Picture That! Picture Book of the Week

I never cease to find inspiration inside the pages of a good picture book. I know I missed making a recommendation last week, but I figure everybody was either out buying incredibly cheap and incredibly worthless items from the endless sea of shopping malls or still too stuffed to bother turning on their computers. But it's time to get back to routine and so I'd like to share one of my personal favorites, a little known fable about a boy and his obsession with dogs.

Leonard: A Fable by Wolf Erlbruch

(Orchard 1995)

Leonard is a little boy who absolutely LOVES dogs. He loves them so much that sometimes he pretends he is one. He barks in the morning. He carries a bone around. Sometimes he even bites onto strangers pant legs.

Leonard loves dogs, but he doesn't have a dog because there's a slight problem...he's also very terrified of dogs, especially their teeth. One night, a fairy comes to visit and grants Leonard one wish. Of course, he wishes to become a dog. This doesn't turn out so well for Leonard as he quickly becomes afraid of little boys.

This humorous fable, translated from German, is one of those perfect light-hearted looks at some serious issues. It's a wonderful story for talking about fears and about wanting to be something you are not. It's also one of those picture books whose tone is perfectly matched in the illustrations. With very sparse text, it is great for younger children, but is entertaining enough for slightly older children too.

(Side Note: This book was given to me by a co-worker ten years ago because I always wore turtlenecks and had Leonard's haircut. I've had an attachment to it ever since. The illustration on top of the post partially inspired the 'Dogboy' nickname for Benji, a character in Perfect World and Dirty Liar.)

Cyber Traveling

Over the past couple of weeks, I've done a few guest posts and interviews here and there. Some of them have been quite fun and I thought I'd share the links in case anyone feels like adventuring into unknown blogs this weekend. Enjoy.

My Advice to Alice as She Wanders Wereland: This is piece I did for vvB32 Reads, one of the most creative blogs out there in my opinion which mixes reviews, book information, and online storytelling. One such theme was werewolves and cleverly putting Alice in Wereland. I wrote a little verse in the Cheshire Cat style, giving Alice a warning of her predicament. I also created a piece of art for it, also found in the post.

My Commentary of Zombies: For the fabulous review site Paperback Dolls, they asked me to write a little piece about my take on modern zombies. Here my English Literature degree pays off as I can talk topic with the best of them.

BONUS: Here's their review of Zombie Blondes.

A New Interview Where I Discuss Pure Sunshine and Perfect World: The blog Actin' Up With Books has decided to do a series of interviews with PUSH authors and I'm honored to be the first one. In this interview I discuss my road to publication and some of my experiences from when I was a writer just starting to discover myself as an author.

Monday Morning Glory

The characters in most of my novels are often at odds with society. This is because I've often found myself at odds with what I see as a culture dominated by greed, selfishness, blame, and general inconsideration. I've never understood the American suburban dream of sheltered isolated lives that ignore the problems of the world as long as they have their homes, money, and safe cars. Perfect World was all about that and several months after completing that book, while finishing work on its companion Dirty Liar (also very much about the same themes), I encountered the Manic Street Preachers landmark 1994 album The Holy Bible.

Little people in little houses

Like maggots small blind and worthless

The massacred innocent blood stains us all

Who's responsible - you fucking are.

from Of Walking Abortions

These lines expressed exactly what I was feeling at the time during the who War on Terror hey day. A profound statement full of rage, meaning, and lyrically beautiful. A wonderful piece of writing.

Richey Edwards mysteriously disappeared not too long after this album. If the lyrics on this album, along with the lyrics used for Journal for the Plague Lovers written around the same time, are his final send-off then they stand as some of the best poetry written in the last 30 years.

Monday Morning Glory

This week, I want to share a line that has been stuck with me for fourteen years. For over a year, The Verve's Northern Soul album felt like the soundtrack to my life. The words and music completely captured the way I felt, living in a small apartment on St. Mark's Place in New York City, my body filled with substances and my mind filled with make-believe. There are many, many lines in that album that I could pick out, but there is one in particular that my mind always returns to. It comes from the song "Life's An Ocean" and it goes like this:

-Imagine the future, woke up with a scream

I was buying some feelings from a vending machine-

Richard Ashcroft

What a horrifying, yet believable image even in the mid '90s. It is even more believable today in a world where so many emotions are controlled by prescription. In a more metaphorical sense, we can download applications designed for momentary enjoyment and our serotonin levels are constantly jumping with each new posted comment or text that comes into our world. We are sort of living that future now and forever marching forward.

As with the previous two lines, this one was integral to the development of one of the main characters in my new novel. He views the world through the same lens as one who might write that line. Another bit of trivia, the lines that follow these in the song make up the quote in the beginning of my novel Perfect World.

-There's something inside of me

Crying out for something else

And if someone hears this scream

Put it in a letter to me-

Richard Ashcroft

As I said, this album played a huge part in my life in the years where I was really finding out who I was artistically. If you don't own it, I highly recommend you do. It is still one of ten favorite albums of all time.

So That's Where This Came From

I've been trying to catch up on my graphic novel reading the last few months. Besides being an admirer of drawing, I really appreciate the story telling style of graphic novels in that they are picture books for older people. Two weekends ago, I read Book I and II of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's Joan of Arc series. I have a strange relationship with these books that I thought I would share...I think it gives a sort insight to how a writer's mind functions and why we are such odd people, for the most part.

I first saw these books way back in the early months of 2002 on the shelves of NYPL's Teen Central. I was there to do a reading from Pure Sunshine. We arrived early and I browsed their graphic novel section and was drawn to these books because ever since I was 11 or so, I've been fascinated with Joan of Arc. I immediately ordered these books a few days later, though for whatever reason never got around to reading them until now.

When I first glimpsed the covers, I immediately recalled these drawings I'd made of Joan of Arc when I was 13 or so. Like writing, drawing is something I self-taught and was petrified to share with anyone as a young teenager. But I remember these Joan of Arc pencil drawings being some of the first that I was really proud of. It was an interesting memory and I wondered if I could work it in my writing somehow.

At that time, I was just starting to work on my novel Perfect World. I could easily see how the main character Lacie would be drawn to a figure like Joan of Arc. I not only worked my own memory into her character, but also the rediscovery of it which stemmed from seeing the book in the library.

The librarian keeps looking at me . . pushing her glasses up on her nose and clearing her throat each time I begin to use the eraser . . narrowing her eyes at the crumbs that I brush away onto my lap . . onto the floor of the school library. I call it a library but last year they changed the name of it to Media Center when they put in new computers and more televisions and took away most of the books because no one wanted to read them I guess. I don't mind making a mess in a Media Center . . there is nothing that makes it special like a library.

Some books are still here though. This one is . . the one of Joan of Arc with all the old drawings in it that I like to copy.

I've copied most of them already . . but this one I can't get right. The three dead people hanging in an open filed . . the clouds so beautiful and the fields of wheat so peaceful that the bodies look like angels and that is why I copy them . . that is why I copy all the pictures from the book . . because they're beautiful and she is so beautiful. Sometimes I like to think she was like me . . the way she lived with ghosts and talked to them . . made her different. I know I'm different. But maybe I can be brave and beautiful too.

-That's really cool. You're good.- A strangers voice beside me . . near me so close and sitting down across from me.

I cover up the picture. I fold my hands over the piece of paper and let the pencil drop.

from Perfect World pages 199-200

In many ways, I've always thought the writer's brain has to work on a type of collage circuitry. We piece minor events and feelings together and layer them into a cohesive picture. In addition to the Joan of Arc images, the Media Center bit comes from my own High School, the drawing of the three hanging figures is another drawing I did when I was 15 or so. And the stranger...well that's Chan from the book I'd written previously Tomorrow, Maybe.

So you can see why it becomes imperative to always have a notebook in the pocket. Any tiny memory can be a spark. As for the graphic novels, they weren't as much about Joan as I would have liked and the art was less my style than the cover would indicate, but they were entertaining.

Reading is Wonderful

I had heard my mother and father discussing me one night when they thought that I was asleep. My mother told my father that she didn't think it was normal for me to be happy without friends. -from Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth.

Last fall, I spent $3.00 at the local library book sale and walked away with a treasure stack of children's books, one of them being an early edition of Jennifer, Hecate,...Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg. I'd been aware of this book for years, and was always intrigued not only because of its fine author, but also that a book could be published with such a clumsy, yet endearing sort of title. What I discovered between its covers was a beautifully written story about two lonely ten year old girls who find friendship in the most unusual way.

I don't know that a child reading this would necessarily see the sadness that underlies the narrative. Reading it as an adult though, I couldn't help but feel for the main character who is obviously desperate for a friend (desperate enough to do whatever the girl says, including eating raw hot dogs every day for a week). As one who writes about outsiders quite a bit, I can tell you the trick to creating a lonely character is making them someone the reader would want to befriend. Konigsburg does a fantastic job at this. Elizabeth is easily the one character in the book you'd want to get to know, to the point where you wish you could step into the story and tell her so.

-The rest of that week seemed to have a month's worth of days, but Saturday came. It was a golden day full of smells of autumn. I told my parents that I'd skip going grocery shopping with them. I told them that I had some work to do at the library. No argument. I was usually a nag for them to take to the A&P. I wasn't very popular at the A&P either. Once I had rammed the cart into a big mountain of cracker boxes. Avalanche! I told the manager that I'd pick them all up, and I did. I arranged them very artistically; the aisle was blocked for forty-five minutes. I hadn't been very popular at the A&P since.-

Perhaps what struck me most about this book is that Elizabeth felt like a girl who would grow up to be like one of the characters from my books. She's a budding Lacie (from Perfect World) or Hannah (from Zombie Blondes). A girl who, if anyone took the time to know her, would discover she has a lot to offer. From the vantage of experience, to see her younger and know this is going to happen kind of breaks your heart. Yet, the story is hopeful. She doesn't end up alone. Two like souls find each other.

Also like some of my books, I've seen a ton of reviews from readers decrying this book for being "boring". This really gets me more than anything else. An intimate character portrait is not boring! This is one thing a book can do that no other medium can. If you read solely for plot, I suggest you watch TV, you're time will be better served. Plot is what TV does best. It gives you tons of plot. A book that gives you intimate time with a character is a treasure. This is one of those books.

I laughed. I cried. I loved it.

-"Have you ever thought that most people wear their socks on their feet, not on their hands?"

I shook my head, "Yes."

She said, "Will you repeat after me: socks are for feet: mittens are for hands."

I said, "Socks are for feet; mittens are for hands."

She said, "Say it again."

I said, "Socks are for feet; mittens are for hands."

She said, "Now please tell me, where are your mittens?"

I said, "In my sock drawer."-

Songs of Experience

Cast out of the garden is often the image attached to that of being driven to the world of experience from a state of innocence. I don't see it that way simply because I don't think of the transition as being so sudden. It's more a long path from a sandlot, through the woods, until ultimately you reach a strip mall on a highway somewhere. It's a long path. Most of adolescence is that transition and while it certainly can be a painful transformation, it's not quite the horrifying experience of becoming a werewolf on a full moon, despite the fact hair plays an uncomfortable role in the whole deal.

As I mentioned before, I believe Coming of Age novels are very much about exploring this journey and finding a balance between the two states. I don't believe one ever wants to live solely in Experience. Those who do tend to be the jaded, cynical type of practical people that are entertaining only in their ranting rages. The trick is borrow the best from both while recognizing the shortfalls of each as well.

In some ways, the main characters in all of my novels are steeped in this process. They try to figure out how to hold onto a sense of wonder and interest in a world where horrible things happen. By the end of Perfect World, the main character does find this balance in one small moment:

-I see the sun through my tears . . it sparkles in them and everything twinkles like the first few flakes of a snowstorm and something about that makes me stop running . . something about being able to see something so beautiful in the middle of so much that's painful.-

Perfect World page 275

So ends my examination of Innocence vs. Experience and hence my boring semi-term paper-esque analysis. But for young writers, or any writer of child characters, I think these two opposites are a good way to think about character development and wanted to discuss them for that reason. After all, you have to know your character before you can tell their story.