

This is an essential hook as far as I’m concerned.  Nothing like a mysterious package pulled from the trash to keep me reading.  But a hook doesn’t have to be a physical object.  A hook can be a relationship between two characters, or an internal conflict within one character.  The key is that “essential” part.  It has to be essential to the character and the plot, and it has to feel essential to the reader.   It’s easier to describe and recognize as a reader than it is to accomplish as a writer.

Reading, Writing

The truth about YA fiction?

sashikaufman

Last weekend the NY times book review featured a few children’s reviews, as they do every few weeks or so.  In one of the reviews was the following line:

“As expected inYA fiction, Lina has both a love interest and a special skill.”

I was kind of horrified.  Really?  Can the whole genre be boiled down so simplistically?  As a test, I decided to look at the last five YA fiction books I read.

1. If I Stay by Gayle Forman.  Main character has a love interest (her boyfriend Adam) and is a virtuoso cello player.

2. 8th Grade Superzero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich.  Main character has a love interest and is a comic book artist.

3. Dancing on the Edge by Han Nolan.  Main character DOES NOT HAVE A LOVE INTEREST (but is also a bit younger than typical YA main character) but is a talented dancer.

4. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin.  Main character has a love interest and can understand the speech of animals.

5. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga.  Main character has a love interest and he’s a comic book artist (yet again).

Ok, so that’s a pretty good fit.  But what books don’t have “love interests”?  It’s a pretty big part of life at any age.  As for the special talent thing.  That’s true.  There are an abundance of especially talented and powerful teenagers populating YA.  But I think that’s due to the particular desire of young people to feel singled out and important.  They’re just on the cusp of being adults and being taken seriously in the world.  They’re desperate to be noticed for the “right things”.  It doesn’t surprise me that having a special skill or talent has become a trope of YA fiction.  However, there are many great YA books where the characters are just ordinary kids.

Writing

Winners!

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Congratulations to Sister Mary Edna and Misty Peaks (My two most frequent Blog commenters!)  You know who you are ladies, and you shall be receiving your very own copy of Brain Child magazine, complete with my article, in the mail shortly!

Keep up the good karma friends!  You never know when you’ll reap the rewards.

Reading, Writing

Secret indulgences

sashikaufman

Ok, I know it’s not as exciting as the blog post title makes it out to be.  But I have a secret passion for Oprah Magazine.  Not every issue, some of them are too weight loss and beauty tip focused for me.  But this month’s issue has some fun and accessible articles about poetry and journal-writing.  It’s easy reading, and substantive as well.

One article asks famous people about their favorite poems or words of inspiration.   As someone who keeps a bulletin board next to my desk with different quotes and poems I find inspiring, it’s always interesting to me to see where other people find inspiration.  It’s also a different way to be introduced to new poets -although the assortment of people quoted runs the gamut from Demi Moore to Diane Sawyer to Mike Tyson.  Yikes!

And there’s a whole article on one of my favorite poets Mary Oliver.  So that’s my reading tip for the day.

Enjoy!