The value of a life

Paul Newman passed away last week. He was one of my favorite actors and seemed like a decent and principled human being. I'm sure he's missed by many.

In my local newspaper, the news of Newman's death is prominently placed at the top of a page, with three pictures. Under it on the same page is the story of the deaths of 13 premature babies in the Izmir Tepecik Research and Training Hospital in Turkey. This, after the deaths of 27 other infants in August in another hospital, in Ankara.

I am not berating the newspaper editor for placing more importance on the death of one man over that of multiple infants. I'm just struck by how differently lives are viewed. I'm sure each person who died is mourned by those who love him/her, but the world doesn't know the infants, whereas Paul Newman is famous. Does it mean that a person who's had a bigger impact deserves more recognition? How does one quantify impact, and does it matter that nobody except family and friends would mourn a death?

Of course I know that each life is valuable and it's meaningless to compare the value of one life over another. Yet, I'm feeling a bit melancholic.

Red Glass Giveaway Update

So it's Friday and I am supposed to announce the winner of the book giveaway, but I am faced with a little bit of a dilemma because the magic number of 28 is not reached. I have three choices:

• Don't give away the book because I don't have 28 eligible entries;
  
• Draw from the ones who've already entered; or
• Extend the deadline.

Since I'm Queen Bee (and Only Bee) here, I'll make an executive decision to...

Extend the deadline till Oct. 8, the date of the Colorado Book Awards.

So, please help me spread the word and remember, if someone you refer puts your name down, you get two chances.

Poetry Friday

I'd like to pay tribute to the end of September with this poem by Valerie Bloom:

Autumn Gilt
The late September sunshine
Lime green on the linden leaves
Burns bronze on the slated roof-tops,
Yellow on the farmer's last sheaves.

The rest of the poem is here.

I feel an affinity for Valerie Bloom's poems, perhaps it's because we've both grown up in a culture that is vastly different than the one we've chosen to settle. Even though I feel at home in the US and have been here longer than any of the three countries I've lived in, I still carry around in me the language, the music, the people of the other cultures. At times, I find myself using a term or phrase in a particular language that conveys much more than its surface meaning. Or I'd think of strange juxtapositions of food ingredients. And occasionally I'd use cultural references that are completely foreign to the group I'm with but my friends are used to being confounded every once in a while. It's a rich life.

Speaking of a rich life, treasures await at the roundup at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

Free Book Giveaway: A Reminder

Don't forget to enter the Red Glass giveaway today before midnight!

Author Interview: Teresa Funke

Here is an interview with Teresa Funke, who has not one, but two books selected as finalists in the Colorado Book Awards, one in the Young Adult category, the other in the Fiction category.

Teresa R. Funke is the author of four books for children and adults, Dancing in Combat Boots: and Other Stories of American Women in WWII, Remember Wake and the Home-Front Heroes series for middle-grade readers. Her articles, essays and short stories have appeared in national and regional publications. Teresa is also a popular speaker, presenter and writer’s coach and on-screen host of the video series The Write Series. To learn more about Teresa, visit www.teresafunke.com

1. Which makes you want to procrastinate more: starting a new scene or revising a draft? (Or, if you never procrastinate, please, please, please share your secret.)

That’s a tricky question. On the days I have to write new scenes, it takes me a while to clear my mind of all the chaos and focus on creating something new. On the days I’m approaching a rewrite, I always feel like that’s more manageable. After all, I’m just improving what I’ve already done, right? Then I get into it and I’m reminded how much work it is to rewrite. But I like that part. To be honest, though, I procrastinate much less now than I did before kids and before my work picked up so much. Back when I had all the time in the world to write, I found it much more tempting to spend that time reading or talking on the phone or running errands. It’s only when life got complicated and my writing time got scarce that I had to become more productive in the little bit of time I had. No more procrastinating!

2. In your writing, what is the relationship between putting down the initial ideas and revising?

It varies depending on the project. If I’m working on a stream-of-consciousness essay, I might write a segment of the essay and then revise it before I move on. But when I write short stories, I tend to write them all the way through and then revise. With books, I usually write a chapter all the way through and then go back and revise a tiny bit and then move on. Then I do several full revisions in the end. See, there’s no one right way a writer works. We follow our best instincts and we respect each project.

3. Which scenario comes closest to yours: (a) you wake up at dawn, sit at your keyboard with your coffee and work for a couple of hours before the rest of the family gets up; (a) you put away the dinner dishes, tuck the kids into bed, start a load of laundry and start writing; (c) you have 10 minutes between your office hour and your next class/you sit in the pickup lane of your child’s school/you lock yourself in the pantry and scribble down a few sentences?

Unlike my friend, Laura Resau, I’m NOT a morning person. If I had my way, I’d stay up till 3:00 a.each night and wake up at 10:00. But with kids, I'm kinda forced to follow a more traditional schedule. I get my kids off to school, do some quick exercise and then work till dinner. Several days a week, I go back down after they're in bed. I'm not writing the whole time. I have various jobs I do. In fact, those have taken over and I have very little time to write. So I've taken to writing my books at our condo. I"ll lock myself in for three-four days at a time to work on my children's books. It's just not possible to get that kind of concentration at home anymore!

4. Do you have a community you turn to for support, encouragement, critiques, and celebration in your writing life?

I’ve always believed in writers supporting each other. I belong to several writing-related organizations and I network with lots of writers, but my writers’ group, The Slow Sand Writers Society, has been my life-line for 15 years. None of my work goes out without them reviewing it first.

5. Did you ask young readers to read you book before you published it? What was the most interesting response you’ve received?

I actually relied a lot on my kids. I “made” them each read the book as I was writing it and when I was finished. They were actually a big help. I also had my goddaughter read it. And I’ve very much enjoyed hearing from the kids who’ve read Doing My Part and will hopefully soon read The No-No Boys, which is due out this fall.

6. If you weren’t a children’s book writer, what would you do?

My dream job would be to be a philanthropist. No, that’s true. I’d LOVE to just sit around all day identifying good causes to support with my piles of money. Course, that would require HAVING piles of money first, and we all know writers don’t have that.

7. What will you do for your two fellow authors if you win: (a) bring them homemade apple pies, (b) offer to watch their child/children for a weekend, (c) provide them with unlimited signed copies of your book?

How funny. I’ve been so focused on what I’m going to say to them if THEY win, I hadn’t thought about what I’d do for them if I win. I think the best thing I could do for them is talk up their awesome books to anyone who will listen. But I do that already. It’s great fun to be nominated with two good friends!

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

I am reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which has created a lot of excitement this summer. Oprah magazine calls it a "classic in the making" and Stephen King says he "flat out loved" it.

As I started reading, echoes of writing advice flittered in my mind, nagging me about how a book should not have a prologue and about how the very first line should tell the story immediately, not the backstory.

Well, this book begins with a prologue. And when Chapter 1 proper begins, it doesn't even begin with Edgar's story but his grandfather's. Actually after one sentence on the grandfather, we read about the man from whom the grandfather bought the land. For many pages, we read about the grandfather, and then the father. Even the dog gets a few pages in her viewpoint before we are properly introduced to Edgar.

But what an introduction! The author switches to punchy sentences, brilliant images, and whatever other magic he employs to make joy leap off the pages. I found myself smiling and feeling warm and tender and giggly all at once.

I love this book already, even though I haven't finished it. Its heftiness thrills me, I know I'll spend many delirious hours with it.

But my experience with the book did make me think, about writing advice, about the publishing industry, about authenticity and conformity, about rules and exception, about why people read.

I am going let these ideas brew a little while in my mind before I try to wrangle something resembling coherent thoughts from them. In the mean time, I'll leave you with random quotes that have made me linger and sigh.

Clouds like bruises scud over the fields...The pines flap their branches in the gusts, swimmers in the wind. He walks to the window to see if the treetops actually pierce the clouds.

Then Edgar was running through the cold, the house jerking in his vision.

The cold was fearsome, the sky above dilute and punctured by stars.

Fragmentary emotions possessed and released him...Below the chaos of image and memory, something so powerfully suppressed he would barely remember it.

Pep Talk Time

I got these quotes from my gym this morning--probably because I haven't been in a while--applicable to exercising and writing:

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.
Robert Collier

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden

Our greatest battles are that with our own minds.
Jameson Frank

You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.
Charles Buxton

So, go make time to battle the self-doubts and distractions of the mind, not allowing them to interfere with whatever small efforts we can put in at this moment. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Banned Books Week

This week is Banned Books Week. The thought that occupies my mind is how much poorer I would be if I've never read (and re-read many times) To Kill A Mockingbird, or never been disturbed by the images from Lord of the Flies, or never had my heart broken by Of Mice and Men.

Are some of your favorite books banned? Have you been meaning to read some of the books on the banned book list? Let me know.