Sunday, January 29, 2012

On art, literature & collaboration



I recently read Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's YA novel, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List. I picked the book up at SCBWI-LA Writer's Day last spring, where Rachel Cohn spoke about how she and David Levithan tag team wrote this book, as well their earlier novel, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Their process involved writing alternating chapters from the various POVs of their characters.

Now, I'm reading Why We Broke Up, the new YA novel by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), with art by Maira Kalman. I'm captivated by the story, the characters - and the art. A different form of collaboration, obviously, from that of Cohn and Levithan's, but in this case, Kalman's art brings a rich added dimension to the story. I'm a huge fan of Maira Kalman, who has illustrated several books and New Yorker covers, wrote two illustrated blogs for the New York Times, and whose marvelous 2010/2011 exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center I wrote about here.

A few days ago, I sat in on a writing session with two other journalists as we tossed ideas around and argued about word choice and syntax. All of this to say - I'm intrigued by the idea of collaborating on a major writing project, and would love to try it some day.

I'm constantly juggling my passions for art and literature, and try to marry the two by writing about art. Los Angeles is a great place for an art critic to be right now. Pacific Standard Time, the collaborative (there's that term again) retrospective of more than 60 cultural institutions celebrating the evolution of the Los Angeles art scene, began in October, and I've been going to a lot of art exhibits.  Here's a link to my most recent article published in WhiteHot Magazine of Contemporary Art - a review of Lisa Adams' exhibit, Paradise Notwithstanding at CB1 Gallery, and an interview with the artist.

If you've had any experience collaborating on a creative project, I'd love to know about it - negative or positive. Please share.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Books come alive




In case you missed it - in this magical video, books come alive after dark at Type, a Toronto bookstore I'd like to visit someday. What an imaginative way to capture the wonderful worlds we enter through reading.

The video was created by animator Sean Ohlenkamp and his wife. For more, read the Publisher's Weekly Tip sheet interview about the genesis of the film.

(click on the heading, The Joy of Books - on the upper left - to see the video in a larger format on Youtube)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

New Year's Resolutions

Today I resolve to write my New Year's Resolutions for 2012. First I will go back and look at the resolutions I made for 2011. I recall starting off with determination and gusto last year - but somewhere along the way, I went off-track. The challenge is to figure out how to stay resolved, to focus on what works. The exciting thing is that the new Year represents a blank slate, a fresh start - a new opportunity.

In the past, I've sometimes made my resolutions public, but I've read this can be self-defeating. The important thing is to have a personal road map, to set goals for the short and long-term - and perhaps share these goals with like-minded people, who may help motivate, inspire and prod. 

Here's a brilliant dose of inspiration from Steve Jobs, spoken after his cancer diagnosis: 


"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."


Happy New Year everyone! May 2012 be a dazzling journey filled with creativity and delight! 


Did you make New Year's Resolutions? Have they helped you stay focused in the past?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Books for the Holidays

The TBR stack on my overburdened nightstand
I've always loved giving books as presents - but now especially, I'm a fan of supporting booksellers at a time when they're struggling to stay viable.  Lately, I've come across several lists of notable books of 2011 -- helpful guides for my own reading -- as well as gift giving. In case you missed these:

* The New York Times Book Review Holiday Gift Guide: 100 Notable Books of 2011 - which includes fiction, poetry, memoir, biography and other non-fiction.

* The New York Times Book Review Holiday Gift Guide: Notable Children's Books of 2011 - including YA, middle grade and picture book titles.

* A wonderful New York Times Book Review article by Bruce Handy on Picture books about Christmas.

* Another New York Times Book Review article by NYT Children's Book editor Pamela Paul on Snowy Books for Children.

* Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2011 - across genres.

*The Los Angeles Times Holiday Books & Gift Guide which highlights thrillers, fantasy, sci-fi, poetry, children's and YA, graphic novels, quirky, coffee table, non-fiction and audio books.

* The Huffington Post Holiday Gift Ideas: Forget the scented candles - 9 books to get your sister.

* Finally, I love this Los Angeles Times Jacket Copy holiday guide: 14 offbeat gifts for writers.

What books are on your holiday wish list?

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And - if you've been in the loop about all the problems I had with my blog domain the last few weeks - here's the final chapter in the story. After all the back and forth with Google about my custom domain, in the end, Google paid for a substitute name for this site, BeyondWordsandPictures - to make-up for a glitch in my account. 
I'd already renamed my blog and adjusted to the change, when, Google informed me they'd managed to buy back my original url: OnBeyondWordsandPictures.com! Google renewed both custom domains for me gratis for a ten-year period. Since then, for consistency, I've reverted to the original domain name.
Thanks for standing by while I sorted out all the publishing problems with my blog!
Happy holidays to my readers and followers! 

Thursday, December 1, 2011

On Discipline - A guest post by YA author Joanna Philbin

I'm delighted to host a guest piece on the discipline of writing by Joanna Philbin, author of the YA series, The Daughters (Poppy/Little, Brown and Company).


I asked Joanna to write about discipline because I admire her very much. Her debut book, The Daughters, was released May, 2010. The second book in her series, The Daughters Break the Rules, came out November, 2010, the third, The Daughters Take the Stage, in May, 2011, and the fourth, The Daughters Join the Party, was released November 1. That's two books a year! I'm in awe, and I could use a few tips - which Joanna has generously shared.

To celebrate the release of, The Daughters Join the Party, we're having a book giveaway. To enter to win a signed copy - see below. Open to YA fans in the U.S. and Canada! 

On Discipline
Joanna Philbin

As a writer, I get the same question over and over again when people hear what I do: "How do you manage to be so... disciplined?" 

Discipline. To me, the word conjures images of little children holding out their knuckles to be smacked with rulers, or dieters carefully measuring out cereal with a measuring cup.  Not exactly the thrilling, liberating, dizzying feeling I have most days when I'm alone in my house, writing. I am addicted to this feeling. And like any good addict, I'll do whatever I can to feel that way. As Julia Cameron points out in The Artist's Way, there's discipline and there's enthusiasm, and when we talk about doing something creative that makes us happy, more often than not it's enthusiasm - that feeling of "Yes, I love this!" - that gets us to begin.  

But I admit that every once in a while, enthusiasm is a little hard to come by.  Some days I'm tired, or my brain feels completely hollowed out, or I'm possessed by the sudden urge to clean out my closet or mop the kitchen floor.  So, what, you may ask, gets me to my desk on days like this?

I remember my deadline. As a YA writer, I am always on a strict deadline. Frankly, I don't know what I'd do without them. And they remind me of two very important things: I need to meet my deadlines to get paid, and my readers want their books, and they want them NOW. No slacking!

I get out of my pajamas.  Even if I'm working at home, I try to always shower, get dressed, and brush my hair before I start to write. I know this makes me sound a little like Tracy Flick from Election, but if I get ready for work on the outside, it helps me get ready on the inside.

I light a candle and say a little prayer to the creativity gods.  I try to do this most days.  It reminds me that my output for the day is fifty percent me showing up, and fifty percent purely out of my hands.  If I can just show up, that's half the battle.   

If my mind is a blank, I write one sentence. This I got from Anne Lamott's incredible book, Bird by Bird.  Sometimes when we sit down to write the amount of what we want to say is almost overwhelming.  Or we have no idea where to start. Start anywhere, I tell myself.  Just write one line.  And then, just like eating that first potato chip, it can sometimes be hard to stop. Pretty soon the words are coming fast and furious and the characters are telling me what they're saying and then I'm deep inside a scene and boom - it happens. Writing nirvana.  Hours pass by in a blur.  People call and get my voicemail.  On some days, I'll look up and realize that it's late afternoon, and I still haven't had lunch. And this is when I think, discipline? This isn't discipline. This is the best job on earth.

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Thank you, Joanna, for the inspiration, and good luck with your new release! To learn more about Joanna, visit her website and read her blog, where she talks about the new book she's writing. It's called, The Rules of Summer. Can't wait to read it! 
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To enter to win a signed copy of The Daughters Join the Party all you have to do is leave a comment, be a follower of this blog, and live in the U.S. or Canada.

Monday, November 28, 2011

The case of the missing blog - and other tales of horror


And we're back! The last month has been a frustrating wild goose marathon while I've tried to solve the case of my missing blog. On October 30, this blog disappeared like an early Halloween trick. After a glitch last year, when I was unable to renew my custom domain registration, Google apologized and paid for my domain renewal to make amends. But this year, my site vanished without a renewal notice.

While I frantically scrambled around various help centers, and wrote desperate emails to Google imploring them to bring my blog back, someone else appropriated my custom domain: OnBeyondWordsandPictures.com

I was afraid I'd lost two and a half years of research, interviews and writing -  not to mention a loyal following of wonderful readers.

Today, I had a phone call from Ireland. It was a helpful Google Apps representative. The guy from Google Ireland gave me an update on the status of my blog. Apparently, Google Domains tried to buy back my custom domain from the party who absconded with it, but that didn't seem to be working out. To make up for the mistake, Google offered to buy me another domain with a similar name - BeyondWordsandPictures.com (which, of course, loses the reference to the Dr. Seuss classic, On Beyond Zebra). So, I've decided to abandon my custom domain for now, and go back to having a simple blogspot that never has to be renewed. The upshot is, simply: OnBeyondWords.blogspot.com

I'm still hoping maybe Google will be able to recover my old domain, but for now, here we are. I'll need to print new business cards and blast the blogspot address out to everyone.

I hope you'll resume following if you already were - and if not - please follow nowI really appreciate all the kind notes and emails. Thanks for your support everyone!

Finally - coming up Thursday, December 1st: The long promised, one month overdue guest post on writing by the gracious and wonderfully talented YA author Joanna Philbin, whose latest book, The Daughters Join the Party, was released November 1. Please come back then and enter to win your own signed copy!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A frightening poem for Halloween

Even though I was afraid to be frightened as a kid, I loved reading the scary tales of Edgar Allen Poe.  I recently came across this wordle of Poe's poem, The Raven. I'd never heard of a wordle - a device for generating word clouds from text. This wordle seems to capture some of the essence of Poe's poem.

Recently, I woke up in the middle of the night after a disturbing dream. I couldn't get back to sleep for a long time. Thinking about Halloween, I wrote this poem in my head. Before falling back asleep, I got up to write it on paper so I wouldn't forget it in the morning.

Halloween


Halloween
is the time in between
the nightmares of midnight
and twilight dreams.

When shadows don't fall,
but rise from the grave,
and skeletons grin,
beckon and wave.

"Come in for a visit,
stop by for a while,
Find out for yourself
why I must always smile."

But it's dark in that place,
where the cold bites your bones.
What if you can't leave?
You will never go home.

Above the ground,
it's all pumpkins and fun.
But underneath,
there's room for everyone.

Halloween
is the time in between
the horrors of twilight
and midnight screams.

(copyright 2011, Megan Frances aka Margaret Ann Abrahams)

Has Halloween inspired you to write something new? 

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Please check back next week, November 1st, when I'll be featuring a guest post on writing and motivation by YA author Joanna Philbin, along with a giveaway of her latest book, The Daughters Join the Party.