Category Archives: Antics

You Do NOT Have To Save the World

Antics, Events, My Reads, Writing, , ,

On VivaScriva.com, a blog about critique and the writing process, I recently blogged about using Publisher’s Marketplace to get a handle on what kinds of manuscripts are and are not selling in today’s YA market.  (Get the nitty gritty details here.)  These patterns are still dominating my thoughts.

Even as the number of titles featuring zombies, dystopias, ghosts, murders, etc have surged, peaked, and ebbed, I’ve notice one thing that doesn’t seem to be changing.  There are a whole lot of main characters who have to, at least according to the log line, SAVE THE FREAKING WORLD.  Think Bruce Willis plus asteroids for the YA set.   Confession: I’ve written log lines like this for my own book.  (Hangs head in shame.  Plans to revise.)

As a fan, I love epic fantasy, but as a reader and writer, I’m captivated by fully-fleshed, step-off-the-page-real characters.  Hence my love for THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green and CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein.  The characters in these books are heroic.  They are heroic because they live richly and die bravely.  They don’t have to save the world.

Real teens live many lives–protected and dangerous, religious and not, lonely and social, quiet and loud, painful and triumphant–but very few of them have to single-handedly deflect an astroid from hitting Earth and thus save all humankind.  They just don’t.

They often have to survive terrible things and books can buoy them up.  (If you weren’t immersed in the loud and raucous #YAsaves conversation last year, this link will get you up to speed.)  They also like to have fun (one of the reasons I often prefer spending time with teens rather than adults).  Fun in real life and fun in reading.

Last night I attended to book launch for POISON, the debut YA novel by the late Bridget Zinn.  The tag line reads “Can she save the kingdom with a piglet?”  That’s right!  WITH A PIGLET!  What follows is about as far from the doom-and-gloom of the recent rush of teens-killing-teens as you can get.  Think THE PRINCESS BRIDE–good, silly fun.

It’s a good reminder in these dark days of YA that we can write stories about characters who don’t have to save the world.  All they–and we–have to do is create authentic lives, whatever that may look like.  And like Bridget, we should try to leave something good behind.

My heros (and genuinely FUN adults): the YA literati of Portland launching Bridget’s book with cupcakes and good cheer

 

I love THE 500 HATS OF BARTHOLOMEW CUBBINS

Antics, My Reads,

I’ve had Dr. Seuss on the brain of late (like the rest of the kidlit and elementary school world, I suppose).  When most people think of the good doctor-ish doctor, they think about his mastery of rhyme and meter and his scrumptastic made-up words.

And yes, yes, yes, I love all that (especially the spooky pale green pants with nobody inside ’em), but it is, perhaps, easy to forget that Master Seuss was also a master storyteller.

So today I offer you THE 500 HATS OF BARTHOLOMEW CUBBINS.  It’s got a perfect story arc, great characters that evoke strong emotions, and lots of beautiful, symbolic pairings (the view up and the view down the valley, for example).

This is one of my favorites by Dr. Seuss and this is the actual tattered cover of the copy I’ve had for nearly forty years.  Pages are starting to fall out and I guess I’ll have to replace it but as the kids and I were reading it last night, I thought:

You can look high and low,
You can look far and near,
But the book that you want,
Is this one right here!

This weekend, my husband and I attended our kids’ school auction, which was a Dr. Seuss themed extravaganza.  Here’s a peek at my whimsical, Seussical attire.  Too bad it’s hard to make out that I chalked my hair pink.  I’m sure Dr. S would’ve approved.

My particular kind of crazy

Antics

I’ve been throwing around the word “crazy” this week.

I lobbed it at the friend who thinks it would be a good idea to speed walk 26 miles in the desert with a loaded pack (aka the race called the Bataan Death March).

I flung it after my kids as they walked to the bus this morning wearing a rainbow afro wig (the son) and oversized, black-rimmed glass with attached plush unibrow (the daughter).

I claimed it myself as I acknowledged that having a flock of 14 chickens producing 8 eggs a day and consuming many pounds of super expensive organic layer pellets may have been excessive and financially imprudent.

(I have many more ludicrous and uniquely Amber oddities that those who know and love me tolerate, but which I leave undiscussed for your own protection.  There are things you can’t un-know!)

And I’ll apply the term to this Magnificent Frigatebird, which evolution has preposterously endowed with an inflatable red pouch that males use in enticing ways for the satisfaction of nearby ladies.

I first saw this bird when I was 24 years old and traveling alone in Costa Rica.  I’d gotten up before dawn to hike from a field station in the jungle to a remote  beach on the Penisula de Nicoya.

Squeaking, chittering, buzzing, and whistling rose with the light.  I shivered, walking underneath a troop of howler monkeys, dark, looming shapes in the morning mist.  I was young and alone in a world of wonders.

The sun was fully up as I stepped onto a crescent of golden sand.  The charging sea stretched before me, and a Magnificent Frigatebird soared overhead, slicing an infinitely fine path through space and time.  It seemed to me, as I stood at the very juncture of earth, sea, and sky, that I was also on the verge of infinite possibilities–the edge of everything.

And thus we return to my particular kind of crazy.  I like to feel things and feel them deeply.  I want to devour everything.  I push limits.  I embrace the edge, and if I need to do it in an rainbow wig with an inflatable sex toy on my chest, so be it.

What’s your crazy?

Play + Movement + Service + Friends = HAPPY (the movie)

Antics, ,

I know I blog a lot about being angsty.  I like to rely on Ralph Keyes assessment that if you’re not a bit angsty and anxious, you’re not much of a writer, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to feel better a lot of the time. Hence, I paid careful attention to HAPPY, the movie.

You should watch this.

NOW!

It summarizes several decades of “positive psychology” aka happiness and yields some serious gold.

About 50% of happiness can be explained by genetics. That means each of us have a set point that has a strong genetic component.  I get that my set point for happiness is lower than that of say my uber-exercising, perennially-positive editor friend (you know who you are).  I can deal with that.

About 10% of happiness (ONLY 10%!!!!!!!!) can be explained by wealth, health, and success.

The other 40% — well, it’s up to us.

And apparently the formula is simple.  Play + Movement + Service + Friends = HAPPY

Who’s with me?

Twitter, we need to talk. You’re making me crazy!

Antics,

Dear Twitter,

I love you AND I hate you.  We’ve been together for a couple of years now.  Together we’ve sent over 5,000 missives, but we’ve got to talk.  It’s not working any more.

  • I love it when I get to have real conversations however short or silly with others.
  • I value the links to articles, blogs, links, and quotes I never would have found on my own.
  • I need the camaraderie of other writers in the trenches through word count sprints, commiseration about writing process, and encouragement.
  • I relish the shared silly and mutual geek outs that we share.

But I hate (or at least dislike) some things too.

  • Listening to famous authors, agents, and editors talk to each other about their cocktail plans is like overhearing to the in crowd talk as if the rest of us weren’t present.
  • Hearing the good news, huge deals, and movie options of people I don’t know is demoralizing when I’m down in the dumps.  (When I’m up, I’m into the cheering, and when it’s someone I know, I’ll celebrate no matter how down I am.)
  • Minutia–need I say more?  Don’t tell me about breakfast or your empty kleenex box.
  • Those ads and blatant book sales pitches you send my way do nothing but irritate.
  • But most of all, I’ve realized that you’re only showing me a small slice of the world–writers and their brethren.

In the beginning, when we were swept away by the heady intoxication of new love, I yearned to immerse myself in your flood.  I followed and was followed.  I spent way to much giddy time in your arms.  But now, Twitter, things have got to change.  I need more of what I like and less of what I dislike.  Here’s the way it’s going to be now.

I’ve revamped my lists and used twitlistmanager to put my people where they belong.  I’ve got private lists for my real life friends and for people I’ve made a real connection with online.  Using Tweetdeck, I can have columns for each of these lists.  Skimming them first gives me the connection I so love about you, Twitter.

So I can keep the information flowing (and share the good stuff), I have public lists for writing resources (publishing houses, literary organizations, and individuals that are good aggregators of information) and book bloggers.   I also have a public list of editors, agents, and the literati (big names).  If I feel like scanning, that’s good, but I avoid if depressed.  Since I’m on the advisory board for SCBWI-Oregon, I have a public list of our members because I like to be able to spread the word about this talented group.

Finally, Twitter, I think we need to branch out, maybe open our relationship a little.  I’m planning to spend more time with other hashtags, ones that have nothing to do with writing.  So if you catch me winking at #archery, #muaythai, and #nordic, don’t get jealous.   Perhaps it can even add a little spice to our life!

With love,

A

 

You don’t have to try so hard

Antics

Recently I had a strange encounter with another writer.  It began with a blush-inducing string of compliments and ended with “That’s why you scare people.”

BLAM!

I’m eleven years old and in sixth grade.  I’m staring in the mirror thinking, “I’m smart.  I’m nice.  And I’m a little bit pretty. So why don’t boys like me?”

Back then, I would have changed to get the boys to like me if I had known how.  But I didn’t know how so I stayed me–shy, awkward around kids my own age, happiest in a book or with adults, and lonely a lot of the time.

I grew up.  I worked hard, striving for competence, excellence.  Maybe I thought that if I were smart enough, successful enough, helpful enough I would be enough.  By thirty, I felt like I was finally becoming the woman I wanted to be.  Then tragedy demolished me and it took nearly ten years to put myself back together again.

Only to be told that I’m scary.

But then this writer said, “You don’t have to try so hard.”

You don’t have to try so hard.

This refrain bounced around my head, snuggling up with a few lines from Mary Oliver that seem to be in my every intake of breath these days:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

It won’t matter if I try harder or make pilgrimage through the desert.  It won’t be enough to make all the boys like me or  to make me un-scary.  And that is a thought full of freedom.

I don’t have to try so hard.

I can love what I love.

And suddenly, I’m singing a song from Rent and feeling light on my feet:

Take me for what I am, what I was meant to be.

 

 

 

Feel the love! Writing kid lit means school visits and that means fun!

Antics, School Visits

 

One of the great joys of writing for children is being a visiting author at schools.  I spent all day last Thursday at Highland Elementary School, and let me tell you, I was feeling the love!

The teachers and librarian had done an amazing job of preparing the kids for my visit.  They knew my books and they knew me.  As soon as I entered the building, the whispers began.

“There she is!”
“That’s Amber Keyser!”
“She’s the author!” 

I did a presentation about wilderness canoeing based on PADDLE MY OWN CANOE for the K-3 classes.  With the 4-5s, I gave my talk on writing comics: TELLING STORIES IN WORDS AND PICTURES.  This was in preparation for Family Write Night.  About 20 kids came back with their families to make 8-page mini comics with me.

I had such a great time.

It is easy to get bogged down as a writer.  We are alone a lot and thus able to fret in isolation about deadlines, how well our books are selling (or not selling), whether we’ll ever write another, bad reviews (good reviews), whether we will ever make a living doing this…  (Feel free to add to this happy list.)

But the great thing about school visits is that to these kids I might as well be J.K. Rowling.  They were so excited to meet a “real” author.  They chanted the refrain of my book as I read.  They gave me hugs.  They wrote me fan mail. They lined up to ask for my autograph.  In other words, they made me feel great.

I know the kids at Highland had a good time when I was there, but they probably don’t know how much being with them meant to me.  Thank you, Highland Elementary Students, for reminding me why writing for children is the best job in the world!

 


Write Fast, Write Slow, Write True

Antics

You know those writers–the ones who finish drafts in six weeks, who revise in a week, who pump out three books a year.  I’m betting that you also know the other ones–writers on the ten year plan.

I am not those writers.  And I am on deadline.  I want to revise faster, but what I want is irrelevant.  I write as fast as I write.  I revise much more slowly.  No amount of goal-setting or chocolate-bribing or self-flagellation gets me moving faster.

Over the years I have become a smarter, more efficient writer and that does speed my output a bit.  But it’s time to face facts.  I write like I hike–steadily, strongly, and at a medium pace.

This picture shows me having fun.   Yes, I’m spending seven days in the wilderness.  Yes, I alternate between carrying that behemoth of a pack and paddling across lakes.  Yes, I’m carrying half my body weight.

I’m always the last one across the portage.  And that’s okay.  Because I get there.  I go strong for a long time.  And–in case you forgot–I carry half my body weight.

Find your pace.  Respect it.  Ignore the fast ones.  Send chocolate to the slow.

Au large!


Sometimes you need to hole up and lick your wounds

Antics, ,

In general, I’m an advocate of the “YES” principle (also known in my world as “JUMP”). I’m a risk-taker. I push myself. I want to try new things, hard things, scary things. I’m not crazy or an adrenaline junkie. Instead, I believe in forward motion and growth rather than stagnation or withering.

Except right now… I’m curling up in my den and licking my wounds.

Over the weekend, my family was a serious car wreck. We were in a series of blind S-curves when a car blasted toward us half-way into our lane. My husband had a split second to try and get us out of the way, and a likely front-end collision turned into more of a side blow, taking out the rear tire and axel. Somehow we all walked away from a car that is likely totaled. It was very scary and for a split second I didn’t know what was going to happen but thankfully, we’re all ok, just a little shaken up. After looking for a towing service, we came across this site, https://findanattorney.net/car-wreck-compensation-lawyers/, which is giving us some insight into the compensation we can get because after all, buying a new car isn’t the most affordable purchase a family can make. Plus, I want to be able to buy a car that’s suitable for our family and that might be a little more than the average car value.

We, humans, have this remarkable capacity to forget. We forget the pain. We forget fear. We forget that every second of every day we balance on a well-honed edge between life and death. Remembering takes me out at the knees, steals my breath, pummels me with the echo of loss.

I know I’ll come up swinging again, but today–and for as many days as it takes–I’m burrowing in and tending to some gashes.