On Reading Harder Better Smarter Wider Gentler

Many of my friends are competitive readers.

I'm not sure if this is actually a Thing, but let's just say if there was an Olympic sport category for number of books read/time spent reading, these people would be on the team.

A writer/blogger friend recently posted about having read 300 books this year. Another friend is painstakingly reading his way through a Top 100 Book list. (Side note: he quickly realized that there are many Top 100 lists--ranging from the Goodreads Top 100 Books You Must Read Before You Die to the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels and many other lists in between. So, he is doing what any competitive reader would do: he is reading the books on ALL of the lists.)

There was a time in my life when I would've wanted to be on this team. When I was a kid, I read constantly, checking as many books out of the library as was allowed in one checkout. I didn't own many books but the ones I did own, I read and reread. In college I was an English major and loved the idea that reading books was my homework.

Maybe ten years ago, I began keeping a notebook of books I'd read, and when I started this blog, I recorded the yearly lists here and here and here and analyzed the ones that stuck with me.

I dutifully recorded titles on Goodreads (until I learned that being on Goodreads, as a writer, doesn't feel so great) and then I moved my book list over to Booklikes where I have no friends and there's no judgment but there's a lovely bookshelf feature where you can display your titles.

Something I noticed this year is that I didn't read as many books as I usually do. For the first time in my life, I put books down that I didn't connect with (my rule was: give it five chapters and then quit). I quit on a lot and I am happy to say that I felt only small twinges of guilt.  For maybe four or five months when I was writing like a maniac, I barely read at all. A chapter, at most, a night, of the same book, until I nodded off to sleep.

Still, I kept buying books and checking them out of the library. Books sat on my bedside table and piled up in my office. (Side note #2. I did, however, create a lovely Book Tree out of some:

This year-- I just counted-- I read 38 books, the smallest number I've recorded since I began keeping stats.

Ah well. It's not as if it is a competition.

And yet, I do love the idea of challenging myself to read more, to read better. I can't imagine reading 300 books though (I mean, WHAT??? HOW???) And my new-found Put-a-Book-Down-When-I-Don't-Connect-With-It rule would make a Top 100 List quest impossible.

Which brings me to what just may be the perfect challenge for me: the Book Riot blog's 2016 Read Harder. 

Basically, it's a list of 24 categories. (24! Not so many!) And the titles are left up to you, which means lots of choice and wiggle room and the ability to set a book (or many) down if you don't connect. BUT, and here's the challenge part-- there is enough specificity in the categories (Read a food memoir. Read a play. Read a collection of essays.) to make you feel like you're on a competitive reading team.

Anyone want to join me?

On Meeting Your Goals (or NOT meeting your goals)

Soooooo, last month, like a lot of writers --specifically the 325,000 NaNoWriMo writers who signed up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November -- I set a goal for myself, and, um, didn't reach it.

The truth is I didn't even come close.

And it seemed like such a low-bar of a goal: write a half scene per day during the half of the days in November when I wasn't scheduled to do an event. I was confident that I'd be halfway through with my revision by now.

Ah, the me of a month ago was so adorably optimistic.

What I hadn't figured on was that each of my nine events would require preparation and each bit of preparation took exponentially more time that I'd projected. And then Thanksgiving suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, and both of my kids flew home from college, and my husband's family came from out of town to stay with us over the holiday, and I had to clean the house and go grocery shopping and make large meals, and unbeknownst to me, my husband and daughter signed us all up to walk five miles in our town's Turkey Trot Race on Thanksgiving morning, and it all turned out to be very fun and busy and lovely, but who are we kidding here?

There wasn't going to be much writing going on.

I used to beat myself up over "failures" like this. I knew the value of setting strong, specific, measurable goals (this, after spending many years setting ridiculous, vague, immeasurable goals and immediately breaking them) and I became a stickler for following the rules, harder on myself than anyone else could ever be.

If I said I would write X number of words in a particular day, then damn it, I was going to write X number of words if I had to stay up until midnight to do it.

But sometimes even staying up until midnight won't cut it, and anyway, how are you going to baste the turkey and walk five miles and make up the sheets on the kids' beds and take your son out to lunch and sit up late one night and watch a Disney cartoon with your daughter?

Somehow I still managed to write seven decent chapters and I broke through in a few sticky places and reworked the synopsis and discovered and ruminated over and solved, I think, several plot holes, and I am feeling pretty happy overall about my progress.

Soooooo yeah. Whatever. It's cool.

Jello Joy

I don't like jello.

So it might seem weird that I bought a cookbook the other day called The Joys of Jell-O. The recipes are fun. And by "fun," I mean bizarre and creepy, ranging from the expected jello molds plumped with canned fruit chunks:

to the more, let's say, unexpected veggie and seafood molds:

Vegetable Trio (made with spinach, carrots, cabbage
and chives, all firmed up in a tasty
lemon-lime jello. Serves 12.)

If you like the sound of that, you might also want to try the "Ring Around a Tuna." Which, as the name suggests, features a lovely glistening slab of jello circling round a glop of tuna.

The radish roses are a nice touch.
Don't you think?

As absurd and disgusting as these recipes sound, I am fascinated by them. The elaborate designs. The vibrant colors not found in nature. The non-nutritive aspect of the food. Can it be called food? Did any of this taste good or was it all an elaborate prank?

A few weeks ago the New York Times Magazine's cover story was "In Search of Lost Foods."

The article highlights some of the stranger recipes favored by home cooks in 1971. Loaves and molds and towers concocted by using hotdog chunks and canned everything, particularly olives, all encased in my fave, jello. It also attempts to answer the pressing question:

WHAT THE HELL WERE THESE PEOPLE THINKING??

The answer, apparently, has something to do with a postwar obsession with all things convenient and modern and space-age-looking. While the Communists suffered eating beets and boiled potatoes, Americans chowed down happily on Party Sandwich Loaves and Cherry Berries on a Cloud.

I flipped through the article somewhat smugly, thinking that I'd take the boiled potatoes and beets over what appears to be meatloaf in the shape of a fish and frosted in day glo margarine.

The next week I was surprised when the magazine printed comments from readers who were upset about the story. Sample comment: Hey! That food was good!

One of them mocked the recipes of today. Just wait, the person said. The people of tomorrow will be mocking our obsession with kale.

For the record I am obsessed with kale.

I planted way too much in my garden this year and it's pretty much taken over and is still growing, despite the cold weather. So far I have been sauteing my kale, tossing it in salads and tucking it into soups.

Now I am wondering if it's time to tear open a package of lemon-lime jello...

Interview with Nancy Ohlin

I'm so pleased to welcome fellow YA Outside the Lines blogger Nancy Ohlin to On the Verge this month. Nancy's third YA novel Consent was just released last week, but I was lucky to have a sneak peek. The novel--which is about a teen music prodigy and her relationship with her teacher as it crosses the line into something physical-- is riveting and a little horrifying.

Jody: This book, Nancy, I've got to tell you: it pushed my buttons in a way that few books do. I think my reaction is a mixture of remembering vividly what it's like to be a teen--and feeling as if I knew everything about everything--but also, now, being the mom of a teen daughter and knowing keenly that kids this age don't know as much as they believe they do. And here's this guy--the teacher--taking advantage of that! Where did the spark of this story come from?

Nancy: I wanted to write a novel based on a (bad) personal experience.  But over time, the story did a 180 and morphed into a totally different book with totally different characters.

Jody: It's interesting when that happens-- a story taking off like that. Do you find that most of your work starts with something true?

Nancy: Not always. Every day I get sparks of inspiration from the most random things: someone I run into at the grocery store, a car passing by, a song on the radio. I actually have files and files of book ideas that I want to write up in the future.

Jody: Once you have your idea or two, what's your next step?

Nancy: I start with a central idea or a character.  Then I sit down with a notebook and write down a bunch of stuff—it’s a lot of brainstorming and free-associating, like, “she has a scar on her face!” or “he hates pizza!” or  “the Nile River!”  Also drawings and charts and maps and such.

Eventually, these crazy ramblings start to form the beginnings of an outline.  Then I outline.  Once I get into the first draft, though, I tend to wander away from the outline and lose myself in the weeds. This process is very me:  a marriage of chaos and order.

Jody: I like that, and I like that you seem to understand and accept your process. That's been one of the harder things for me, figuring out how I work, knowing when to push and when to let go. It's taken me years. Have you been at this for a long time?

Nancy: I actually started my writing career as a ghostwriter. An editor friend gave me my first big break and hired me to ghostwrite for a children’s mystery series.  That gig led to many others.  It took a while for me to write and publish my own original novels, though.

Jody: How many books have you ghostwritten?

Nancy: Something like eighty books.

Jody: Wow! That's amazing. I guess you would figure out your process after that kind of track record. When you started writing your original novels, was it easy to break in or did you still collect a few rejections along the way?

Nancy: Oh, I got rejections. That time is all one big blur, so I'm not sure how many. The acceptances, I definitely remember, because they involved much screaming and happy-sobbing on my part.

Jody: Switching gears a bit here, but what's your work schedule like? Do you try to write at a certain time each day? Write for a certain number of hours or complete a certain number of words?

Nancy: I like to write in the mornings, either at home or at the library or in a café with some of my writer friends.  I try to stay off the Internet, but that’s not always easy.  If I hit a block—e.g., if I’ve been staring at my computer screen for half an hour—I make myself get up and do something else, like taking a walk or riding the exercise bike and watching old Scandal episodes.

When I’m on deadline (or multiple deadlines), I work anywhere from six to twelve hours a day. When I’m not, my ideal is four to six hours (or better yet, no hours and spending the entire day at a spa—but sadly, this rarely happens).

Jody: You sound like you're pretty busy.

Nancy: My schedule can be nuts. I’m a full-time writer, and I’m usually juggling several projects at the same time, like one or two (or more) original projects and one or two (or more) ghostwriting projects.

Jody: And then there's your day to day family life too, I'm assuming.

Nancy: Yes. I have a seven-year-old daughter. And four cats and a very senior bunny.  And a twenty-year-old son who goes to Juilliard and performs a lot, so if he has a concert or recital, even if it’s across the country, I drop everything to go hear him.  My husband is a law school professor (and an associate dean and an author and a frequent traveler), so running a household together can be a challenge.

Jody: It sounds like it. Any tips for balancing all of that?

Nancy: I’ve learned to let stuff slide.  My number-one priority is my family.  Then my health.  Then my work (although “work” sometimes creeps up to #1 or #2).  If on any given day I manage to write productively for a few hours, go to a yoga class, feed everyone, spend time with my daughter, spend time with my husband, and talk or text with my son, that’s a good day.  But to maintain this balance, I can’t always get to the dishes or the laundry or the house cleaning.  Or a shower. Sometimes, I eat popcorn for lunch because I’m on deadline and too exhausted to cook.

Still, I wouldn’t trade my life for anything.  I know how fortunate I am to have what I have.

Jody: You mentioned before that you try to stay off social media when you're working, but you and I both know that we've got to be ON social media for promotional purposes. What's your take on that?

Nancy: I do what I can.  I’m on Facebook, I have a Twitter, I have a website.  I support my author friends and their books, and I’m very grateful when they do the same for me (thank you, Jody!).

Jody: No problem! That's one very nice thing about social media--meeting other writers in our community. But the self-promotion part has always felt a little icky to me...

Nancy: For me too. My friends often tell me that I’m “too Japanese.” This is a reference to my Japanese mom, who taught me to always be nice and polite and never brag or draw attention to myself.  This makes it super-hard for me to go out there on social media and be all “buy my amazing book!” or “check out this amazing review of my amazing book!”

I focus on the social aspect of social media. Also, I love going to literary festivals and conferences and meeting book people and fellow authors.  And I love meeting readers, both virtually and in real life.

Jody: What are you working on now?

Nancy: Oh, a bunch of stuff!  I have several original YA and MG projects simmering:  a mystery set in Alaska, a dystopian fantasy inspired by Chernobyl and Fukushima and Japanese folk tales, and another, equally dark fantasy about monsters.  I’m starting a new ghostwriting project that I’m really, really excited about.  I recently finished Book 6 of an early grade non-fiction series for Little Bee.

Jody: You sound like you have your hands full.

Nancy: I do. And something else fun: I'm sharing my passion for writing with my daughter. She loves to write and illustrate graphic novels, and I love helping her.  Her recent titles include Creatures are Popping Out! and Battle of the Universes.  She is definitely a future author.

Jody: Aw, that's great. I look forward to checking those books out in the future! Thanks, Nancy, so much, for chatting with me today.

Nancy: Thank you for having me here!

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For more information on Nancy Ohlin:

www.nancyohlin.com
Facebook
Twitter

To buy Consent
on Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Indie Bound

Beyond "Issue" Books: Unpacking Mental Health Issues in MG and YA Fiction

Last week I was honored to be a part of a presentation with several other YA authors at the annual American Association of School Librarians conference in Columbus. Led by the lovely Natalie D. Richards, our group, which included Liz Coley and Kristina McBride, presented statistics on teen mental health and shared what everyone pretty much agreed were the "go to" books when it comes to mental health issues in fiction, but also introduced what we hoped would be a starting point for discussion on books that stretch the usual definition.

If you're the librarian at a school where you know you've got a student struggling with an eating disorder, the book that would likely come to mind is the brilliant and heart wrenching Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. We know how powerful and essential it is for kids to see themselves in books, to know they are not alone, to read about characters struggling and ultimately, triumphing.

A kid being bullied or suffering from depression might find himself or herself in a book like 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher, a modern classic told between the points of view of a girl who's committed suicide and a boy who may or may not have been in a position to help her when she was alive.

We know that books like this--that deal with issues head on, without flinching-- are books we must have in our school libraries, and not only for the kids who are suffering--with eating disorders or depression or thoughts of suicide or a variety of other mental health issues-- but for their classmates and their friends and their siblings to gain a better understanding and empathy.

Mental health disorders are much more common in teens than any of us knew before we started researching for our presentation. According to the National Institute of Health, 46% of 13-18 year olds have suffered from any disorder--these include panic disorders, major depression, PTSD, ADHD, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and autism spectrum disorders.

Books, of course, can help, and we wanted to build a list of books-- what we call "issue" books, as well as books that feature characters dealing with a particular issue, but where the issue isn't the primary focus of the book.

Natalie started the discussion by talking about a child she knows who has ADD. She gave him one of the Joey Pigza books (this is a brilliant and hilarious series by Jack Gantos about a boy who has ADD.) But the child didn't connect.

Instead he devoured Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan, the page-turning fantasy adventure series that features a boy who discovers his father is Poseidon. The main character also happens to have ADD.

Natalie realized that kids want to see themselves in books, but sometimes they also want to look away, escape for a while, or perhaps see a version of themselves being the hero.

The librarians in our audience had great ideas for books to include on our list. For the anorexic student who might not want to read about the issue head on, there's Dumplin by Julie Murphy about a self-proclaimed fat girl who doesn't have to lose weight to win the boy

or The Girl of Fire and Thorns series by Rae Carson, which stars a main character who grapples with a poor body image but ultimately discovers her own external and internal strengths.

The list we created--with much help from librarians-- is something we would like to continue to build. If you've got ideas for titles that deal with mental health issues-- or those that might skirt the edges but have another primary focus, feel free to let us know in the comments, and we'll add your recommendations.


Here's the list--so far.

And here's the write up of our presentation--for a bit more on what we're looking for--from the AASL blog.

Loner in the Garret

Sometimes the very thing you need comes your way the very moment you need it.

I've been in a weird flux-y place lately when it comes to my work, grappling with how to balance promotion and business-related stuff, teaching and mentoring, traveling and speaking--

--with writing and reading and chatting with other writers and playing around with silly-but somehow deadly serious Filling the Well kinds of activities like riding a bike and tearing pages out of magazines and painting bad pictures and playing the piano and doing yoga and walking around the neighborhood with no apparent destination in mind.

Sometimes it's hard to keep your feet on the path--to remember what drew you to writing in the first place and to find, again and again, the resolve to keep going in a business that can often feel less like a community and more like a competition.

We need a book about this.

A few days ago my writer friend Jenn Hubbard reached out to say that she'd just published a book and would I mind sharing it. I said yes before I even knew what it was (I love Jenn's novels, especially Try Not to Breathe, which I devoured a few years ago and found that the story-- a boy recovering from a suicide attempt/a girl seeking to understand why her father committed suicide-- has stayed with me in a way that very few stories do.)

Jenn's new book is not novel. It's a book for writers and when she started telling me about it--what led her to write it and the kinds of topics it covers-- I knew it was just the book I've been searching for.

It's called Loner in the Garret: A Writer's Companion.

Here's Jenn in her own words with more:

Even before my first book came out—during the heady pre-publication days, filled with equal parts anxiety and excitement—I noticed how much it helped me to have a community of writers who were in the same boat. We celebrated good news and commiserated over bad news; we shared tips and compared experiences.

Writing is difficult enough—fighting with the inner critic, searching for fresh ways to say things, shaping a story that will be both interesting and meaningful—even without the pressures of publication. Publication amplifies the fears and joys. The highs get higher, and the lows get lower, when other people’s reactions and expectations are involved.

I found that the most difficult part of being an author was not creating stories, difficult as that was. It was staying emotionally grounded. It was having the self-confidence to keep writing. It was not feeling alone and despairing in the face of adversity.

My writer friends and I spent a lot of time just encouraging one another. You will get that revision done. You will figure out where the story needs to start. That one review will not destroy your career. You will find another agent. Yes, I’ve had that horrible thing happen, too; you’re not the only one.

Yes, you are good enough.

I use inspirational guides in my daily life. Why not have one for writers, I thought? A book full of the kind of pep talks that my writer friends and I share. A book that could provide an encouraging spark at the beginning of a writing session. A book that could remind writers that they’re not alone.

And so Loner in the Garret: A Writer’s Companion was born.

Loner in the Garret: A Writer's Companion, by Jennifer R. Hubbard: Inspiration and encouragement for writers. Covering topics as varied as procrastination, the inner critic, fear, distractions, envy, rejection, joy, and playfulness, it charts the ups and downs of the writing life with honesty, gentle suggestions, and a dash of humor.

To buy on Amazon
To buy at Barnes & Noble
For more on Jennifer R. Hubbard see Jenniferrhubbard.blogspot.com

My Half NaNo/Half Scene/Half Book/Half November Writing Challenge

Tomorrow is November 1st, which for many writers means the official starting date of NaNoWriMo. Midnight tonight, it's an On your mark, Get set, Go, across the world as several hundred thousand writers will attempt to silence their inner critical editor voices and bang out their 50,000-word first drafts.

Fun factoid: last year 325,142 writers, including 80,000 teens and children, signed up to take the challenge.

I'm not sure how many completed it.  Because it's freaking HARD to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days!

Fun factoid # 2: Since 1999 over 250 writers eventually went on to traditionally publish (I assume after much revision) their NaNo novels-- Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus... oh, and my book Thin Space (the first draft of which was crazily dashed off during NaNo, 2008)

NaNo is a fun, wild, relentless, ridiculously difficult and yet freeing ride and I halfway want to do it again this year.

But I'm not.

First, because I have just started revising a novel and, for me, revising is less about word count and more about scene work.

Also, I have a ton of other things to do. (Somehow, and I'm not sure exactly how this happened, I have nine events/presentations/writing workshops/school visits set up for this month, and now I've got to actually, um, prepare for those.)

I love the challenge-y goal aspect of NaNo though, so I have decided to craft my own NaNo-style program.

It's all about halves....

1. Revise half of a scene per
2. half of the days in November that I am not out and about presenting
3. which would get me roughly halfway through my revision

Anyone want to join me?

Pledge in the comments your Half NaNo Style Challenge, (or create whatever the heck other kind of writing goal you'd like to shoot for this month).

We'll meet back on December 1 and see how we've done.