Author Archives: wordyhughes

Not Done Yet…

So this time last year, I was done with grad classes… at least until next summer.

But I’m not done…  I am enrolled in a Fall online course!

I originally planned to do an Independent Study with one of my teachers on Newbery Medal books.  The idea for the course was so well received that they decided to offer it as an entire course instead!

Here is our text list:

2011 Newbery Medal- Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool;
2011 Newbery Honor- One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
2010 Newbery Medal- When You Reach Me  by Rebecca Stead
2010  NewberyHonor- Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
2009 Newbery Medal-The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2009 Newbery Honor- After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
2008 Newbery Medal- Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz
2008Newbery  Honor- Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
2007 Newbery Medal- Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron
2007 Newbery Honor- Rules  by Cynthia Lord

Taking this online course is part of my master plan to devote more time to the things I love (and stop overwhelming myself with teaching duties).  Plus, once I’m done with this course I will have 24 credits towards my Masters.  WOO HOO!!!

Will have more details on the class in upcoming posts!

Time for laundry!  And some pizza!

Things I’ll miss… and things I won’t…

Things I’ll miss:

  • the mountains
  • the library
  • the rocking chairs
  • the writing community
  • my teachers
  • free printing
  • the church
  • the restaurant/bakery across the street
  • the wonderful writers I’ve met/reconnected with
Things I won’t miss:
  • the dorms
  • the shower
  • the assigned reading
  • writing critical papers
  • sitting in class for 9 hours straight
  • hanging out at Panera
  • staying up late to finish work

A Writer’s Internet History…

So I’m writing this story about an angel that saves a boy from being recruited into a local gang.

And I’m writing a scene where I’ve had to do some research:

  • What are gang slang terms?
  • What types of guns are most commonly used by gangs?
  • What drugs are most commonly sold/used by gang members?
  • What types of cars are popular with gang members?
  • What would a “tricked out” car have?  (rims, lights, etc.)
  • History of Bloods and Crips
  • Known East Coast gangs
You get the idea…
Let’s just say I’ll be deleting my internet history after this story is finished!  I don’t want Google to start sending me ads for… uhhh… gang paraphernalia or whatever.  Yikes!
(And I’m not the only writer friend who’s concerned about this.  This was dinnertime conversation the other night.  Weird things we’ve had to look up for stories.  A writer’s internet history can be a scary thing!)

What I’ve Learned about Writing Summer ’11

It amazed me last summer how much I learned about myself as a writer.  Last summer I learned that writing exercises can blossom into full characters and book ideas.  I learned the magic of moving scenes around and the changes it can have on your narrative.  I learned how to read as a writer.  This summer I definitely grew too.

What I’ve learned in Summer ’11 about my writing:

  • I’m a better realistic fiction writer than I thought… or wanted to be.
  • I learned there are two threads in a narrative, emotional and action.  I’m pretty darn good at the action side, but sometimes neglect the emotional thread.
  • I’m pretty darn good at creating a plot skeleton in my first draft.  *pats back*
  • I’m not so good at deciding on a point-of-view and sticking to it.  *shakes head*
  • I’ve had a lot of experiences.  And those experiences are going to come out in my writing subconsciously.  It’s then my job to use them… and disguise them!  Because I’m not writing an autobiography.  I’m a fiction writer.
  • I’m not a wordy or verbose writer.  I’m precise.  And it’s totally okay if I don’t have long, elaborate descriptions.
  • Part of the reason I’m okay with not being wordy: Readers usually can’t remember more than three details when you’re describing something.  (Learned that in class last night.)  And I noticed that I tend to describe things in threes anyways.  So pick three GOOD details instead of describing every last little thing.
  • I can crank words out!!!  Never thought I’d write over 60 pages in such a short amount of time while also doing reading and critical analysis.  I have no more excuses over the school year.  I can make it happen.
I’m sure there’s more that I learned, but those are the biggies.
One thing I want to learn:
Is there a way to figure out your “word count for the day” when you’re revising?  (Like deleting whole paragraphs and writing new ones)  Without stopping to add and subtract constantly?
Would love to know!

Borders Closing and Tips from an Agent

If you haven’t heard, Borders will be liquidating and closing all its stores.  The filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and after no bids (…or bailouts *cough* *cough*) they are going under.

This is TERRIBLE, and let me tell you why:
Borders was the 2nd largest book retailer in the U.S. and has left Barnes and Noble with an overwhelming monopoly.  I’ve never been as big a fan of B&N.  They have more limited seating in coffee areas, and their coffee is more expensive.  (At Borders, I earned free coffees too!) Depending on the store, I have also found they often have a more limited selection of certain genres (Their graphic novel section is pathetic–just one skinny bookshelf).  And now the purchasers of books at B&N will control what titles you see on shelves.  You can’t go to another store to see if there is a different selection of books.
This is going to take a huge hit on the publishing industry.  All of a sudden there are 400 stores not selling books.  There are 400 stores not promoting books.  There are 400 fewer stores to do book events and signings.  This is going to HURT.  I don’t even know what the implications could be in the next few years.
There will be 11,000 people losing their jobs.  This is also 11,000 people whose job it was to read books and recommend books.  We are losing a big chunk of the population who promoted book sales.
And while this could be very good business for Barnes and Noble, it could very well be the beginning of their death as well.  People could become frustrated by the lack of availability of books in stores and turn to eBooks and online more so than ever before.  If people see this as the direction things are going anyway, then why fight it anymore.  Borders closing may be the push people needed in hopping on the eBook bandwagon.
The whole thing frustrates me.  I love my Kindle too, but I don’t want to see brick and mortar bookstores disappear.  I still make an effort to buy books in stores, especially my favorites, or books as gifts, or books for my classroom.
If bookstores are going to survive, they are going to have to take a new approach.  If I were in charge of revamping the bookstore industry, here’s what I would do:
-Hire event planners.
-Hold events and workshops. 
(Some free, some not.  I have a plan of attack ideas there, too.)
-Plan events and workshops that pair well with books.
-Sell those books.
Get people back in the stores by doing things that online or eBooks CAN’T DO.  Socialize, food and drink, hands-on opportunities.

If anyone would like to hire me to plan book related events, I am willing and able.  I could plan book events that would rock the industry’s world.
Speaking of the book industry, literary agent Quinlan Lee came to speak to our grad program on Monday night.  Here’s some of what she shared with us:
What an Agent Does:
  1. Support our clients
  2. Help manage your career
  3. Negotiate your rights
  4. Be your advocate
She spoke about how her job is much like that of a real estate agent.  People are hunting for the perfect house.  Publishers are hunting for the perfect book.  People have spent years building, remodeling, living in, and loving their home.  Writers have spent years writing, revising and loving their manuscript.  A real estate agent knows the housing market and matched buyers up with sellers based on what each is looking for.  A literary agent does the same thing.  They know the publishing industry and match up publishers and writers based on what they are looking for.
An agent also makes sure that you are treated fairly by publishers and plays bad cop when necessary.  You want your publisher/editor to love you.  So let the agent do the fighting dirty work for you so that a publisher still wants to buy your books and work with you in the future.
She advised to have confidence because editors need you.  They need people to write great stories.
Her tip for a dream manuscript is the 5 page rule.  You have to make the reader want to know what is going to happen next in the first five pages.  Hooking them in the first page is even better.
What they are looking for in a manuscript:
  • it’s timeless
  • award winner potential
  • timely
  • action driven
  • suspenseful
  • high concept
  • fun
  • page turning
  • thought provoking
  • fresh theme
She also said all the publishers are asking for “Boy Middle Grade.”  Funny, action-packed, pre-teen books.  (Like Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson, Capt. Underpants)
Overall, I thought she was very encouraging and realistic.
Time to get writing!

Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2

Spoiler Alert!
Seriously don’t read if you haven’t seen the movie or don’t want to know what happens, etc.

I used to be quite fanatical when it came to Harry Potter.  Like obsessive.  My brothers will attest to it (and they don’t even know all of it).

I’ve since calmed down.  Become more normal.  Grown up.  I can now go whole weeks without thinking about HP or connecting something in daily life to HP.  I’ve diversified my interests.

But I still deeply love Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling.  The only thing that may surpass my love for HP someday is giving birth to my own children.  You may think I’m exaggerating and being melodramatic, but I’m really not.

So it was really, really hard for me to not go to the last midnight premiere.  And it didn’t help hearing people talk about it in class all day Thursday.  But I waited until Saturday when my mom and brother came to visit.  Me and my brother, who I will refer to as Pacman, have been through many midnight releases together.  We have lots of fond memories of eating jelly beans and talking to costumed people.  My mom went to midnight parties to get the books for us when either we were too young to stay up so late or when I had to work the next day.  They’ve both been through this HP craze with me, and I’m really glad we waited to see it together.

They brought costumes, and we dressed up…  No one else was dressed up when we went to the theater… Because the movie had no been out for 2 days and all the crazies had already gone.  But we looked cool.

I’m glad I waited to see the movie with them.  It was more meaningful and I loved experiencing it together.  We had so much fun dissecting the movie afterward and talking about our favorite parts.

My favorite part of the whole movie was any scene with Maggie Smith/McGonagall.  I didn’t expect to love her parts so much, but she really stole the movie for me.

The Gringotts scenes were EXCELLENT.  So impressed with that part of the movie.  The preparation of the castle for battle was awesome as well.

The parts that were a bit of a let down for me were:

  • Molly Weasley’s BIG line
  • Neville’s killing of the snake
  • the battle post-Harry’s death
Why these parts weren’t so great:
There was no lead up to Mrs. Weasley’s line.  I didn’t even know Bellatrix and Ginny were battling.  They barely even show Ginny’s face.  Without that build-up of Ginny being targeted by Bellatrix, the line didn’t pack quite the same punch.  Though Mrs. Weasley is still AWESOME.
I thought Neville killed the snake in front of EVERYONE.  Harry was faking dead, and Neville was standing up to Voldemort.  Harry disappears under the invisibility cloak, Neville kills the snake with the sword of Gryffindor, Voldemort freaks out, but invisible Harry starts shooting out protective spells to protect everyone from Voldemort’s fury.  The movie didn’t do it that way.  Harry was visible and distracted Voldemort.  Neville didn’t have a big crowd when he killed the snake.  I really wanted Neville to have his five minutes of fame in the movie.  And I really liked the idea of an invisible Harry protecting everyone in the book.  So that whole last bit of battle (after Harry died) was too cut up and different from how I pictured it.
But man did I bawl like a baby when Harry was going to surrender himself to Voldemort and die!  The movie was definitely emotional for me.
So now, I’m going to try to lose my memory of the Harry Potter books, so that maybe in 5 years, I can read them again and experience them almost like it was the first time….
Though Pottermore is coming out this fall…  Maybe I won’t be able to forget them…

Everything is coming together!

I feel much better since my last post.  All my assignments for class are coming together.

Goose Girl Adaptation aka Dead Horse Talking is now revised and ready for it’s final critique!  I had to work on fleshing out the relationship in the story and providing more closure at the end.  Summary of story: A childhood friendship is on its last leg as two teen girls grow apart, and a betrayal by one girl will be the last straw.

If you’re interested in reading, Dead Horse Talking, shoot me an e-mail at hughesblog.gmail.com

My second short story (after driving me a little crazy) is now ready to be revised.  I had a major brainstorming session and now know where I want to go with it.

For my YA Science Fiction class, I now finally have a paper topic.  I’m going to examine the female archetypal pattern of maiden to mother to crone in the character of Miranda in the YA post-apocalyptic novel, Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

For my Forms and Boundaries class, I’m going to do a short presentation on how graphic novels engage reluctant readers.  I will be using the texts Maus by Art Spiegelman and Malice by Chris Wooding.  I’ll do a whole blog post on my presentation info sometime next week!

And I’m seeing Harry Potter DH Pt2 tomorrow with my Mom and Brother.  Who are coming to visit!  Because they are awesome!  Woo hoo!

The Subconscious Mind

I had a little bit of a breakdown today because I realized a lot more of me is making it into my stories than I intended.  And I don’t like it.

I was critiqued last night in my Fantasy class about a story I’d written from the point-of-view of an angel.  The story was about a teenage angel who goes on her first mission to Earth to help someone.  All she is given is a gigantic manual as her guide to helping people.  She goes down to Earth, is overwhelmed, but accepts a mission to help a mother who is concerned about her son.  The boy is being approached by a gang that wants to recruit him.  The angel ends up helping him by reversing a terrible choice he makes, thus giving him a second chance.

So after my critique, and having all these questions thrown at my under-developed story, my brain was buzzing.  This morning I was thinking about a big question that my teacher had asked me.  “Why did you turn Heaven into a bureaucracy?  It’s interesting and funny, but you need to think about why you did it.” (I’m paraphrasing her here.)  She also asked what it was saying about Heaven (and God) that they are sending their angels out unprepared with nothing more than a book.

So after looking up the definition of a bureaucracy.  And thinking.  I had a terrible epiphany.

This story was a big giant metaphor for my feelings about teaching.  And I hated it.

I am the angel, getting thrown into the world of trying to help people, with little more than a “manual.”  And I get put into situations that I don’t know the answers to, but my actions are life-changing to the people I’m trying to help.  And ultimately, I’m giving kids chances or opportunities that will help them escape evil in the world.

Yes the angel in my story was unprepared and lost at how to perform a miracle.
But at least she had magic words.

I feel unprepared for the miracles I’m expected to perform in my classroom.
And I don’t have any clue where to look up some magic words.

I came to Hollins to read and write, and pursue MY DREAMS.  I got very angry and upset to see teaching working it’s way into my writing subconsciously.  The subcontext of my story was not something I wanted to tackle in my writing, but it appeared anyways.

I’m leaving this story alone for a few days.  I need a break from it.  Especially now that I realize how personal it is, it’s going to be draining to revise/finish.

In the meantime, I’ll work on my teen girl story.  (Which also turned out to be much more personal than I intended, but at least it’s not about teaching!)

This summer is going by entirely too fast.

The Character Game

In my writing fantasy class, author Ellen Kushner came in for a visit and talked about characterization.  She shared with us a fun and amazing little game which she dubbed “The Character Game.”

The Character Game is a way to get inside a character’s head particularly if you’re starting a novel or feel like your characters are flat and not fleshed out enough.

Very simple.  Only two people required to play, though you can have many more.

Author-Player decides on a character and will then have to answer all questions as if they are that character.

Question-Player then proceeds to bombard Author-Player with questions.  These questions CANNOT be plot questions.  Think more like “first date” getting-to-know-you type questions.

“What’s your favorite color?”
“What do you eat for breakfast?”
“What’s your least favorite smell?”
“What’s your favorite holiday?”

Those types of questions.

Rough game time is 20-30 minutes, and by the end of that time, most authors have an epiphany type moment where their character is suddenly a fully actualized real person.

Trust me, it works!

And it’s fun!

Anyone want to play?

Inside Scoop on the Newbery Medal

On Wednesday, we had a visit from Laura Amos, a current committee member for the Newbery award.  While she couldn’t divulge anything about upcoming contenders for the 2012 award, she did give us insider information on what it’s like to serve on the Newbery selection committee.
She first went over the history of the Newbery.  Which you can read here.  The founder of the Newbery, Frederic G. Melcher, was ahead of his time when he demanded that the selection of the winner be kept a total secret until the official announcement.  The secrecy has been great for publicity and creates excitement and speculation each year.
The measures to maintain secrecy were pretty fun to hear about.  The committee is made of 15 members who meet 4 times in person throughout the year.  The room that they meet in is never used and kept locked other than the 4 times they meet.  I couldn’t help but picture a Mission Impossible style sneak in to plant a hidden microphone so you could hear their discussion and the winner.  Hehe!
You have to be either nominated or appointed to the Newbery committee and they have a new rule that you can only serve once every 4 years.  This was done to encourage more panel variety and to bring in fresh faces.
The committee reads books throughout the year (Amos said she’s gotten boxes of 30 books sent to her house from publishers!) and on the 1st of every month they can send “recommendations” to other committee members.  Once a recommendation is made, all 15 members have to read the book.  The final day for recommendations is December 31 of that year.  When they meet to discuss and vote on the winner, it starts on a Friday morning and they must have a winner and press release prepared by 6:15am Sunday morning.  It is often difficult to get 15 people to agree, and they often have to vote, discuss, vote again, discuss, vote again, discuss, etc.
The runners-up were given the official title of Newbery Honor books in 1971.  And it is not required to name any Honor books each year.  It is up to the committee.
Cool bit of Trivia:
In 1953, the Newbery Medal Winner was Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark.  The runner up was Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.  It’s rumored that someone on the committee didn’t like E.B. White and didn’t want him to win.
It was a really interesting lecture, and I’m probably leaving a ton out.  But if you have any questions, ask me!  I might have heard the answer!

For Writers:

I highly recommend following the SCBWI blog.  Every Friday, Alice Pope posts interesting news articles related to publishing and children’s lit.  I always find them fascinating and feel more up to date in the biz because of it.

A sampling of articles from this week:

Why You Should Own Your Domain Name (GalleyCat)
Having an online presence is critical for writers to market their work. In a recent blog post, author John Scalzi urged writers to purchase their own domain name online.
Tablet, E-reader Owners Also Print Junkies (MediaPost)
People who are heavy print magazine and newspaper readers might seem like the last ones to embrace gadgets like tablets and e-readers. But new research from Gfk MRI shows tablet owners are 66% more likely than the average U.S. adult to be big print magazine consumers and 54% more likely to be heavy print newspaper readers. Similarly, e-reader owners are 23% more likely to be print magazine enthusiasts and 63% more likely to get newsprint on their hands.  
Cherish the Book Publishers—You’ll Miss Them When They’re Gone (WSJ)
The Klondikers of digital publishing are rushing to stake their claims, inspired by tales of the gold to be found in the Kindle hills. A few pioneering prospectors have indeed struck it rich with light entertainments, most famously Amanda Hocking, who is a sort of Tolkien for our times (if Tolkien had been an avid fan of “Star Wars” instead of an eminent scholar of “Beowulf”). Her self-published e-books racked up so many sales over the past year that St. Martin’s Press recently signed her for some $2 million.