Farm Animals

A little over a week ago, we travelled north for an hour and a half to visit the Georgian Bay area for a few days. Once there, we enjoyed the sun and beaches, the pines and poplars, and a movie outside under the stars.

The hilly drive there and back is something I always look forward to because of the gorgeous farms that we pass on our way. For miles, bright green or yellow fields stretch out toward the horizon as far as our eyes can see.  Roaming freely over those hills, are the stars of this scenic show. Horses gallop within white fences or sip from streams, their manes flowing in the breeze. Cows graze in pastures, or rest in the shade of trees. Pigs lounge closer to red barns set against blue skies.

We never tire of this scene, interrupting each other in conversation to point and say, “Look!” and the teenagers in the backseats exclaiming a combined “Aww!” with more volume than you’d expect. The fact that they were wearing earphones might have had something to do with it but I still enjoyed their enthusiasm.

The farm fun was not over as we pulled into our driveway, arriving back home. We noticed a box half-hidden by our doormat. I broke open the box to find the adorable faces of cows, horses and pigs looking up from book covers at me. The books I wrote for Capstone’s new Farm Animals series are now available!

The books are intended for PreK-Grade 2 readers. Through leveled text, kids will experience ‘a day in the life’ of each farm animal. The photographs are absolutely stunning and feature cows grazing in fields, pigs at play, and horses in action. Kids will learn interesting facts like how soon after birth a calf can stand, why pigs like to roll in mud puddles, and how tall the biggest horses can be. 

You can preview the books at the Capstone website. Once there, simply click on the book cover or title. On a new page, you'll see a preview option directly underneath the book. Hope you trot on over and check them out! 

Walk a Mile

Throughout the process of writing my novel, I stopped in my tracks and tried walking in another direction. At other times, I slipped off my main character’s shoes and walked a mile or two in the shoes of other characters, which helped me think outside of the first person perspective. To achieve all of this, I opened up a new ‘experimental’ document.

This technique worked on two levels. First, when something felt a little ‘off’ in the direction a character decided to take in my original document, I could still move forward knowing in the back of my mind that I could experiment later. Sometimes the ‘off’ feeling was smoothed over once I wrote a little more and realized why my character needed to do/say what he or she did. Having that ‘experimental document’ just sitting on my desktop, waiting to be opened, allowed me to move forward with a possibly iffy decision.

But then if that off feeling only worsened, that’s when I’d turn to the experimental document. Writing in the openness of the new document, allowed my character the freedom to feel out or test other trails, stumble upon new things she hadn’t known about herself.

Having the safety net of the original just sitting there for me to go back to allowed for risk-taking.  I challenged myself to explore other turns or possibilities in the plot or in the choices of a character. Most of the time, my ‘experimental’ scenes and chapters ended up being inserted into the original document, and older scenes deleted.

If I didn’t use the experimental document, I still gained new insights about a minor character, for example, who had become more fleshed out in my mind, having walked in her shoes.

Do you ever wonder what would have happened if your character had made a different choice than the one s/he did? Or if your novel is in first person, do you ever experiment with the perspectives of other characters in separate documents?

WIP Update

Writing my novel has been a process of ‘two steps forward, one step back’ because I was not able to take the advice of some writers and just plunge forward without looking back. I did turn around and ponder. I sometimes second-guessed the motives or choices of my characters. I challenged them to take risks. I tried different approaches to scenes. 

As I wrote and I changed something about a character, or about the plot, I couldn’t help myself from going back and making related changes throughout the novel as I wrote the first draft. I revised as I went along. I took breaks. I set the manuscript aside often to gain perspective. After two years of working this way, I finally finished a first draft of my YA novel.

At first, I was in shock. My reaction? No reaction. Again, I put the manuscript to the side and took a deep breath. I exhaled. And then, a few days later, came a great sense of satisfaction. Not that my novel is anywhere near perfect or ready for submission but this first draft is complete. It is currently 68, 696 words and 242 pages in length.

Now, as I wait for feedback from a few people, I am hoping to develop some emotional distance from the novel so that I can be as open as possible to critiques.

In a week or so, after absorbing feedback, I’ll move on to another round of revisions.

When you finish a first draft of a piece of writing, how do you prepare yourself for the next stage of revision?

Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem - Day 29

It's actually Sunday, April 29th where I am but Blogger's time zone, I just realized, is Pacific Daylight Time so this post will come up as Saturday, April 28th. I am still up at midnight so I decided to post now. 

I’ve had so much fun discovering a new line in the Progressive Poem each day this month! Thanks again, Irene, for organizing this. 

If you are reading this                                                            

you must be hungry

Kick off your silver slippers

Come sit with us a spell

A hanky, here, now dry your tears

And fill your glass with wine

Now, pour. The parchment has secrets

Smells of a Moroccan market spill out.

You have come to the right place, just breathe in.

Honey, mint, cinnamon, sorrow. Now, breathe out

last week’s dreams. Take a wish from the jar.

Inside, deep inside, is the answer…

Unfold it, and let us riddle it together,

…Strains of a waltz. How do frozen fingers play?

How do fennel, ginger, saffron blend in the tagine?

Like broken strangers bound by time, they sisterdance…

their veils of sorrow encircle, embrace.

Feed your heart with waltzes and spices.

Feed your soul with wine and dreams.

Humble dust of coriander scents your feet, coaxing

seascapes, crystal sighs and moonshine from your melody

Beware of dangers along the path of truth

And beware, my friend, of too much bewaring–

strong hands cushion you, sweet scents surround you—now leap

without looking, guided by trust. And when you land

on silver-tipped toes, buoyed by joy– you’ll know

you are amazing, you are love, you are poetry—

here, you rest.

Muse. Up ahead, stepping stones speckle the stream, sturdy now.

Tomorrow we go full circle back to Irene.

Poetry Friday: Found Poetry

I’m a little late getting my Poetry Friday post up but it’s still Friday and I had a lot of fun putting this together.

This week, I played around with some ideas for found poems. From what I understand, a found poem is one created out of words and phrases that are pulled from another work. The words and phrases are then placed together to create something entirely new and unique. 

A poem can be ‘found’ in a speech, a song, a letter, a manual, an advertisement, a newspaper article, or in any written text. 

Here is a found poem I created out of a rejection letter.

April

thank you for

green

we do hope

and continue to search               

thank you again for

green

we do wish

And here is a found poem I created from an acceptance letter.

consulted for his wisdom

look forward

we will run around the world

cut and paste

an ancient language,

tongue twisters,

limericks and haiku

if you find

a convoluted path

don’t worry

make the poems

your own

Here’s a found poem I created out of some album titles.

This Women’s Work                     

After the Gold Rush                         

Ladies of the Canyon                              

Shine a Light

I Can See Clearly Now 

Little Earthquakes

Revival

I’m a Mountain

Diamonds on the Inside

In the order they appear above, the albums are works by Kate Bush, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Nash, Tori Amos, Gillian Welch, Sarah Harmer, Ben Harper.

Here’s a poem I found at the grocery store.

Dad’s

Goldfish

Enjoy Life

Here’s a poem I found at the library.

If you've worked on found poetry, I'd love to hear about it.  

Poem Flow

Happy Poetry Month!

Have you discovered Poem Flow? Last week, while browsing the pages at poets.org, I read all about this app. and downloaded it for free. I’ve enjoyed a poem daily on my iPhone but now have reached the limit with a total of 20 poems stored in my library. Today I was alerted that I could purchase 100 more poems for 99 cents. 

The app. is for the iPhone or iPod Touch but I also noticed that if you go to PoemFlow.com you can “get involved even without an apple device.”

You can find out more about it here.

I enjoy the ‘flow.’ When I click on a poem while my iPhone is turned on its side, the words appear and disappear on my screen in a ‘flow’ of words. Held upright, the phone displays the full poem.

Here are a few screen shots:

From “Haunted” by Naomi Shihab Nye:

From “Ghost Elephants” by Jean Valentine:

Although, I'm going to have a busy month finishing up my novel, working on a nonfiction project, and trying to prepare a picture book for submission, I'm going to try to get a daily dose of poetry. There are so many poetry activities going on throughout the blogging world. You can find a great list of events at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

I am excited to participate in the 2012 KidLit Progressive Poem hosted by Irene Latham. The poem began at Irene’s blog, Live Your Poem and is at The Drift Record today where Julie Larios has added a line. The poem will be here on April 29^th.

I also have a few poetry prompts up my sleeve so please visit throughout the month and participate if you can.

Wordless Wednesday: What my teen daughter has been reading lately