New Year, Day 3

So far I am VERY pleased with my resolution to cram my life filled with fun and joy. Yesterday we celebrated Grandpa's 99th birthday with a lovely party at Dino's, on Colfax in Lakewood, with 23 in attendance: family, friends, neighbors, guests of all ages - and the same wonderful waitress who has served us for every single Grandpa's birthday party for the last decade.

Then we spent this afternoon at a concert at the Mercury Cafe in Denver, a gala event in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts and also the launch party for the CD Gregory recorded with the Jazz Arts Messengers last summer at a CCJA recording camp. At the party, the group performed all original compositions by the group's members, including Gregory's hauntingly beautiful "Abril." In addition, I submitted an abstract for an essay I want to write for an edited collection commemorating the centennial of the publication of The Secret Garden, read a full-length novel manuscript for one of the people I'll be mentoring for the next six months through the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and read one book I need to read for my Rousseau and children's literature paper.

It is so motivating to have the goal of fun and joy! The book I read for the Rousseau project was Ida B by Katherine Hannigan. Ida B can't wait to hurry through her chores so she can tackle her afternoon to-do list: "I had three places I wanted to visit, six things I wanted to make, and two conversations I hoped to have before dinnertime." Her father tells her to "hold her horses," that there is plenty of time to do whatever she is planning. Not so! Ida B makes him look her straight in the eyes as she tells him, "Daddy, there is never enough time for fun."

Well said, Ida B! And happy birthday, Grandpa!

Happy New Year

Oh, how I love the start of a new year! I have my little notebook all organized for 2010. I've set up the pages I'll need for my monthly list of nice things and accomplishments that I eagerly record as they occur; I've set up the pages for the list of the books I read (last year I read 101 books- though most were children's books, so some were very short - but some were very long!). Because I'm using the second half of the notebook I began last year, I can just refer back to the page that has my list of mantras. My three main ones are "If it is to be, it's up to me" and "Be intent on the perfection of the present day" and a reminder of my four pillars of happiness: reading, writing, walking, friends.

And I have my main resolution for the year, which I'm so excited about: Have all the children's book fun and joy possible. Say yes to everything that has to do with children's books. Say no to everything else, or at least minimize it, or best of all, turn it in to children's books (see my post on Two Lives/One Life a couple of days ago). Then I have my subsidiary resolution: Have all the fun and joy possible of ANY kind, fun and joy, period! Don't pass up any chance for fun and joy, however they present themselves.

This strategy is SO going to work! In the past sometimes I've tried to eliminate or minimize negative things from my life, but I've found that the best way to do this is instead to focus on adding more of the positive. Add so much positive that there isn't any room left for the negative, that the negative gets crowded out completely. I used to work on saying no to things I didn't want to do, but now I focus on saying yes to what I DO want to do, because then there simply won't be any time left to do those things I was trying to make myself say no to.

Yes, yes, yes!

Two Lives/One Life

For my entire career, I have had two distinct professional lives: as a children's book author and as a philosophy professor. I started out in graduate school in a doctoral program in philosophy at Princeton. Then I dropped out and went to work in children's book publishing in New York City, as a secretary and editorial assistant at Four Winds Press/Scholastic, where I had my first children's book accepted for publication.

I thought I was done with philosophy forever, but one late December day, on a whim, I drifted over to the APA (American Philosophical Assocation) annual conference, held that year at the Sheraton, and bumped into a dear former college professor, Henry Shue, who was helping to found a little think tank at the University of Maryland called the Center for Philosophy and Public Policy. They were looking to hire an editor and director of publications, Henry told me - someone who had maybe gone to graduate school in philosophy but hadn't finished her dissertation, someone who had maybe worked in publishing in New York for a while. . . . I ended up taking the job and worked at the University of Maryland for a full decade, writing and publishing a children's book a year as I also created and produced a quarterly journal/newsletter and edited a scholarly book series, and finally, finished my long-unfinished Princeton Ph.D. In 1992 I started teaching philosophy at the University of Colorado and I've been there ever since, still writing and publishing a children's book a year.

I have always loved having two lives. Neither life ever gets boring. Each life gives me an excuse for why I'm not more successful in the other one. Sure, I've never won the Newbery Medal, but how many other children's book authors are also tenured professors of philosophy? Sure, I've never written any big important philosophical tome, but how many other philosophy professors have published over 40 children's books? When I go to philosophy gatherings, everyone wants to ask me about my children's books. When I go to children's book gatherings, everyone wants to talk to me about philosophy. I never run out of topics of conversation.

But as the years have gone by, I've become just a tiny bit weary of the strain of maintaining two entire lives. Even one life can seem so daunting! So lately I've been seeking out ways to bring my two lives into greater harmony with each other. Thus, this morning I submitted an abstract for an article for a proposed collection on philosophy and children's literature - what could be more up my alley than this? My piece would be a Nietzschean reading of Marcus Pfister's best-selling picture book The Rainbow Fish, showing how the Rainbow Fish renounces master morality for slave morality and trades his exceptional and distinctive beauty for "the universal green meadow happiness of the herd." And I was just asked to write an essay for a collection on romanticism and the child, showing how certain themes in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau manifest themselves in recent children's literature. I spent yesterday at the library happily digging for texts to use for this project and think I have the perfect ones - more on this later!

So: maybe it's time to move toward one life, not two, a single life enriched by both my love of philosophy and my love of children's literature.

Going Extinct

I read this in the Writer's Almanac this morning:

"It was on this day in 2003 that Marja Sergina, the last known speaker of the Akkala Sami language, died. Akkala Sami was spoken in villages on Russia's Kola Peninsula inhabited by the Sami (sometimes referred to as Laplanders), an ethnic group from Northern Europe who are best known as reindeer herders.
There are more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world, and on average, one goes extinct about every two weeks. Researchers estimate that from 50 to 90 percent of those languages will be extinct in 100 years. "

I am trying to figure out why this is making me so sad. When I was in elementary school, I was so excited when I first read in the Golden Book Encyclopedia (those wonderful, fascinating volumes that my parents brought home once a week from the grocery store) about Esperanto: the universal language. It seemed like such a hopeful dream, that all human beings would one day speak in a single tongue. I remember wanting to study Esperanto when I went off to college. Claudia Mills, Esperanto major!

Now I wonder why I ever thought the loss of linguistic diversity would be a good thing rather than a sad thing. Now I want to sign up to learn, not Esperanto, but Akkala Sami, to bring it back to life again. But of course, I can't do this, and you can't, either. It still wouldn't be a living, breathing language, even if I diligently tried to master its grammar and vocabulary. It's not only the language that has vanished forever, but a whole way of life.

Of course, ways of life disappear all the time. Look how much has changed just in my lifetime, and perhaps in yours as well. Not all ways of life have to endure forever; it's only natural, and to be expected, that we all change how we live because of technology, cultural exchange, the inexorable forces of globalization.

And yet. And yet, today I'm sad for languages that are no more, and for all the words that will never again be spoken in those languages. Words are so precious. The loss of any of them should be mourned by all of us.

The Blue Castle

As one of my Christmas gifts, I received The Blue Castle, by Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables), the only novel she wrote for an adult audience. I spent Christmas evening reading it in one great, grateful gulp.

It's wonderful.

Imagine that you are a 29-year-old spinster - past your prime, unlovely, unloved, living at home with your domineering mother, who controls every minute of your day, the timing of every meal, your posture ("Sit up straight, Doss,"), your every bite ("Doss, you haven't eaten your crusts"), what you are allowed to read (no novels), what you are allowed to feel ("It is not ladylike to have feelings"), even whether or not you sneeze ("'You can always repress a sneeze by pressing your finger on your upper lip,' said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly"). Now imagine that you receive a doctor's diagnosis of your chest pains: you have a very dangerous and fatal form of heart disease, and if you're lucky, you might live a year.

What would you start doing differently?

This is Valancy Stirling's life ("Doss" is a hated nickname); and what Valancy does next makes for riveting and inspiring reading. She comes to believe the truth that "Fear is the original sin" and learns that "It was so easy to defy once you got started. The first step was the only one that really counted."

The plot has some preposterous coincidences, and some readers might find Valancy's complete and utter transformation unbelievable. I believed all of it. I loved every word. Because once you decide to give up fear, once you resolve to defy everything that keeps you from living your life to the fullest, well, then, anything is possible. Everything is possible.

This book makes me want to start NOW.

Always a Star

Back when I was in high school, taking part in our United Methodist youth group, the young assistant pastor informed us that the Christmas story was a fabrication, dreamed up centuries after the actual birth of Jesus, a late accretion to the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus to add a little glitz and glamour to it all.

I don't remember being all that devastated. Because I didn't really believe him. Of course there was a decree that went out from Ceasar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. Of course Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in a manger because there was no room for him at the inn. Of course the angels announced his birth to the shepherds. And of course the wise men followed his star to find him there.

Decades later, I still believe this. My belief doesn't have much to do with the historical record, or what Biblical scholars say, or what theologians argue about.

There was a star. There is a star. There has to be a star. There will always be a star.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a Christmas pageant for our church, a musical called "Starry Night," book and lyrics by me, music by another St. Paul's parent, Suzanne Polacek. This was the closing number:

Look up! Look up, oh tired travelers!
There will always be a star,
As you wander worn and weary,
As you journey near and far.

Hidden now behind the clouds,
Still it glows so clear and bright.
Through the dark and through the storm,
Still it shines its steady light.

Let it lead you ever onward,
Seek as far as you are able,
Let its starlight guide you forward,
Till at last you reach the stable.

Lost no more, but safely home.
You have come so very far.
Look up! Look up! Oh, tired travelers,
There will always be a star.




Merry Christmas, everybody.

Advice from Real Live Kids

Although I have been a member of a critique group for almost my whole writing career, first in Maryland (my "Soup Group") and now, for the past 17 years, here in Boulder, I've never made a a serious effort to solicit critical feedback on my manuscripts from their actual intended audience: kids. I did make a couple of fitful attempts and found the feedback from young readers unhelpful. Either they liked everything willy-nilly, or their criticisms were too trivial ("You said that Gus lives on Maple Street. I think he should live on Pine Street") or not criticisms of THIS manuscript as much as expressions of a wish for a different manuscript altogether ("You show Gus learning to ride a bike without training wheels. But what if instead he got captured by space aliens?").

But I've heard authors who are much more successful than I am say that they depend on pre-publication critique from kids, so I decided to give it one more try. I hired my friend Kate Simpson's two sons, J.P. (sixth grader) and Jack (fourth grader), to read the manuscript of my new chapter book, instructing them to mark places they liked, places that were confusing, places they didn't like, and anything else they thought would be useful for me to know.

I met with my two young editorial consultants yesterday. It was a wonderful afternoon. I loved finding out which parts they thought were "halarious" and which parts they flagged with question marks. Jack thought I had too much underlining of various bits of text: "This shudent be under lined." J.P. was very good at noting places where Mason's behavior was just "weird" or "not what I would do." He also ruthlessly crossed out lines where I was talking over the reader's head, taking more of an adult perspective. He had good suggestions for two other plot twists that would increase dramatic tension and interest toward the end of the book. I'm still trying to decide if I'll take the suggestions or not - but I bet if I do, I'll have a book kids will enjoy reading more. And of course, it was SO gratifying to have Jack write at the end of the book "I love the book" and J.P. write "Amazing loved it very emotional super job." Well, it's going to be more amazing, emotional, and super because of their help.

Thanks, Jack and J.P.!