Musing On Norman at 10
My fish baby is 10 years old!
So many fun Goldfish birthday cakes on the internet. Norman wants one!
In celebration of Norman's birthday, I thought it would be fun to flip back through my file of rejections letters & revision notes with editors & my agent—yes! I keep them all.
Was it fun? Fun… maybe, sort of, in a painful, embarrassing, sort of like childbirth way in that I know I wrote it-revised-revised-agonized over it. I can remember pacing the sort of cat-walk upstairs hallway of our then home in Katy, weighing pros and cons of various pets, but I can’t feel how miserable I was.
“I just think this is a fabulous premise for a story, and not just because I’m more than a little partial to goldfish myself. . . . My concerns about the story are still with the plot line and structure. . . ”
Miserable? Yes, writing is miserable work. I feel miserable, frustrated, inadequate when I CAN’T. GET. IT. RIGHT. What’s most incredible is that somehow, this once, with this story, I did. (Even if that critique who shall remain nameless called my text “bald”.)
“Hey Sarah! DO NOT TELL ME THIS IS AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE! ”
What’s weird and sad is that we writers (me, anyway) never know when we’ve gotten it RIGHT. It takes readers to tell us that. And even then, upon rereading, we won’t have a clue how it happened. Many readers tell me the best part of Not Norman is the scary night climax scene. The scene that had Mimi and Brian’s granddaughter Rebecca so worried she practically sucked the rubber off her binky?—again and again and “read it again.” That scene where our boy wakes in the middle of the night to Scritch Screech? I have absolutely no idea where it came from. I can’t recall writing it. And I definitely never knew it was “the best,” all I knew is it worked—and it was done.
“We are looking for someone who can capture the relationship between the narrator and Norman and also be able to express and perhaps even expand on the story’s humor, subtle sarcasm, and poignancy, too. . . We think we’ve found someone who can do all of that. We’d like to suggest an exciting new illustrator named Noah Jones. ”
This is one of Noah's art samples Sarah sent when suggesting he illustrate Not Norman.
After many versions and revisions and years, Not Norman, a Goldfish Story—my Goldfish Story lives! And lots of kids and teachers love it! (Thank you everyone who has ever sent me a note to that effect, and/or a photo of you and yours reading Not Norman.)
And some parents hate me for writing Not Norman because they have to read it over and over and over again every day, every night. (I know because they write and tell me so.)
Another sample: This has the feel of that scary SCRITCH SCREETCH night scene, doesn't it?
So, during this auspicious month, I’m pulling out some snippets of Norman’s journey. For you writers, maybe they will help you as you work through your own stuff. For the rest of you, maybe it will explain the way it works. Interesting? Informative? (You decide.)
For now, before the notes, here are the kudos. Thanks to all of you who’ve bought and read and shared Not Norman, big hugs and glugs!
Enter to win a free copy of Not Norman from @CandlewickClass on Twitter here!
Nuthin’ Doin’
“What are you doing today?” Curtis asked as I drove him to work.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” He asked again last night.
“What do you have going on this week?” He asked as I dropped him off at the airport.
“Nothing.” I replied. “Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I have absolutely not one single thing planned.”
He gave me a surprised look. Curtis never has nothing to do, nothing planned.
Most people don’t. Or rather, DO…all the time.
Even when we aren’t “doing” anything, we are doing something: Listening to music, Texting, Checking email, Facebook, Instagram, Playing Candy/Trivia Crush, Scrabble with Friends, etc. etc. Usually something electronic.
ACG School in Jakarta
When I visit schools, I’ll chat with the kids about my writering life. Inevitably someone will ask:
“Where do your ideas come from?”
I often respond by opening it up to the class and asking them:
“Where can we get ideas?”
Eventually the flood of suggestions peters out . . . Because ideas do that.
Life, the everyday business of living, can be tiring. Trying to live creatively can be even more so. The myriad of How-to, Discovery, Recovery books and articles focused on ways to revive our creative spirits, suggest this tiredness, miasma, block, burnout, lack of creativity . . . . is because we are creatively exhausted. (And perhaps otherwise, too.)
Stock Photo: Stressed man with smoking head More
Whether from lack of use, or because we’ve used up all we had, our creative tanks have run dry and need refilling.
. . . and not a drop to think.
Many, including Julia Cameron’s oft sited 12-Step Recovery guide, The Artist’s Way, recommend taking oneself on weekly Artist’s Dates as a way of “refilling our creative wells.”
Filling our wells—if we follow this sage advice—is easy. The question then is: How do we empty it?
How do we tap into those creative wells so those wonderful ideas can flow?
When working with school kids, at that point where the ideaphoria slows, I’ll ask:
“Does your teacher ever give an assignment and not one single idea pops into your head? Does that ever happen to you?”
A sea of nodding heads is always the answer I get.
At that point I’ll give them my sure fire Well-Draining Idea-Generator:
Empty your head and do nothing.
Try it.
I dare you.
I double dog dare you.
Make a “Do Nothing” Date . . . and Don’t!
Don’t take your phone. Don’t plug in. Don’t bring a friend. Don’t set an agenda.
Before long, the spigot will open Whoosh! and ideas will begin to flow. Could be they already were flowing, but we just couldn't hear to catch them.* Either way, that plenty o’ nuttin’ starts to sound like something.
To borrow from Dr. Suess: Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!
Nuthin’ Doin’ Playlist:
- I’ve Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ from Porgy and Bess
- Nothing from Nothing by Billy Preston
- Is It Love? Or Is It Magic, the Theme Song from Nanny and the Professor
*What's the worst that can happen? You'll have spent an idyll hour or two. (Ever ponder the connection between idyll, idle and ideal?)
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Find a Penny: Pick It Up? Or???
Who knew it was a cultural thing? I'm just back in Port of Spain from some time in Manhattan which might be why I'm noticing things I hadn't before...or had and forgotten. Such as pennies on the ground. I'd never noticed so many pennies on the ground before.
“Find a penny, pick it up. All day long you’ll have good luck”
You don't see many coins on the ground in Manhattan. If you do, they are usually in front of a street person who's stacking them, counting them, or otherwise keeping close watch on them while hoping they'll multiply.
One of "Harts Band" Carnival Costumes
It's pre-Carnival in Trinidad, which means:
Steel Pan Bands are practicing in every pan yard, roadsides and on the Savannah, boisterously & loudly.
Everywhere, every night--parks, stadiums, parishes, neighborhoods--are fetes.
Folks who don't like parties, Soka music blaring from thumping speakers, being "on de road" playing Carnival, are packing up.
And gyms are crowded cause everyone's on a post holiday tone-up in preparation for squeezing into their carnival costumes.
If this were your Carnival Costume, wouldn't you be hitting the gym?
Saturday night, Curtis and I attended the Victoria Garden Fete. Upon hearing "Fete" and "Victoria Garden" together, you might imagine this:
Trinidad's "Victoria Garden" Fete is like this by daylight.
That's our friend Jann in the center. (This is actually a Moka Fete. I couldn't access our Victoria Garden pics. But the scene is much the same.)
After nightfall, once the band's warmed up, it's like this:
Back to the pennies: It was closing in on nightfall when I spotted a crumbled wad of money on the ground near one of the drinks tents. Not pennies, bills. TT dollars are colorful: pink, purple, blue. Unlike US greenbacks, they couldn't be camouflaged by the lawn. The fete, while crowded, was not that crowded... No way could I have been the only person to spot the wad. Yet no one else stooped to pick them up. Why?
Expecting I might be on Candid Camera, that the wad of bills must be attached to an invisible string everyone else knew about, that as soon as I reached for it the wad would be jerked away, but too frugal to ignore found money, I scooped it up. Then looked around, expecting someone to have seen me. Or to be looking around for their lost bankroll. To say something...
I unfolded the bills. They looked real enough. Not play money or coupons. Then quickly, without counting it, I handed it to a gal working in the drinks tent. "Someone dropped this," I explained.
She was clearly taken aback. Thinking she was thinking I was looney for giving away money, I shrugged it off and hurried off to catch up with Curtis and our friends.
Of course, hawk-eye Curtis, had seen the entire exchanged. So, I explained to him and our friends, how I'd found it. The woman we were with looked horrified.
"Oh, NO!" She said. "NEVER pick up money."
Trini superstition, it turns out, has it that lost money carries the bad luck "mojo" of whomever lost it. Thus, by picking money up off the ground, one could also pick up the bad mojo it carried.
“Find a penny pick it up; forever after your day will suck.”
Was it true? Do superstitions cross borders? Or do we carry them with us? Is it you believe your way and I believe mine? Or is it more "When in Rome-ish"?
Getting to the point: Does picking up a found penny--or dollars--bring good luck? Or were the rest of my days going to suck?
In hindsight, if I had it to do over again, I'm still not sure what I would have done. What about you?
What of the fate of the woman working in the drinks tent? By giving her the crumpled wad of cash had I, albeit unwittingly, cursed her with bad luck mojo, too?
My friend laughed. "She didn't pick it up. You did!"
Ahhh so that's how it works. Culture counts.
