For Parents

Hitting a novel home run in 2023 by making a difference

By on January 3, 2023   /   Articles, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

By Faran Fagen

Like you, I’ve got a full lineup of goals for 2023. The new year offers a time to look at what’s most important.

My most pressing concrete goals are a home run revision that grabs the reader (my writing world), and to meet my financial goals (personal world).

But my general goal is to make a difference on all fronts. If I tackle each goal with the idea of making a difference, thinking of others, good things tend to happen.

In that spirit, here’s my top 10 list of writing goals for 2023:

  1. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page.
  2. Give the reader just enough detail so they’re dying to know what comes next.
  3. Choose a setting that adds to suspense and advances the story.
  4. Immerse myself in the main character so the reader feels like they’re experiencing the story through their five senses (think “Avatar”)
  5. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page.
  6. Each scene has urgency for the characters to reach their goals (or not).
  7. Conflict. Every scene filled with conflict. Conflict between characters. Inner conflict. Think all the “Rocky” movies.
  8. Transformation. How do the characters change? What do they learn? How do we journey through their transformation?
  9. In revision, know what to take out and what to leave in. I know this one’s easier said than done. A mentor once told me to defend each word like a lawyer defends each client.
  10. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page. Keep the reader turning the page.

In the end, it’s about writing a book that makes a difference. Didn’t I say that somewhere?

Here’s some goals from some of the children’s book writers/agents who’ve had a huge influence on me:

Author/illustrator Fred Koehler:

  1. WORD COUNT:I’m keeping it simple without any sort of overall word count resolution–just a single manuscript to revise, however many words it takes. For 2023 it’s a middle grade treasure mystery where editors LOVED the first half but thought the ending was too over-the-top. Keep what they loved. Slash and burn the rest.
  2. REJECTION:Rejection is a great measurement of how close you are to success. (Here’s my thesis on Rejection.) My resolution for 2023 is 50 rejections. Between a graphic novel already out on sub and several picture manuscripts at various stages, I should be able to achieve that no problem.
  3. COMMUNITY:Through my work with fellow writers at Ready Chapter 1, various critique groups, and other awesome communities like this one, my resolution is to help create the ‘aha’ moment or make the connection for ONE writer to land their first book deal. This will be more meaningful to me than anything I achieve for myself.

Aurora Dominguez, award-winning teacher and aspiring YA novelist:

  1. Finish the draft of my first YA novel
  2. Write for fun more, not just for freelance journalism purposes! *more for fun
  3. Take the time to write meaningful and purposeful, as well as uplifting messages, to loved ones and colleagues.

Jonathan Rosen, agent, The Seymour Agency:

  1. Make time to write. Period.
  2. Stretch outside my comfort zone to write in new genres
  3. Write what I like and let it find an audience

Author Marjetta Geerling:

  1. Finish writing book 1 of a new series.
  2. Remember writing is fun!
  3. Stop stressing about social media.

Joyce Sweeney, agent, The Seymour Agency:

  1. Do not keep scheduling meetings on writing day!
    2. Remember that every client is an individual and needs individual strategy, attention and care
    3. Always be kind, especially to beginning authors who query.

Hope you reach your goals for 2023!!

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Creative Braining

By on December 26, 2022   /   Articles, books, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS!

As much as I’d love it to be a post about zombies; this is not a post about zombies. 

It’s about creating.

Although it’s not about creating brain-eating reanimated beings shambling endlessly in search of the living, I hope to shed some light on how we creators shamble endlessly in search of creating something unique and satisfying. And it all starts in our heads. In our brains to be exact. 

My mother was known to use the phrase, “You put crap in. You get crap out” when addressing her five, often rock-headed teenage sons. My lone sister, a voracious reader of all things, never seemed to receive this nugget of wisdom from mom. It appears the boys were singled out because of the music, horror movies, comedians with “poor language choices”, etc. that we consumed. Nevertheless, “Crap in. Crap out.” has stuck with me. (Thanks, Mom!)

I recently bought Scientific American’s Secrets of the Mind from their awesome catalog of eBooks. These books from Scientific American are compilations of their articles about a particular topic which I highly recommend. Secrets of the Mind has not disappointed me so far. In fact, it hits the ground running with the Introduction, “Mind from Matter” by Andrea Gawrylewski, and breaks into a sprint from the very first article, “How Matter Becomes Mind” by Max Bertolero and Danielle S. Bassett.  

Bertolero and Bassett’s article is about the network architecture currently being defined and refined in their and others’ recent brain cognition research. I was fascinated, to say the least. We’ve possessed accurate maps of the human brain for quite some time with the brain regions defined by their functions, i.e. vision, motor, emotions, etc. However, these accurate and defined maps of the brain do very little to explain how the brain really works. 

The next wave of research is examining just how these regions fit into the network of the brain to allow us to be walking, talking, thinking, and creating humans. And you know what? It turns out Mom was right again! Crap in certainly leads to crap out in the brain.  

An experiment by US radio engineer Archie Frederick Collins in 1902 tried to use a human brain as a radio wave detector. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The nitty-gritty of a brain network:

The brain network, like most networks, consists of basic building blocks named nodes and edges. Nodes are the units of the network, which, in the brain’s case, are the individual neurons. Edges are the connections between the nodes. The brain’s edges are how neurons are intertwined with the other neurons. 

The brain has modularity, it has a localized network where the nodes show stronger connections to each other. Such modules have specific functions. Sensory and motor cognitive processes involve adjoining modules that are mainly confined to a specific lobe of the brain. The brain needs to put together or process information from multiple, confined modules to make sense of cognitive tasks.

Imagine reading a book without being able to incorporate the emotional modules. The reader experience would be greatly diminished. Since our brain can’t let that happen (You have to take that emotional hit in Bridge to Terabithia to experience the total impact of the story, right?) it’s evolved hubs.

Hubs are nodes where the brain’s different modules meet. They control and mesh activity from multiple modules. Some of these key hub modules, like the frontoparietal control module and the default mode module, make important global connections between brain lobes. 

Secrets of the Mind

As we can see, a network in our brain is built upon a structural framework of nodes, edges, modules, and hubs. A rigid, standard architecture, right? Yes and no. If the parts and processes are similar in all of our brains, why don’t we all think, act, and react similarly? Why aren’t we all like a shambling species of zombies thinking and responding the same to the same series of inputs?

It’s because we all have slight variations in the way the circuits in our brains are wired. New methods of mapping and analyzing brain activity show we all have distinct “fingerprints” inside our heads. Plus, if a brain network has strong hubs with many connections among modules, its modules are segregated from one another allowing for more efficient storage and processing. 

Stronger functional connections show a stronger functional capacity. 

This specific organization allows the brain to function as an integrated network of thoughts, feelings, quirks, flaws, and mental strengths. It allows us to establish our unique identity and maintain it. Our brain network makes us who we are today and tomorrow.

In Austin Kleon’s classic, Steal Like an Artist, he says,

“A wonderful flaw about human beings is that were incapable of making perfect copies. Our failure to copy our heroes is where we discover where our own thing lives. That is how we evolve.

So: Copy your heroes. Examine where you fall short. What’s in there that makes you different? That’s what you should amplify and transform into your own work.

In the end, merely imitating your heroes is not flattering them. Transforming their work into something of your own is how you flatter them. Adding something to the worlds that only you can add.”

It all fits in. It all makes sense in the grand scheme of how our creative brains work.

Science shows it.

Artists show it.

Mom knew it all along.

We are the sum of all we take in. Our wonderful and unique brains take all the data we feed them and then process it into something only each of us can produce. When we allow ourselves the courage to create from what’s between our ears, we create something brand new and unique. The more we stock our brains with quality input data, the more we have in the creative well to draw from.

Austin Kleon gives the advice, “Write the book you want to read.”

How do you do this? By using your unique fingerprint of nodes, edges, modules, and hubs to do the work of turning the things you input into outputs only you can create.

Creative braining wins!

Read. Write. Repeat.

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Ukraine for Middle-Grade Readers

By on November 18, 2022   /   Book Lists, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers  

Before Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many people elsewhere knew only a little about the country. Recent nonfiction and fiction books on Ukraine for Middle-Grade readers can help them understand what Ukrainians are fighting so fiercely to defend.

Most of these books appeared in 2022, and many of their publishers will contribute sales profits to Ukrainian relief.

NONFICTION:

Ukraine is known for  the beautiful golden-domed architecture of its cities and the richness of its culture and language. It is also called “The Breadbasket of Europe” because other countries in Europe and the world depend on its abundant harvests of grain for food.

Blue Skies and Golden Fields: Celebrating Ukraine, by Ukrainian children’s author Oksana Lushchevska (Capstone Press, 2022), covers Ukraine’s  history of withstanding invasion and domination by other countries, including Russia.  Lusgchevska also aims to immerse young readers in the Ukrainian culture. There is one whole section on sunflowers, the national flower and symbol of Ukraine. She includes instructions on how to plant your own sunflower and a Ukrainian poem to recite while you water it! Ukrainian Easter eggs are world-famous, and she tells how to dye eggs with natural dyes. She’s even included a guide to learning the Ukrainian alphabet and some key phases. Bright photographs illustrate Blue Skies and Golden Fields.

More list-like  is The Great Book of Ukraine: Interesting Stories, Ukranian History & Random Facts About Ukraine, by Anatolly Drahan (Independently published, 2022). Learn here not only about Ukraine’s past, but about pop culture, folklore, food, music, religion, celebrities & symbols, and why Ukranians celebrate two different New Years.

Ukrainian is  one of the most lyrical languages in the world. Enjoy learning some of it from Ukrainian Picture Dictionary Coloring Book: Over 1500 Ukrainian Words and Phrases for Creative and Visual Learners of All Ages (Lingo Mastery 2022).

FICTION:

These four Middle-grade novels take place in other times of great conflict and invasion in Ukraine’s past. The situations the young characters must face are grim and terrifying. But these are stories of resilience, courage, and hope, the qualities most needed in war-torn Ukraine today.

The Memory Keeper of Kyiv, by Erin Litteken (Boldwood Books, 2022), takes place in the 1930s, a time known as The Holodor, The Great Starvation. Russia’s Soviet ruler, Joseph Stalin, occupied Ukraine and tried to erase its culture. The Soviets claimed all grain produced in that fertile country and starved  4 million Ukrainians to death. In The Memory Keeper of Kyiv, 16-year old Katy at first sees village neighbors disappear for resisting the Soviets. Soon she herself is engaged in the struggle for survival. Author Litteken is the granddaughter a Ukrainian refugee from World War II.

Winterkill, by Canadian/Ukrainian author Marsha Forchuck Skrypuch (Scholastic, 2022), also  takes place in the time of the Great Starvation. In this gripping story, young Nyl is struggling to stay alive. Alice, whose father has come from Canada to work for the Soviets, sees that what is happening to the people is terribly wrong. Nyl and Alice come up with a daring plan. Will they survive long enough to carry it out?

In April of 1986, the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, not far from Kyiv, melted down, poisoning the environment. In Helen Bates’ graphic novel, The Lost Child of Chernobyl (Otter Barry Books, 2021) two stubborn old ladies refuse to evacuate. Nine years later, forest wolves bring a ragged child to their door. The child has been living with the wolves in the forbidden toxic zone. Will the two be able to find his family after all this time?

In the suspenseful novel, The War Below, by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch (Scholastic, 2020),  a Ukrainian boy smuggles himself out of a Nazi forced labor camp during World War II. He has to leave behind his dear friend Lida, but vows to find her again someday. IF he survives. Racing through the countryside, he struggles to evade both the Nazis and Soviet agents and finds himself in the line of fire.

MORE BOOKS ON UKRAINE FOR MIDDLE-GREAD READERS ARE COMING SOON: A NOVEL AND A WORDLESS BEAUTY

Maya and Her Friends: A Story About Tolerance and Acceptance To Support the Children of Ukraine (Studio Press, 2023) takes place in 2017. In that year, Russia conquered Crimea and annexed it from Ukraine. They also temporarily occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk. This is the story of families with children in Crimea, all with different family backgrounds. It shows how living under occupation and the shadow of war has impacted their lives. Ukrainian author Larysa Debysenk wrote this novel in Kyiv, with the roar of Russian gunfire in the background. She says, “I want to shout that the children of my country need international protection. The world needs to understand this.”

Yellow Butterfly: A story from Ukraine  will come out from Red Comet Press in January, 2023. Without words, and using the yellow and blue symbolic colors of Ukraine, children’s book illustrator Oleksandr Shatokhin shows a young girl’s view of the military conflict: her fear, her anger and frustration, and finally her hope.

Let’s hope, too, that by the time these last two books appear, the fighting in Ukraine may be over and rebuilding can begin!  Slava Ukrajini! 

 

 

 

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