Plot Wall

In my last post I described the date book and notebooks I’ll be using throughout the year to keep my writing and life organized. Are my characters now demanding date books of their own? As I write my YA novel, I am discovering that my characters need something to keep their plans/goals organized. Instead of rushing off to get each of my main characters a stylish date book, I am experimenting with a plot wall.

I’ve summarized each chapter I’ve written so far, scene-by-scene, on index cards. I also use a little sticky note tracking system so that I can easily find things when I need them. Spreading the cards across the wall like this is revealing to me once again that I am a visual learner/thinker. I love to take breaks from writing my novel, turn away from my computer screen and see everything all at once on my plot wall. That shift, from all-in-the-head to all-out-there-on-the–wall, is refreshing and keeps me on track.

How do you keep your plot organized?

Happy New Year!

I think Santa knows just how much I love to be organized in work and in life. He left a few things under the tree that are going to help me stay organized, focused and inspired in 2011.

This set includes 12 individual diary/planner notebooks - one for each month! My January notebook is open on my desk and will be the first thing I look at in my office every morning. I love the full page for each day of the month.

The hard cover case holds the 12 notebooks. Each notebook is numbered and spines can also be identified by month using adhesive labels.

I am going to use the large ruled notebook for my novel scribbles. The smaller soft journals will be filled with poetry.

Can't live without a date book! Mimi helps by holding my page

- and warming up my chair.

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

I can't imagine a Christmas without snow. We are lucky again this year because while the world here is snow-covered, it will not be snowing on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day when we are travelling to see family.


Over the last few weeks, I’ve been re-visiting Snow, Snow: Winter Poems for Children by Jane Yolen. The imaginative poems, along with Jason Stemple’s gorgeous photographs, take the reader into the snow-covered world of the Colorado mountains.

In an introductory note, Jane Yolen begins with the point that “Some people love snow.” She goes on to say that this book is also for “those who might love snow if only it weren’t so cold and wet and sometimes inconvenient.” I think that these poems and photographs are beautiful to read and experience if you live in a place where your winter is never white and where you can only dream of snow during the holiday season. These poems will take you there through the “Mountain Snowstorm” that comes “Without warning,” or the “Skier” who passes “So Fast,/ He is just a blur.” You might be swept away by the “Snowmobile” as “It growls/ Like a polar bear”. For those of you who sometimes get snow and are wishing for snow, I hope that you wake tomorrow morning to discover a scene similar to the one described in the first stanza of “Snow on the Trees.” “Somebody painted/ The trees last night,/ Crept in and colored them/ White on white.”

Poetry Friday Roundup is at A Year of Reading.

Happy Holidays!!

Poetry Friday: Snow Music

Where I live, we get a lot of snow between December and March and although it must be shoveled, brushed off cars and pushed off roads, I can’t help but love it. It’s been snowing almost nonstop throughout this week, making driving a challenge but offering beauty and inspiration at my writing window.

Today I’d like to share my poem “Snow Music” which appeared in the February 2010 issue of Spider.I'm amazed by the way Jing-Jing Tsong's art brought this poem to life. 

Snow Music

What’s the sound
of falling snow?
A sleeping swan
with head tucked low.

Ice cream dripping
down a cone.
A polar bear
that swims alone.

Sugar dusting
angel cakes.
Is that the sound
a snowfall makes?

                                                                                                                                 

                   (click to enlarge) 

Today's Roundup is at The Poem Farm.

Happy Halloween!

We’re hearing a few more creaks around the house tonight. It must be the wind “and nothing more.”

Or could it be that we’ve been reading too many scary poems in the last few days? Particularly haunting are the spooky poems included in the collection, Poetry for Young People: Edgar Allan Poe, published by Sterling in 1995.

Here’s the first stanza from Poe’s “The Raven” – perhaps his most famous poem.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."

You can continue reading this poem at poets.org here: http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15638

If you’re brave enough, you might want to take a stroll through the Poetry Haunted House on the same site.
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21947

My little black cat decided not to visit our neighbourhood Haunted House but opted to go trick-or-treating with friends instead. She called herself a scared-y- cat.

                                                                 Happy Halloween!



Note to Self - Take Breaks

With school back in session, my writing schedule has gone from sporadic to consistent overnight. I’m working longer hours, getting a lot done and feeling inspired by the coming of fall.

One thing I need to watch for is that I pull myself out of ‘chair pose’ (not the one you do in yoga class) and away from the computer screen. I need to take breaks.

I’m guilty of eating my breakfast and lunch at my computer desk and staying put until 3:30p.m. when my daughter walks through the door. So this year, I am going to promise myself to take a few moments during my work day, to stretch, breathe, and walk. I have to remember to look out my office window and give my eyes a break from the computer screen. (Remeber to blink!) I need to drink water. How do I forget my basic needs while I'm working?  I do exercise before my work day begins and I'm fairly active in the evenings. But I need to take breaks during my work day.

I hope that my fellow writers are remembering to take breaks for a stretch or a 10 minute walk. It really makes a difference in the way you feel at the end of the day. It might even improve your writing.

Poetry Friday - Shape Poems

The March 2010 issue of Appleseeds Magazine celebrates "Poets and Poetry." I am thrilled to have my work included in this exciting issue! My shape poems and an article "Get Your Poems into Shape!" begin on page 10.  I think that teachers will find this issue to be a useful resource to accompany Poetry Month celebrations.

Appleseeds March 2010
Poets and Poetry
(c) 2010 Carus Publishing Company.
Used by permission.

Here's a close-up of my poem "Snail Speed" from page 12 but I'm still not sure it will be big enough to read.

Here are the words:

Snail Speed

Fast is fun!

Fast is fine!

But sometimes S-L-O-W is just divine:

sipping icy lemonade

stretching back in willow's shade

searching for the perfect shell

lifting pine cones up to smell

hanging from a maple tree

swimming backwards, floating free

waiting for the fish to bite

holding steady on my kite

watching sunsets from the shore

gazing up at stars galore

hugging by the fireside

dreaming of a turtle ride

Poetry Friday Roundup is at Paper Tigers.