Voice?

There's a lot of discussion among writers about "voice". But what is it? Editors claim it's probably the most important element of writing. They can help you fix the plot, the wording, the action. But voice? That's one element an author must grapple with all alone.

I've decided that the only voice an author really needs to worry about is that of the characters. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think voice refers to the personality of your characters. In a well-written book, the main character's voice or personality shines clearly through within a few pages of the first chapter. Maybe within a few paragraphs or sentences, even. Take, for instance, the voice of Death in Markus Zusak's novel, The Book Thief (Knopf, 2006).

HERE IS A SMALL FACT. You are going to die. I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's onlys the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

Within a few sentences, Zusak has given Death a distinctive, snarky personality. He's intriguing and you keep reading. Or at least I did.

Writing style, though? That something else again. Cynthia Rylant, for example, has a distinctively simple and beautiful writing style that permeates all her writing, whether it's picture books, novels, autobiography or poetry. It's always there and easily identifiable. J.D. Salinger and William Steig also have a distinctive writing style and each very different from the other.

It seems that an author must establish the voice of the main characters almost immediately but that style is something he or she develops more slowly over years of writing. Style is more subtle. I think it has to be. Highly stylized writing detracts from the voice of the characters. Writing is always such a tricky balancing act.

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Some Good News

I haven't blogged much lately. Too many things cropped up at the same time. After vacation, I had a children's lit. class I had to prepare for. After two class sessions, I can say I'm enjoying it but that it's a lot of work -- a lot of dragging books from one school to the next, of preparing book talks and figuring out some activities we can do with our "students" (fellow teachers). Lucky for me I'm not doing it by myself. I'm teaching the course along with a few of the other library media specialists. After getting up before daybreak and teaching all day, nearly everybody looks a little glassy-eyed but they all say they're enjoying it. Yay!

I do have some good news to post. My youngest son, who graduated from SUNY Oswego in December, just landed a teaching job!! He went for an interview last week, did a demo lesson, and spoke with the superintendent. He'll begin the job in September. This is the son we worried about, the one who never liked school. Being ADD, he had trouble sitting in his seat, getting organized, staying on top of his work. We tried him on ritalin, then another drug to help him focus but he hated all of them. They kept him awake at night, they made him gain weight. He didn't feel like himself. So, finally we took him off the drugs and sometimes he did well in school and other times he struggled. With much arm twisting, he finally agreed to give college a try. He struggled a little in his first year, but after he discovered a field that interested him, he stuck to it and graduated. Along the way, he even found he liked history and writing from time to time.

I signed up for Chautauqua this summer and now wonder if I have any business going. I'm sure everybody will be so far above and beyond me that I'm a little fearful of the whole thing. One part of me longs to go yet another part wants to hide someplace. I have no desire to be in the spotlight. I wonder if they'll have us read our work out loud (cringe). Anybody know?

I know I'm rambling. But it's nearly spring and I'm restless.

Vacation Time

Over President's week, we went to Vermont to ski. We stayed at a picturesque bed and breakfast inn with one tv and virtually no cell phone or internet access. We survived just fine, thank you. Since none of the rooms had television, everybody gathered in the big living room in the evening to play board games -- Scrabble, chess, Boggle, etc. -- or to work on a puzzle, read, chat, enjoy a glass of wine or just lay back and eavesdrop on other conversations.

When our boys were young, we often stayed at the Waitsfield Inn for this very reason. Our kids never forgot it. They enjoyed the skiing but, more than that, they remembered the other personalities they met during their short stay. "Remember the guy who rode his bike every day of the year? The guy who did magic tricks? The chess genius?" Ah yes, how could we ever forget?

We skied Sugarbush Mountain and wonderful Mad River Glenn, a cooperatively owned ski area and home of the country's remaining one man chairlift. Mad River Glenn is a special place run by special people who care about the environment. They do little to next to no grooming and haven't clear-cut the mountain like so many other ski areas. The ski trails are the original ones -- narrow, winding and incredibly hard! I love their names -- Fox, Bunny, Cricket,Birdland, Antelope,Paradise, Waterfall, Grasshopper. As innocuous as they sound, they're all difficult and filled with narrow winding twists and moguls. Just like the old days. A few years ago, I thought I'd try Bunny. It sounded harmless. As it turned out, the trail was difficult -- narrow, winding and full of moguls -- and any other ski area probably would have given it a black diamond.

The day we skiied Sugarbush, the Today Show did a broadcast from the mountain so we caught a peek of Matt Lauer, Al Roker and Meredith. Mostly they talked about how cold it was (-5 degrees at the summit) and how to stay warm.

Thursday, as I'm sure everybody knows, it was Valentine's Day. Everybody wore red and pink to school. It was also my son's 24th birthday. Gotta say, he was the best Valentine's Day present I ever got. No box of chocolates or bunch of roses can ever quite compare to the feeling of holding your first baby in your arms. Never mind that he had colic and cried nearly nonstop for the first three months.

I'd almost forgotten about how tired I was until I ran into David, a special ed teacher I work with. His new little girl, Ava, has been keeping him awake night after night. The other day, his wife asked him why he'd put the ice cream away in the cupboard. I remember turning off the shower because I thought the baby was crying only to hear nothing. I was so exhausted, I was imagining things. My husband, who teaches math, often wrote the wrong problems on the board, walked into walls, etc.. Being a new parent is a joy but not without its trials. Even when they're grown and on their own, somehow you never forget your first experiences as a parent.

February Blahs

It's February third and I've been feeling twitchy. Had a minor foot operation about a month ago that threw me off my running routine. I never realize how much I need to run until I can't. Running is hard, yeah, but like nearly everything that's a challenge, it's satisfying. Running helps me burn off my anxieties, to sleep soundly and keep my weight down. Today I took a brisk walk for the first time in a month and, even though it wasn't running, it felt good to work up something near a sweat.

The way I see it, people weren't made to sit in front of a box and veg out. Most of the teachers I work with watch tv at night for entertainment. I don't get it. In fact, one of the major topics of conversation in the faculty room is American Idol and who's going or not going to get cut. With the writers' strike going into who knows how many weeks now, some of them seem lost without a new show to tune into. Maybe we need a book club but right now, I just don't want to be the person running it.

After work, I write, read, browse the internet and usually try to work in some exercise at the gym or by walking or running through the neighborhood. On the weekends, I also paint. I rarely watch tv. The endless commercials bore me and for me, reality tv is cheap tv. Personally, I find the written word more intriguing than most of the crap and insipid trivia that dominates the airwaves. Unfortunately, a lot of that drivel is migrating over to print. How many stories does the average person need to read about Britney Spears and her nervous breakdown?

I love a good movie but last weekend my husband and I tried to go see Atonement. Unfortunately, it was sold out. Aaargh!

Anyhow, what do you do for relaxation after a day at work? I'd love to hear it.

And oh, yeah, GO GIANTS!

Book Lists

With the exception of one person I know, librarians are essentially book lovers. Most of them aren't drawn to the profession out of a love for computers. Sometimes you see them browsing through Borders or Barnes and Noble, salivating over the book-ladened tables and shelves. Now and then they take out their secret notebook and scribble down the title of something they want to order.

Librarians keep running lists of the books they want to order, the books they long to order if they're given the budget they so need and deserve to build a great collection. Like all the librarians I know, I too have lists. I used to keep my list on index cards in a small file box -- one title per card. These days, I keep a list online with Follett's Title Wave or Bound-to-Stay-Bound's online bookstore. They tell me right away if the book is available, out of print, the current price and what format it's available in.

When I'm ready to order, I simply print out my list, attach a P.O. and send it off. Over the summer, the books arrive and wait patiently in their boxes for somebody to open them, take them out and devour them.

My list keeps getting longer, of course, and I suppose at some point I'm going to have to cut it down. Anyhow, here a just a few of the books I'd love to order:

1. The Anansi stories, by Eric Kimmel
2. More Greek and Roman Myths
3. About 15 books of poetry, namely Good Books, Good Times; Behold the Bold Umprellaphant; Beyond the Museum Door; She's All That; Butterfly Eyes; This Is Just To Say; The Wizard; Bury Me In the Library and more.
4. The Spiderwick Chronicles
5. Many of the Caldecott and Newberys we don't have (The Spider and the Fly, Duffy and the Devil, Martin's Big Words, The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, etc)
6. Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road. A really cool and funny look at the old joke.
7. Peter Sis's The Wall
8. Some Blue Boarder's book, namely: The Pumpkin Queen; Miss Spitfire; A Crooked Kind of Perfect; Cowboy Camp
9. Some great nonfiction, namely: Nic Bishop's Spiders and Nic Bishop's Frogs; Oh Rats; Steve Jenkin's Dogs and Cats and another by him called Living Color; Piven's books What Athletes Are Made Of, What Presidents Are Made Of and My Dog Is As Smelly As Dirty Socks; The Journey That Saved Curious George. And more!
10. This year's Caldecotts and Newberys that I don't have
11. A new set of From-Sea-To-Shining-Sea about the 50 states.
12. A set of books about the continents
13. More biographies. National Geographic has a great set I'd like to order.
14. Some more wonderful picture books. Here the list gets very long. I'd like some of the oldies but goodies, such as the Harry the Dirty Dog books, the Lyle books, etc. as well as lots of new releases: There Is a Bird On Your Head; Baby Bear, Baby Bear;
Dex, the Heart of a Hero; Diary of a Fly; Susan Jeffers version of The Nutcracker; Move Over, Rover; The Snow Queen; If I Had a Dragon; Where the Giant Sleeps; Snow Music; Pictures From Our Vacation; Armadilly Chili, and many many more.
15. Lots of great novels: Hugging the Rock; Shug; the Joey Pigza books, Jerry Spinelli's book, Eggs; The Seven Wonder of Sassafras Springs; Notes From a Liar and Her Dog; Framed by Bruce Cotrell; A Girl Named Disaster; A Dog Called Grk; The Secret Olivia Told Me; Paint the Wind; Edward's Eyes; Moxie Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little; Project Mulberry; Talented Clementine; The Hoboken Chicken Emergency; Jack Plank Tells Tales; some Rick Riordan novels and more.

These are just some of the books I'd order, if I had the funding I need. And deserve. Of course, it's hard to compete with technology which is where a lot of our district's funding goes these days. I guess computers and Smart Boards are the shiny new toys that school districts like to brag about. Then they can say that they're preparing the students for the 21st century. Technology is sexy and good PR.

Anyhow, there's hope. I recently wrote a letter to the administration detailing our library's shortcomings. It was, I guess, a passionate appeal with strong wording. They at least thanked me for telling them and said they'd try to help. So, I'm hoping for better funding next school year.

Wow, this must be my longest post to date. A record. I hope one or two people will read it.

Blogger's Block

We're all familiar with writer's block, but lately I've had blogger's block. How can that be? In an effort to break through the walls and get the old gray matter moving again, here are some random thoughts in no particular order.

My eldest almost has a job. He's doing some volunteer work for our local legislator and in a month or two it will become a full time position, complete with health and dental benefits. Yay!

My youngest son passed his New York State Certification Exams! He also graduated from college and did well on the Suffolk Police exam (gives him another option). Now he needs to find a job, too. January is a tough time of year to go hunting for a teaching position but he might get a leave replacement or do some subbing.

I wrote a letter to the administration detailing my library's many shortcomings and the need for more funding. I received a letter back from MJ, our superintendent of instruction, saying they discussed the library's plight at the budget meeting and will see what they can do to help improve the situation. She even thanked me for bringing it to their attention. It's not a promise but here's hoping. I told them that for the price of a computer and printer, we could have so many more books.

We've had an incredibly warm January. My husband saw a confused looking robin the other day. It's suppose to get pretty damn cold this weekend, though. I hope so. I like to see snowmen in January, not robins.

Bobby Fischer died. He was 64. I remember when he beat Boris Spassky in the early 1970s. How could so much time have gone by? And isn't Boris the quintessential Russian name?

I got a new car (a red Acura TSX) and I love it! I've actually enjoyed getting stuck in traffic on the Southern State the past few days. This is the first car I've had that isn't a mommymobile since I was 23. It may be a midlife crisis car but so what! Not that I feel I'm going through some sort of a crisis.

I want to say I'm sorry to the people I didn't send Christmas cards to this year. I tried getting them all out but just couldn't.

Anyhow, happy Friday everybody.