ROBERT FROST and ME

 

When I asked writing friends where they go to clear their heads of cluttered mental debris and recharge, I heard “the beach” more times than anywhere else.

 

For me, the beach holds little solace. Sure, it’s lovely at sunset. Otherwise, it’s like a party: too well lit, too exposed, too rah-rah and whoosh-whoosh of waves, bikinis, and volleyballs.

 

A walk on the beach is also hard on the feet & leg muscles. Afterwards, I need a rest from that rest.

 

I’m with Robert Frost, who declared the woods his recharge station. Especially the dark and deep ones. The sounds of a redwood forest, dripping dew, singing invisible birds who also shelter there, and the gentle deep colors gratis of the low light are my place of remembering that life is a gift.

And speaking of woods, nothing compares to the California Redwoods. On a hike there, we paid homage to one tree who has his own name. Methuselah is named after the biblical character who lived to be nine-hundred and sixty-nine years. (Genesis 527) The old redwood tree named after him is almost two thousand years old.

Methuselah Tree^ (Redwood)

Woodside, California

 

Beaches are transitory. The redwoods stand and watch the sands wash away. I’ll take the less travelled road. 

 

The Yesterdays of THIS SIDE OF TOMORROW

 

Other than my own, there are few traditionally published books whose inception and labor pains I have witnessed.

 

Today, a spectacular birthday to one of these few is a cause for celebration.

 

The author, Tina Cho, is a critique group colleague of many years. Neither of us had been published when we started working together to improve our storytelling, and, since then, she has risen to the top of the kidlit writers’ profession. Many published picture books later, her debut novel is being released *today*-- and a great day it is.

 

Re-named This Side of Tomorrow, it began as a non-fiction picture book text about the two Koreas, one filled with light and the other enveloped by darkness, seen from an omniscient point of view.  Our critique group offered feedback, and all of us thought it would make a worthy picture book.

 

Editors’ feedback suggested re-writing it as a human story with survival of escaping from the dark Korea on the north to the light Korea on the south. Our critique group saw that manuscript as well.

 

A new editorial suggestion said it needed to be a story for older readers, a middle grade novel. Tina wondered if she could write a middle grade novel at all, having polished her skills on shorter stories. She decided it was too important a story not to try. Tina and her family were living in South Korea at the time, and she went on to research and interview and learn from people who had made this harrowing journey.

 

Many months later, she had the story. I was privileged to read that first or second draft and offer feedback. I had published a middle grade that also had a historic and political backdrop, so Tina thought I might be helpful. I don’t know if I was, but reading that excellent draft, I became committed to following this story’s journey to publication.

 

First, Tina entered it into a competition, and it won a prize from a good publisher and an offer to publish. It was not a generous offer, but it already surpassed thousands of never-to-be published middle grade novels languishing in writers’ computer files. Tina thought hard as to whether to accept the offer. You know, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

 

She also pursued agent representation, and, once she got an agent’s offer and accepted it, her new agent thought they could do better.

 

And better they did, but not before her agent suggested re-writing the story as a novel-in-verse and later, as a graphic novel, and a lyrical one at that. I saw sections of that draft as well.

 

At every incarnation, it struck me that a very good story was becoming a great and greater one.

 

Once acquired, the search for an illustrator artist began. The publisher found a wonderful match for Tina’s words in Deb JJ Lee. The long process of putting images to the words began.

 

And beginning today, you can see and read it for yourself.

🔆{You can read the starred Kirkus review in this link}🔆

WHO DO YOU WRITE FOR?

 

You may be right to take the title of this post two ways. The first is asking about the imaginary audience for one’s words and stories. The second is a ballsy/HUTZPA, more a challenge than a question, as in— who you imagine is even reading what you write. 😝

 

I will ignore the second, because it’s rude and also fruitless. Whether it is two, twenty, two thousand or twenty thousand, when writing-- we just can’t know. It isn’t helpful to creative motivation.

 

But the first is relevant.

 

When I was twelve, I began writing a diary. Diaries, so many say, are for oneself only. Mine wasn’t. I addressed all entries to one specific person who was unlikely to ever read them, but I needed to see this person in my mind when I wrote.

 

Later, in my teens, I always had a person in mind when I wrote a story. But the person changed from story to story.

 

When I began writing in earnest in my late thirties, I visualized no one. It became clear to me that the person I wrote for was my younger self, the one at the intended audience’s age.

 

I still write my novels for eleven-year-old me, and my picture books-- for six-year-old me.

 

No matter what a writer will tell you, there is someone in their mind when they write. Otherwise, it is a soulless mechanical exercise using how-to formulas. Yes, we’ve all encountered those when giving feedback and even, rarely, in published works.

 

Like prayer, real writing is addressing someone. This post is for you. 🙌