Blog, Blog, Blog...

What makes a good story?

I have to really think about that one, now.

That sounds like kind of a stupid question for a writer - don't we ALWAYS wonder that? But you see: I'm not one of those writers who sits around, agonizing over craft. Well, actually, I've had my moments of agony, of course, and I can sit around with the best agonizers, agonizing away...

And sure - agony of that sort can be fun. In its own, agonistic way. But it isn't very productive. And I really like to be productive. Anyone who's ever bothered to count the pages of Inkless Tales (there's nobody out there who really has the time for that kind of thing, is there?) or who's ever bothered to Google how many blogs I keep, or who's ever snuck downstairs to my office and seen the prodigious amount of prolific work I produce knows that the one thing I do is PRODUCE.

See: to me, writing is, well, surely, a craft. But to get better at any craft, you have to actually DO it, as opposed to agonizing over it.

But now, I really DO have to do some agonizing, instead of writing and then looking at it and saying: Hmmm? Is this any good?

Because it turns out the Inkless Tales Podcast for Kids is now getting some serious traffic. Moreover, some classrooms are starting to use the stories - and analyze them, to evaluate whether or not they're any good.

Yikes!

So: that actually gets me excited. I'm being graded!

I hope I pass.

I love it when someone raises the bar.

It's Time to Start Thinking Poetry.

Of course, for me, it's always time to be thinking about poetry... but I'm getting ready for American National Poetry Month and I'm mulling over launching a contest on Inkless Tales, my web site for kids, at www.inklesstales.com.

I want to encourage classes to read as much as they can during the month of April -- and I'm trying to figure out what kind of prize would be a good incentive.

I'd like to offer a free workshop, a free concert... hmmm.

What to do, what to do....

Gigs in General

I LOVE Gigs. Playing and singing for kids is the absolute best. I've been performing since I was 12 years old, and I'm used to the typical scene: you break out the guitar, sing your heart out, and people can basically ignore you while they talk, eat, or go about their business -- maybe drop a dollar in your guitar box, no matter how good you sound.

But children? They are interested in everything you do. Because they are so grateful that you care enough about them to come sing for them.

So it makes you try harder to find songs for them that will teach them something, like the one I found for this gig: Follow the Drinking Gourd.

Follow the Drinking Gourd is the last remaining "coded song" sung by slaves seeking freedom via the Underground Railroad.

Although seemingly simple, and to unknowing plantation owners, mistaken for -- perhaps -- a hymn, it was written by an itinerant carpenter named Peg Leg Joe. As he traveled from plantation to plantation, ostensibly working for the slave owners, he would secretly teach this song to the slaves, who would then use the "map" in song to run for freedom in the north.

The song gives explicit instructions for a route from Alabama and Mississippi to Ohio, via the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers. Because the song makes use of Polaris, the North Star, even NASA gives an explanation of the song on their web site.

I bring an easel with me to gigs, with huge poster boards for sing-a-longs. For Follow The Drinking Gourd, on one side of the board, I created a map for the kids to view the route. (For my own little joke, I colored the southern state Confederate grey and the northern states Yankee blue.)

Then, as I taught the kids the song -- to Peg Leg Joe's everlasting credit, it's an easy song to pick up, even for kids -- I flipped the board, and along with the words, I had photographs of the actual route -- the double hills and valleys of the rivers, pictures of dead trees referenced in the song, etc.

Everything I do, I try to sneak in some learning -- while the kids have fun.

I have the best job in the world. I really do. Not only do I get to learn, but we have SO much fun together.

Gig coming up at the Interactive Museum

As I spoke to the woman in charge, I asked her: "What is it, exactly, you'd like me to do?"

She was a little confused.

"I mean, do you want me to simply give a concert -- or do a poetry workshop, too? Either way, I'll be bringing my guitar and some musical instruments."

Still a little wondering.

Poetry comes alive for kids when they hear it set to music. Particularly with an electric guitar. It means that their words -- words in general -- are relevant, real, now -- and THEY can do it, too.

Cool.

Critiques from Kids

You have no idea how handy it is having an 8-year-old on hand.

I played a new song for my daughter -- a song called "Dinosaur on the Dance Floor" -- an involved kind of opus that has real potential, but wasn't working for me, and I couldn't figure out why.

So I asked her to give it a listen.

"I keep waiting for it to get faster, like I want to dance to it," she said.

So, I said to her, it's like you have almost an anxious feeling in your belly? Like: when is it going to start to pick up?

That's it exactly! she said.

AAAHH! Voila!

Handy little loving little critic.

Love love love her.

Gig at the YMCA

Children enjoying themselves is probably one of the finest things to participate in there can be.

When I tell people what I do: give poetry and writing workshops for children, sometimes they give me that weird smile -- that "really, but you're so talented, why don't you work for grownups?" smile.

It gets worse when I tell them I give concerts for children. Especially when they hear my music.

"But you're so GOOD," they say. "This is like, real music. Why don't you play for adults?"

Well, I try to explain, we all have our niche. Mine's kids. Sometimes that satisfies them. Sometimes they simply walk away, shaking their heads, thinking I'm somehow "wasting" my talent.

Hardly.

Ever hear a five-year-old call for an encore? There's absolutely nothing like it. I don't mean it from the perspective of an ego-thing, either. I just mean watching the pure delight in their faces.

The venues I play and work in are small enough where I can see their faces still, where I can roll out my jet-black Ibanez electric guitar, and see their eyes widen: a rock star!

To be able to bring that kind of uncynical, unmitigated pleasure to ANYONE -- kid or adult -- well, I just feel like the luckiest person in the world.

-elizabeth

New Poem

For a workshop and concert I did last week, I wrote a new poem. Here goes:

All the butterflies I see
Elude my net evasively
No matter where I try to be
They zig and zag away from me.

I swing and fling – a wide wind blow –
Then fancy flutter-colors go.
To pause a pair of purple wings!
To cage some multi-colored things!

Those butterflies! Away they get
Despite the clever traps I set.
All the butterflies I see
Apparently
They need to be
Alive and free.
Too bad for me.

© 2007 Elizabeth Bushey

:: :: :: ^ ^ :: :: ::

What tremendous fun I had at Chorley Elementary School in Middletown, N.Y. last week.

What I love best is the way we start: I have a felt board with a large tic-tac-toe board. I seek a few volunteers to play with me, since even five-year-olds know the game. We begin: they're handed their choice of felt Xs or Os (a surprising number of them choose the bright green Os) and they go first, placing their marker industriously, obediently where it goes.

I place mine somewhere completely wrong. On the line, on top of their X, draped on the side of the board -- somewhere shockingly, totally wrong.

Universally, since I am the grownup, and not least of all, the new grownup there presumably to teach them something, the volunteer continues without questioning me, although the crowd typically murmurs.

Again, I screw it up. There is laughter as we continue, and I progress with more and more blatantly wrong moves, often, if the volunteer seems open enough to it, placing my O or X on their head.

I'll then turn to the crowd, quizzically: "What's the problem? Why CAN'T I play this way? But this is how I want to play. You mean there are RULES?"

Children, of COURSE, delight in explaining the rules to me, a grownup -- who mysteriously has somehow made it to adulthood without picking up this game along the way.

Eventually leading them to discover for themselves that even a game as simple and straightforward as tic-tac-toe is really no fun without playing by the rules. Funny to watch them getting broken, for sure -- but not really fun to play.

So too, I show them, poetry has "rules" -- called, instead, "poetic techniques" -- that make it fun to write. No rules, really, for what you write about: you can talk about anything from your shoes to your nose, to the firefly that glows -- even boogers could be a poem, if you're clever or funny -- but rhyme, meter, alliteration -- all of these are tools to use, like a carpenter and a hammer.

I even have a poem called Tic-Tac-Toe:

Tic Tac Toe
A game we know
At least, a game
We think we know.
Familiar with
The lines we make,
The X, the O,
The give and take –
In fact, we know it
Out and in –
So why is it
We never win?
Why is it so
On every try
No matter what
We always tie?

© 2005 Elizabeth Bushey

Poetry workshops

I'll be starting some more poetry workshops soon, particularly since APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY month.

I couldn't be more excited. I love the way kids aren't afraid of poetry.

# # #

Second set of eyes

There's nothing like a second set of eyes on your work.

Even if you think you're all done, a second set of eyes can bring another dimension that will enrich your stories and poems and bring out even better work. For instance, a story of mine that I'm currently sending out has gotten nothing but kudos from everyone who read it -- everyone but one person, who was a little confused by the beginning.

I tackled it again, and now the story reads a TON better.

I'm glad to have had the criticism -- because the story is better now.

REAL writers WANT criticism. REAL writers want to know how the work can be improved.

New poem

Mouse McMettle

Mouse McMettle,
Carpenter.
Met a seamstress.
Married her.

Nails and hammer,
Needle, thread.
She sewed pillows.
He built the bed.

They crafted a cottage
Curtains, white
Bright wide windows
Soft sunlight

They raised one loving
Faithful son
Broke the windows
Every one.

Tangled threads
Of every kind
Bungled hammers
Every time.

Still, Ma and Pa were lucky mice,
And with their prodigy were pleased.

Their son was poor at many tasks,
But he excelled at making cheese.

::::::::::::::::

© 2006 Elizabeth Bushey, Inkless Tales

elizabeth@inklesstales.com

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For more poems, visit Inkless Tales.
www.inklesstales.com.

Meter -- the heart of the poem

And the beat goes on...

The primary difficulty, in my opinion, that people have when writing poetry for children is the METER of the poems. Too often, they find themselves writing poetry that requires them to read the work aloud in a certain way -- one way, that is -- so that the poems "works."

A poem for children has to "read" well NO MATTER WHO is reading it -- ESPECIALLY a young reader who may be struggling with the words, reading slowly, stumbling over a word or two.

A good way to "test-drive" your poems: find the absolute worst reader you can get your hands on. Someone with the tinnest ear you know. Have him or her read your poems out loud to you.

You will be stunned to learn where you went wrong.

If you can't find someone like that, leave your poems in a drawer for a few days. Come back to them. You'll be amazed at the fresh eye you'll have -- when you haven't seen them in a few days, you'll see how you may want to read them differently -- and the new "beat" may show you how the poems don't really work as well anymore.

Never take it for granted that anyone knows how you mean the poems to be read.

You won't be there, over anyone's shoulder, coaching them. You HAVE to make them foolproof.

The only way you can ever "cheat" this meter thing is to turn it into a song.

-E

Writing Poetry for Kids. It's harder than you think.

Poetry for children

Writing poetry for children is something most editors – and even other writers – tell you NOT to do.

Editors aren’t looking for poetry, they warn.

Children’s poetry is too difficult to write, they exhort.

They’re right. It IS difficult to write.

Yet so many of us try. Why? Because it’s fun, because ultimately, children love it (the poetry section of Inkless Tales is one of the hardest hit) and because when it’s done right, it’s delightful. Poetry is necessary to our souls.

There are several reasons why this is so. For one reason, many of us feel it must rhyme. This is not true. There are many very good children’s poems that do not rhyme. For those of us who want to teach children to write their own poems, one excellent form of non-rhyming poetry to begin with is the haiku.

This three-line form, which follows a strict form of five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the last line, concentrates on evoking a description, or a moment. It’s a beautiful exercise.

Oddly enough, the strictness of its form can release enormous creativity in children. I find it works much better than the typical acrostic poems that many teachers work with.

Another type of non-rhyming poem teachers and other educators (parents, try this at home – poetry is meant to be used!) may wish to try is what’s commonly called a “sense poem” – try choosing a subject and describing it, line by line, via the senses.

Here’s one I’ll throw off the top of my head for an example, about my dog, Tucker:


Black like the board at school
Soft like the lining of my coat
His bark is sharp, sharp, sharp
He sits if he sees a hot dog
And he fills the house and my heart
With the smell of wet dog
When it rains.

(You can tell here that I’m pretty crazy about my dog, a German Shepherd/Lab mix we adopted from the pound.)

So you see there is more than one way to write a poem than to rhyme it.

But what gets people in trouble, generally, is the rhyming – and not so much the rhyming.

People can rhyme.

What they can’t seem to manage to “get” is the meter.

That’s where it all seems to go horribly wrong for them. And what editors, readers, and their friends who say – “Oh, it’s so great” can’t seem to explain. Because what happens so many times is these writers are READING their poem to their friends, and they can unconsciously correct the problematic meter while reading the poem aloud.

More on this in the next post. But I’ll tell you then how I teach kids meter – and they get it when adults sometimes can’t.

Writing for children: Brevity

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”
– Blaise Pascal


Children’s literature is hard to write, despite the abundance of it, both published and unpublished.

Why IS it so hard to write, though? When it seems so, well, easy to read?

Having taught journalism, I see many of the same principles apply to writing for children. While one wants to choose one’s words carefully in ANY writing, precision, brevity and clarity happen to be particularly important here.

In a newspaper article, you have only seconds to grab the reader’s attention before he licks his thumb and turns the page. Children’s books simply won’t get read. (We’re not talking about getting published here – we’re talking about a good book.)

In journalism, you must be clear, above all. You must pack as much information – as interestingly as possible – into as short a space as you can.

In a picture book, a writer is challenged to use few, brilliantly chosen words. Jennifer Armstrong, a picture book writing teacher of mine in Vermont one summer, put it perfectly: the more you can compress your writing, the more powerful it becomes: tight and ready to bounce, like a rubber ball.

The famous editor Richard Jackson has a favorite saying: “Kill your darlings.”

If you have a line or two in your writing you MUST leave in, take it out.

Why?

You’re not paying enough attention to the work as a whole.

Learn to edit yourself. Get rid of anything you don’t need.

Embrace Strunk and White’s most valuable tool for any writer:

OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS. Words are powerful. Use them with care.

For instance: Now that I’m done this post, I’m going to go back and edit it. Word count for this first draft: 393.

Edited down to: 297. (That’s right. I lost 100 words.)

From the new Editor Page on the newly redesigned Inkless Tales web site:

:::::

When I first wrote this page, InklessTales was just starting up, and it was all about reading, writing and drawing.

Now it's expanding into math and music, two of my other loves, with the Mathematical Mother Goose, What's My Number, and Inkless Tunes.

My hope is still that you'll love the stories, pictures, movies and other materials you find here. Still, that you'll leave the site and head to a bookstore — or better yet, you'll go out to one of your local independent booksellers, or to your local library — and get a pile of books to take home and share with a child.

Or, now, that you'll bang a pot or a pan and play drums, or enjoy an instrument or a sing-a-long. Music is great -- and builds the mathematical AND linguistical side of a child's brain.

Read, sing, do numbers.

I can sew without a pattern. My friends are amazed by this; I am not. I took my daughters for a tour at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology recently in New York City. Turns out MOST people could sew without a pattern back in the old days. It was a skill, not a talent.

People are impressed by what I can do: I can draw, I can write, I can sing and play instruments.

Mostly, I can because my mother told me I could: which meant I always tried.

If nothing else -- I'd like this site to be about showing kids if you try, you probably can.

Put two chairs next to the monitor. Then switch it off and write your own stories, and draw your own pictures. Sing your own songs. You'll love it, I promise.

Getting you together to create and enjoy literature, pictures and puzzles is what this project is all about. Whether you're a teacher, a student, or a parent, I hope you'll find something inspiring here.

Darren of Problogger is sending out positive vibes by asking fellow bloggers to name our "blog crushes". A blogger that we admire or whose blog we like. Of all blogs focused on parenting, I have 2 that tops my...

These guys are a terrific resource. The Blog Crush alone sold me on them.

Check them out!

Read more

New Game!

It's been a while since I posted a new game, but in keeping with my earnest desire to really focus the site on kids' creativity, I had an idea for a new one recently, so I posted it yesterday -- it's a drawing game. I guess I must have run out of creativity when it came to naming it, though, because I just called it "The Shapes Game."

You can try it here, if you like:

www.inklesstales.com/games/shapes.shtml

Comprised of simple squares, circles, triangles and rectangles, colored in primary colors of red, blue and yellow, I'm hoping it will inspire kids with the simple kind of imagination-sparkers the original Colorforms (TM) sets did. Here's hoping! -e

Stories, Poems and Pictures for Kids on the Web

Stories, Poems and Pictures for Kids on the Web

Fanny Doodle: Who is she, anyway?

Just for those who are wondering

about the name of this blog.

There are several of these Fanny Doodle poems on Inkless Tales.

Here's the original. You can view the movie at
http://www.inklesstales.com/stories/fanny.shtml

Fanny Doodle’s Poodle

Fanny Doodle shaved her poodle
Then he shivered with the cold.
So Fanny Doodle knit a sweater
Trimmed with silver, and with gold.
Fanny Doodle’s poodle pouted,
Turned away his bone and bowl.
So Fanny Doodle used her noodle
Fed him cake and apple strudel
Til back his fur grew, curls and all.

© 2005, Elizabeth Bushey

To write.

Lots of people complain about writer's block, but I have to admit I haven't had that problem. I can't say that everything I've ever written has been worthy of keeping -- but I haven't ever sat in front of the keyboard going "Dang! Nothing to say."

Of course, there's always something else for me to do. If I don't have anything to write at the moment, I can go paint something.

If there's nothing to paint, I can go play my guitar.

So in that regard, I'm lucky.

Whether it's all good enough? Ah, there's the question.

I think it is. By good enough, I mean good enough to throw out there for others to decide for themselves whether they like it or not.

Some of it I like better than others. None of it makes me cringe, like the stuff I still keep tucked away. Much of it I can tell I did a while ago -- because I'm always looking to get better at whatever I'm doing.

I don't think I'm done.

But good enough? I think we're all good enough.

That's the message I'd like to send with Inkless Tales. I want children to try things for themselves, too.

I'm not sure the site is sending that message clearly enough. That's my next goal with the site. To send that message: try this for yourself, too.

-E

Inkless Tales

Inkless Tales started out because I had a lot of ideas and nowhere to put them. Also, I had the skill set, by chance: I could draw by hand, I could draw digitally. I knew Photoshop, and I knew web development. I could also write.

What's more, at the time -- March, 2001 -- there wasn't a whole lot out there for kids.

So I put it there.

And it's true: if you build it, they WILL come.

:-)