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March 31, 2013March 31, 2013

Dragon Tales

One afternoon, I picked up Alex from school to find him holding a small, stuffed dragon. “Oh, how cute,” I thought, as he approached. Then I got a look at Alex’s face. At once I recognized that the existence of this plushy pal was, at best, a mixed blessing.

So to lighten to mood, I put on my Happy Dad face.

“Well!” I exclaimed with a wide smile. “Who’s this cute little guy?” I pet the dragon’s head.

“Boris,” Alex replied with a level stare. The stare spoke volumes. The stare said, “Wipe that grin off your face, buddy! You think this is funny? You think you’re being funny, Funny Guy? Well, trust me; you, sir, are NOT being funny.”

It turns out that neither Alex nor I like Happy Dad all that much. Happy Dad is a phony. So I put Happy Dad away, hopefully forever.

“Boris is homework, right?” I asked.

It was as if I had lit a fuse.

“Yes!” he exploded. “I gotta take him on an adventure! And then I gotta draw a picture! And then I gotta write a story about it! AND I have to do it by tomorrow! AND I have a math sheet! AND I have to do classwork I didn’t finish!”

I’ll say it right now. My boy gets too much homework. The little guy is only in first grade. When I was in first grade I whiled away entire afternoons drawing faces on my toes and using them to act out elaborate kitchen sink dramas. Alex never has time for such foolishness. All he does is work, work, work.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s make this stupid thing as quick and painless as possible.”

On the car ride home, we kicked around possible Boris adventures.

“How about Boris hunts for buried treasure?” I said. “That could be fun.”

“How about he makes cookies,” said Alex.

“Or maybe Boris can get kidnapped,” I said. “Your essay could be a ransom note!”

“How about he makes cookies,” said Alex.

“Or, or, or, he could be accused of a crime he didn’t commit! Maybe your Bed Entourage thinks he killed Froggy and they put Boris on trial. But Froggy isn’t really dead, she’s just asleep.”

“How about he makes cookies,” said Alex.

Alex made other suggestions, too. Alex suggested that after Boris baked cookies, Alex could eat the cookies. Alex also suggested that there was NO WAY he was going to write more than three sentences.

“Well, if it’s an involved adventure, you might need to make it longer,” I said.

“I only have to do three,” Alex said.

“Yes, sure, but you might want to do more,” I said. “Oh! I have another idea for an adventure! How about Boris…”

And here I had my epiphany. At that moment I realized that I was the one who was preventing this assignment from being “as quick and painless as possible.”

Unlike me, my son is not a fan of writing. Not at all. For Alex, writing is something akin to torture. In my zeal, I forgot that Alex is not me.

Of course he doesn’t wanna do more than three sentences, why would he? And why, with his workload, would I suggest otherwise?

I had apparently replaced Happy Dad with Oblivious Dad. So I put Oblivious Dad away, hopefully forever.

“I like your cookie idea,” I said.

Ellen and Alex (and Boris) baked cookies. Then Alex and I worked on the Boris drawing and crafted three brief-and-to-the-point sentences. It wasn’t easy for Alex, but it was, as I promised, quick and painless.

Unlike me, Alex is passionate about math and science. Making up math problems and messing around with snap circuits is the Alex equivalent of my childhood’s Big Toe Theatre. So, once his homework was finally done, he went off to play with Ellen’s calculator.

Maybe Alex will learn to love writing someday. That would be nice. I sure would love to share that interest with him. But I’ll be fine if Alex takes his math and science interests to the next level, too. All I want to do is support him — and make sure I don’t force my own passions on him.

And who knows? Maybe someday Alex will find a happy medium between math and writing. After he went off to play, I heard him refer to the calculator as “Mr. Calculator.” And Mr. Calculator later began a spirited dialogue with Lamby, one of the leaders of Alex’s Bed Entourage.

Oh, yes, there’s a storyteller in that boy. I can see it. But I won’t force it. It’ll come when it comes.

Boris’s visit caused more than his fair share of trouble that day. Not only did he cause angst for Alex, he also kept me up that night. That rotten, little dragon switched on my storytelling brain.

“What if Boris…” I thought as I settled into bed.

“Or what if…”

On it went until I finally fell into a fitful sleep.

And, the very next morning, the world was forced to deal with Crabby Dad.

March 23, 2013March 23, 2013

The Truth About Being a Writer

Last fall I was invited to visit an area private school to get folks into the spirit of Thanksgiving. It was a full-day affair and my schedule was so packed that I was given a “handler,” someone whose job was to run me from one classroom to the next. My handler was a lovely young librarian named Amanda who had the patience of a saint.

It was a great day, and I’m pleased to report that I was well received. (I have a gift for being goofy around children. Kids like goofy.)

I kept my dog and pony show pretty consistent from one class to the next. First I told the kids about how I woke my parents up on Sundays at 5 am by banging on my dad’s typewriter. Then I talked about my wonderful, influential (if perpetually frowny-faced) sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Snelback. Then I talked about my days as a reporter.

“As a reporter I wrote about everything!” I would announce, oozing with faux smugness. “Everything! Try me! Name anything at all, and I bet I’ve written about it! I’ve written about EVERYTHING!”

I then called on a kid who, without fail, would spout something ludicrous. (“Robot mummies that are really apes!”)

To which I would reply, “Everything except that.”

This gag brought down the house every time.

Then I dialed it back and segued into a little talk about Thanksgiving followed by a reading of my book, Sarah Gives Thanks. This was followed by the Q&A thing, which would continue until Amanda, who was watching the clock with growing alarm, was forced to grab me by the elbow and drag me to the next class.

In the afternoon, as Amanda and I hustled to my final appearance, for which I was already late, I asked, “What grade is this next group?”

I had noticed as the day progressed that the age of my audience was increasing. I started with third graders. Then I was led to fourth graders. I had just finished the fifth. Sixth grade was pushing it age-wise for a picture book author, I thought, but the fifth graders were my best audience of the day so I figured I’d be fine.

“What…grade?” Amanda repeated, panting as she ran.

“Sixth grade?” I asked, also panting.

Amanda shook her head. “Seniors,” she replied.

High school seniors? Hm. Perhaps it was time to rethink my dog and pony show.

But it wasn’t a class, really, more like a half-dozen seniors who weaseled their way out of another class to sit around a table with me in the school’s library.

These were the creative writing students who wrote creatively outside of the classroom. They had dreams of pursuing writing as a career. Because of the group’s size, the chat was relaxed and informal and driven by the questions they asked – which were intelligent, earnest, and plentiful.

At one point in our talk I heard myself say this:

“I want you to know that you can have a career as a writer. You can support a family as a writer. It’s not easy. You might need to write about a lot things you don’t care all that much about. But if you work hard and never give up, you can do it.”

I wasn’t planning for a halftime locker room speech, but there it was.

My statement was greeted with complete silence. I looked around the table and was met with wide eyes. In that moment I got the idea that no one had ever told them those words before.

And that’s a shame because what I said was completely true.

I know it doesn’t always feel true. I’ve earned my living as a writer for the past 15 years, and it doesn’t always feel true to me. Sometimes, when I’m feeling lousy and the words aren’t coming, I wonder how much longer this writing life will last.

I do pull myself out of this funk, thank goodness. Eventually I realize that what’s true is true. It’s true not only for me, but for everyone.

Never forget that, OK? And if you do forget, read this post again. When I forget, I’ll meet you here. I’ll even bring donuts.

But right now I gotta go. I have a job to do. I’m off to write a story about robot mummies that are really apes. No punk kid is gonna to pull that stunt on me twice.

March 17, 2013March 18, 2013

Zombies. Sure, why not?

Yep. I did a "Plants vs. Zombies" stamp for my son. — Yep. I did a “Plants vs. Zombies” stamp for my son.

If one year ago you sat me down in my living room and told me that I would soon be noodling around with a young adult zombie novel, I would’ve told you two things:

“It’s not gonna happen. I don’t like the genre.”
“How did you get into my house?”

But it turns out you would’ve been right! I am noodling around with a young adult zombie novel!

That said, you still had no right to burst into my house unannounced. Call first.

One of the many things I love about the blogging world is how it pushes my brain in new and exciting directions. The bloggers I follow all see the world a bit differently than I. Being in the company of such people always gets my creative juices flowing.

My sudden interest in zombies can be traced to an old flash fiction contest over at Writerlious’s place. The rules, as I remember them, were to write a story in fewer than 150 words that contains the words “zombie” and “serenity.”

So here’s what I came up with:

Carpet slippers are not very good at negotiating asphalt shingles. Not that Ethan had much time to consider his footwear – or much else for that matter – as he scrambled up his downspout in a groggy panic.

What was worse was that he had no one to blame but himself. He heard the warnings that accompanied the weather forecast on the evening news but was too lazy to pull an all-nighter. “I’ll board up my windows first thing in the morning,” he thought. But he overslept, and now his house was full of loitering zombies who were leaving trails of blood and pus all over his hardwood floors.

The weather was beautiful, however. The sun calmed him, and Ethan soon discovered that, despite the dozens of undead squatters on the floors below, he could still find a little serenity on this most unusual spring day.

It was a fun exercise and I found the result promising.

Over the next few months I began to think about Ethan and wonder what his life was like before he found himself stranded on his roof. So, when I wasn’t writing at my day job, or writing picture book manuscripts at night, or doing the husband and father thing (which is rewarding beyond measure, but keeps my word counts alarmingly low), I scribbled a few notes and banged out a few scenes.

So, without further ado, take a peek at a very, very rough except:

The first report took up no more than four column inches of the Dogwood Dispatch and could be found on page A17, wedged between a story about the township’s scuttled plans for a roundabout and the particulars of a newly-approved pooper scooper law.

An unconfirmed report relayed by an unnamed orderly at the Sunnyville Eldercare facility spoke of an unnamed old woman leaping from her deathbed to attack an unnamed night nurse by gumming her forehead. The police were called. The woman was taken away. No one was hurt. And, as far as anyone knew, the old woman was never seen again.

That was all the news Silas Johannes needed to read. Silas was a remarkable man for two reasons: First he was able to read the Dogwood Dispatch all the way to page A17 without falling into a deep, drooly sleep. Second, he was adept at reading between the lines. Where everyone else would’ve read nothing more than an unconfirmed story about a toothless old lady attacking a nurse – if everyone else read up to page A17, that is, which they most certainly never did – Silas saw an origin story, the beginning of what would become a national crisis. There was no time to peruse page A18. There was work to be done.

Even though Silas had been up since 5 AM and was exhausted beyond measure, even though the streetlight had just winked on and he had difficulty driving at night, he didn’t hesitate. He hoisted his ample frame up from his La-Z-Boy and fumbled for his keys. He then eased into the family hearse and headed straight for the Home Depot.

Since you fine folks know what a comments section is for, feel free to critique until the cows come home.