Reading, Writing

These are things

sashikaufman

This is going to be a longer post.  WAIT!!!! Don’t click away just yet.  I promise it will also include life-changing wisdom and book recommendations.  At the very least, book recommendations.

The title of my blog; Ideas in Things figures into today’s post.  William Carlos Williams (so much depends on a red wheelbarrow -guy ) said this in a poem he wrote.  A lot of other people have taken it on as an idea about good writing.  What I take it to mean is that the things you write about; the purple plastic hairbrush with the rainbow sticker that your character always has in her purse, should tell you about the character more than any adjective or passage of description.

That said, I’ve just recently read three of Jennifer Egan’s books in reverse order from their publication.  I finished up her debut The Invisible Circus a week or so ago.  I find it fascinating to read an author this way and observe how their plots become more twisting and complex, their characters more multi-layered and original.  This was certainly true for Egan.  I enjoyed The Invisible Circus but found in unsurprising in the same way that sometimes in a predictable movie, I can picture the lines written on the script as the character recites them.  I noticed how often she described people’s faces falling in reaction to the events of the story; her face fell, his face sagged, her face sank imperceptibly, that sort of thing.  The book is good, but nowhere near what she achieves in her later books.   Once I read Egan’s brilliant National Book Award winning  A Visit from the Goon Squad and cosmic surrealist The Keep, I felt, in reading her debut, that I was witnessing the learning process that is inevitable with all art (with anything really).  It’s good to remember that art has a learning curve too and the writers I admire weren’t birthed with this breath-taking ability.

These are ideas (not so much things) I find hopeful and encouraging.

Writing

I love to learn, even if I kick and scream a little along the way

sashikaufman

Big dork alert.  This post is about how I love to learn.  But it’s true and it’s a big part of why I love teaching.  I especially love to learn when things are easy for me (duh).  When things are hard, I sulk and avoid a bit more.  But in the end I’m usually happy I stuck with it.

Things I’ve been avoiding include any kind of New Year’s resolution type post.  I just don’t think I have anything to say on the matter that hasn’t been said better and before by someone else.

However, one goal I do have for this year (goal, not resolution) is to attend a writing conference.  I’ve participated in a number of writing conferences before and found them to be invaluable in one way or another.  A writing conference taught me what point of view really was, and what it meant in my writing.  Writing conferences taught me that you really can learn about your own writing through editing and discussing other people’s writing.   Writing conferences have made me appreciate the sheer delicious indulgence of devoting yourself completely to one subject for a week or a weekend or a day.

Something I’ve been learning lately, is that just because you write one book, it doesn’t make writing the next one any easier.  I was really hoping it would, but it turns out it’s just as hard but in a different way.  So now seems like a good time to do some learnin’.

Registration for the NESCBWI (New England Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrator’s) Spring conference opens in a couple weeks and I intend to sign myself up. (One of my writing idols -the incomparable Sara Zarr will be speaking.  If you haven’t read her books, you should.) Hopefully I’ll learn something, even if it means I kick and scream a little along the way.

Random musings

Popcorn, popcorn, beverage

sashikaufman

When my daughter was a newborn my Mom stayed with us and did a lot of care-taking and cooking. I discovered that years of living without a microwave had not dampened her spirit for using one.  When reheating a meal, I asked her what she had done to achieve that perfect temperature.

“Oh,” she said.  “I just hit popcorn, popcorn, beverage!”

Of course she did.  I’m impressed by people who are undaunted by trying new things.  I find that I’m kind of on the cowardly lion side of things when it comes to new adventures or activities.  I want to be brave.  I really do.  But often my doubts and fears get the best of me.  I admire anyone who approaches a new or unfamiliar activity with optimism.

Popcorn, popcorn, beverage.  Sometimes it’s just that simple.

Reading

Keepers

sashikaufman

Sometimes there comes a point while reading a library book that I realize, “Oh shit, I have to go buy it.”  This usually happens when I read a sentence or passage so unbelievably well written, or so universally truthful, that my hands itch to bend down the corner of the page or underline with the nearest pen.

I have to be selective though, because excessive book-buying, whether new or used, usually elicits a heavy amount of eye-rolling from my loving husband.  Who, truth be told, is the one who’s had to heft those ridiculously heavy boxes of books on each of the five moves I’ve made in the time we’ve been together.

But as the holidays are approaching, and books do make the most wonderful gifts, I thought I’d throw together a short list of some of the Keepers I’ve read this year.

Fiction for Grown Ups

  • State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
  • The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  • A Visit from the Goon  Squad by Jennifer Egan
  • Bossypants by Tina Fey  (Not really fiction, but snort yer milk out the nose funny)
  • The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell

YA Fiction for Grown Ups or not so Grown Ups

  • On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
  • You Don’t Know Me by David Klass
  • Ball Don’t Lie by Matt De La Pena

Please comment if you have a good one to recommend.  I love to add to my list!

School

Experimentation; or What I Talk About When I Talk About Loving Middle School

sashikaufman

(A bit of background info; In Maine we have the one-to-one laptop program.  This means that all middle school students in 7th and 8th grade have a macbook which they use for the school year.  However, I’m pretty sure former Governor King never had this use in mind when he commissioned the program.  Then again he was an educational visionary.)

On Friday I looked up from some papers I was grading to see one of my students leaning in for what looked like some open-mouthed smooching with his laptop.

Me: What are you doing?

Student: (looks up sheepishly) I wanted to see if my braces are magnetic.

Me: Really?!

Student: Uh huh!  They are!  (Leans forward and locks lips with the magnetic border around his screen.)

Needless to say, every kid in my class with braces got leaned in for a smooch of their own.   This is why I love middle school.

Writing

Names have been changed to protect the innocent

sashikaufman

I’ve been fielding a lot of fun questions about Go West since Wednesday’s big announcement.  One of the things people often ask is whether anything that happens in the book actually happened to me.  And while I’ve never been a sixteen year old boy, and I was more of a nerd than an under-achiever in high school (shocked gasp), there are some incidents in the story that are culled from my own life experiences.

Running around town in my underwear covered in body paint?  Check!

Seeing someone mix an enormous bowl of  pasta salad topless?  Check!

Watching people throw rotten food at riders during a bike derby?  Check!

Don’t worry college friends, like I said, names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Uncategorized

I HAVE A BOOK DEAL!!!!!

sashikaufman

Depending on how long you’ve been reading this blog, you may know about my double life as a YA fiction writer.  Three years ago I began working with my amazing agent Lauren Macleod of the Strothman Agency.

THIS WEEK we finalized a deal to sell my YA realistic fiction book entitled Go West to the fabulous Andrew Karre at Carolrhoda Lab.  Carolrhoda Lab is the YA division of Carolrhoda books.   It will mostly likely hit the shelves Fall of 2012 or Spring 2013 -plenty of time to clear your reading list in anticipation 🙂

Here is the official listing on Publisher’s Marketplace!

More info and celebratory postings to follow!

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.

Reading, School

Recommendations from students

sashikaufman

Every so often I end up with kids in my class who geek out on reading as much as I do.  We talk books and swap recommendations.  It’s always interesting to me what YA books kids like and which ones I like.

I’ve posted before about my reticence to recommend books with a lot of sex, drugs or booze in them, even if they’re really good.  But occasionally it happens the other way; where a student recommends a book with a lot of smuttery.  This is always an interesting moment.  Really?  You wanted your teacher to read this?  And discuss it with you?

I just read Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins, which I LOVED.  This was a student recommendation from a few years back.  The student has since moved away, so I’m not worried that he’ll show up and want to discuss the story of the demon who overtakes a high school student’s body with the main objective of experiencing sex and masturbation.  (Full disclosure; the book is about a lot more than that, but those are the smutty parts.)  I guess I’ll take it as a compliment that a 13 year old boy thought I would like this book.  He was right.  It’s smart, and well written and a bit naughty.   And apparently it appeals to middle school students and their teachers.