Writing a Nonfiction Picture Book

If you've never followed along on a writing adventure with Nancy I. Sanders at her Blogzone, I highly recommend it.

Last week Nancy began her newest adventure--write an 800-word nonfiction picture book. Am I excited? Well, yeah. I had just made up my list of projects I want to consider for the next few month of writing, and a new nonfiction picture book manuscript was at the top of the list. I love the camaraderie, encouragement, and accountability that comes with working with other writers to accomplish a goal.

Nancy's suggestion here at the beginning of this project is to find ways to stay motivated for the next three months until the project is complete. Since I haven't been blogging very regularly lately, I see it as a good way to get both projects on track. AND I'm going to hide a little money for a shopping spree when I get to the end of this adventure!

If you're interested in joining the journey, check the links to Nancy's blog above and climb aboard. (If you haven't noticed, I like journey metaphors.) Hey, maybe we'll plan a shopping trip for the end of February, too.

The Idea of Order in Key West

It's Poetry Friday and I'm rambling on about my recent trip to Key West. Be sure to stop by Jama's Alphabet Soup for her latest concoction of poetry!

 Last week the hubs and I took a much needed November vacation. We flew to Miami and rented a car, drove down into the Keys, through the mangrove swamps lining either side of the road, across the seven-mile bridge, all the way to Key West. We stopped in Key Largo for Cuban coffee (oh, so good!) and a glimpse of the African Queen, the old steam boat famous for the scenes between Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. The Queen currently takes sightseeing tours out into the Atlantic on motor power, but the steam engine is currently being recreated, and she will once again sail on her own steam. 

They say Truman's Little White House is one of the best kept secrets in Key West. What great history this place holds. It was originally the Navy Commandant's House until Truman began using it for his presidential trips to the Keys. He originally went on doctor's orders for rest and loved the place so much he once wrote in a letter to Bess, "I've a notion to move the capital to Key West and just stay." Some pretty historic documents were discussed and signed here--The Marshall Plan, the firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and the executive order integrating the armed forces. 

Chickens roamed the grounds! Many other presidents have visited and stayed here. And when they go, they actually have to pay to stay. 

Truman's catch of the day--a six-pound grouper and a three-pound yellowtail. 
U.S. Navy photo, Harry S Truman Library

I am making my way to the literary world of the island. Hemingway's gorgeous house is a full of light and air. He was prolific while here, and I can see why. Such a beautiful place to write.

Hemingway's House in Key West is still home to 50-75 poly dactyl cats--all descendants of Hemingway's original brood of felines. 

A well-fed, fat cat on Hemingway's bed.

Hemingway's writing studio.

And finally to poetry! 

Wallace Stevens loved the island, too. He once wrote, "It was very much like a cloud full of Cuban senoritas, coconut palms, and waiters carrying ice water."

Stevens and Hemingway reportedly had a fist fight in Key West. Both were inebriated. Stevens insulted Hemingway to his sister. She went home crying and Hemingway went looking for Stevens. They met in the street where Hemingway knocked Stevens down, but Hem was still wearing his glasses. Bystanders called for Hemingway to take them off. When he did, Stevens punched him the jaw, but only succeeded in breaking his own hand in two places. After that, Hemingway thrashed him and left him in a puddle. Later Hemingway wrote in a letter, "But on mature reflection I don't know anybody needed to be hit worse than Mr. S."

Don't you just love hearing the stories, the stuff life is made of?  Hemingway fightng his demons, most likely he was bipolar with a history of suicide running through the pages of the family album. Stevens wrestling with his own disassociated worlds of poetry and  business. 

Oh, but the art. The words. 

From Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea:

“He always thought of the sea as 'la mar' which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as 'el mar' which is masculine.They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.”

Sunset cruise on the Schooner America 2.0. (I even got to steer!)

The Idea of Order at Key West

by Wallace StevensShe sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Read the rest here.

Time to Stand and Stare

There has been very little time to "stand and stare" the last few weeks. I knew October would be a challenge when I realized I had scheduled four out of town trips in three weeks with my job. Add a writing conference and remember to breathe. 

I have officially resigned as editor of the Bugler. At a farewell dinner, my bosses presented me with the Order of Saint Maurice for contributions to the Infantry. I was so delighted, as very few women receive the award, and honored to have served our Infantrymen for these last eleven years.  

MG (Ret) William B. Steele, me, and COL (Ret) Richard Nurnberg

I worked the COMO (Council of Media Organizations) conference a few weeks back. The Delaney booth was next to a booth with three magicians who drew quite a crowd. Tell me just how you compete with the big bad wolf and a live bunny rabbit!

By the time I made it to the writing conference, Southern Breeze WIK in Birmingham, I was too tired to take photos. Matt de la Pena was an excellent keynote speaker. I taught a class on the Nuts and Bolts of writing for children, roomed with the effervescent nonfiction wonder, Heather Montgomery, and can't say enough thank you's to Joan Broerman for being the wonderful hostess she is. 

Last week I drove down to Albany and presented Stride Academy, a pretty cool adaptive learning product, to a curriculum director one day and a room full of librarians the next. And this week I held a teacher preview day at Coweta Charter School where I packed up half my office and carted it to Senoia, Georgia (location for the Walking Dead--the town, not the school!)

Only a few more days to manage and then it's vacation! I love vacations in November. I am planning to do an awful lot of standing and staring.

Leisure
by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Irene Latham is our host today for Poetry Friday, so travel over to Live Your Poem and celebrate her 1,000th blog post with lots of poetry. 

Poetry Friday is Here!

On this Poetry Friday, the temps are finally dropping a bit here in the deep South, at least at night. The squirrels are bounding over my yard like acorns will never fall from the sky again. And it's time for the county fair.

Last weekend hubs and I flew to visit our grands in San Antonio where we took in the Comal County Fair. The biggest hit was the incubator with chicks pecking their way into the world as we watched mesmerized. The next attention grabber was the three-gallons of milk squirting into the collection jar attached to the milking machine attached to the cow. Three gallons in about four minutes!

My nine-year-old granddaughter had to squench up her toes to keep her slightly too large cowboy boots on her feet as she flew around in the sky on something called OMG! My sweet oldest didn't really want a ride and gave his coupons away to a little girl whose father couldn't afford tickets. Gotta love those kids. For the little boys, it was the roller coaster!

So my offering for today is from the American Sign Language Slam, a delightful interpretation of
"The Great American Roller Coaster Poem" from Season 5, ASL Slam Poetry Spots. The poem is read by Stella Bugbee, Lucianna Burse, Laura Ciporen, Cristina Collier, and Raul Draganac and directed by Andy Biskin.

Think cotton candy, snow cones, and the clatter of wheels on a wooden track. Hot dogs, merry-go-rounds and livestock!




Add your link below!

Poetry Friday: I Love Gardens

I live near one of the most beautiful gardens in the Southeast, Callaway Gardens. When I was a kid, we called it Ida Cason's, i.e. Ida Cason Callaway for whom it's named. We went to the lake with the largest man made beach to picnic and swim. When my children were small, we went for beach days, bike rides and hiking through the acres and acres of woods. Two of my children got themselves engaged there. I was nearby the gardens recently for an appointment and decided it was time I had a season pass again. I had forgotten just how much I love this place. There is such peace to be found in a garden.

The swing in one of my favorite spots.

Inside the Sibley Horticultural Center

One of the stained glass season windows. This one is summer. 

This is the garden: colors come and go
e.e. cummings

This is the garden: colors come and go,
Frail azures fluttering from night’s outer wing,
Strong silent greens serenely lingering,
Absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden: pursed lips do blow
Upon cool flutes within wide glooms, and sing
Of harps celestial to the quivering string,
Invisible faces hauntingly and slow.

This is the garden. Time shall surely reap

Read the rest here.

Tabatha Yeats hosts the roundup today at The Opposite of Indifference.

Poetry Friday Poems for Social Justice

Indivisible: Poems for Social Justice is a fine collection of poems for high school students, edited by Gail Bush and Randy Meyer and published by Norwood House, a small independent educational publisher.  A poetic journey through 20th century poems moves the reader down a road "leading toward action for social change."

Our library specialist at Delaney, the company I work for as a sales rep to schools, chose this book as one of the best of the fall collection for the library market.

Poets represent the diversity of American culture and include Tupac Shakur, Wendell Berry, Kenneth Rexroth, Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, Ishmael Reed, Assotto Saint, Fawaz Turki, Natasha Trethaway, Gary Soto, Mary Oliver, and many more.

While reading through the poems, I discovered a poem by Lee Herrick that drew me in. I had not read Lee's work before. At his website you can find other poems from this wonderful poet.

jap

by Lee Herrick

windshield to windshield
we are parked
like matadors,
pumping gas at the am pm.
It is a normal afternoon in the valley
like all afternoons in the valley,
split between modern duty
and the desire for something better.

We are in the same world.
I pull in and
face you, but
my sunglasses shield my almond
eyes, and what you don't realize
is that I see you
in your red anger,
your believed anonymity
your life boiling you to this ugly place,
where, in the pain of inarticulacy,
your vomit words,
like swords,
hurled at me:

god    damn     jap

I look down at my chest
my almond eyes open wide
breath sputtering
blood dripping.
I pull it from just beside my heart
and I still stand.

This is where racism begins
in the throat
at the station
in the heart of valley afternoons.

I hold your bloody words,
walking to you slowly
with sword in hand.

Read the rest here.

Stop and visit with Laura at Author Amok for roundup.

Bugs!

After this guy sat down beside me yesterday, bug poems were on my mind today! I'm still not sure what he is, but his camouflage makes him look like a pine cone bract.

Photo: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos

The Insects' World
by Ethel Jacobson

Insects are creatures with three pairs of legs,
Some swim, some fly; they lay millions of eggs.
They don't wear their skeletons in, but out.
They come in three parts. Some are bare; some have hair.
Their hearts are in back; they circulate air.
They smell with their feelers and taste with their feet,
And there's scarcely a thing that some insect won't eat:
Flowers and woodwork and books and rugs,
Overcoats, people, and other bugs.
When five billion trillion keep munching each day,
It's a wonder the world isn't nibbled away!

Bugs

by Ogden Nash

Some insects feed on rosebuds
And others feed on carrion.
Between them they devour the earth.
Bugs are totalitarian.

What Do You Suppose?

Anonymous

What do you suppose?

A bee sat on my nose.

Then what do you think?

He gave me a wink,

And said, ‘I beg your pardon,

I thought you were a garden.’

Tara has the roundup at A Teaching Life.