Coming Full Circle

It's no secret that my literary crush, my author idol, my all-time favorite I-want-to-be-her-when-I-grow up writer is Cynthia Rylant.

I gushed about my stalking here.

Eighteen years ago (1999), I sent her a letter to tell her how much she had influenced my writing.

That letter read, in part:

In my journey to becoming a children's writer, I've searched long and hard for my voice - the voice that will bring authenticity, heart, and soul to my writing. I've read hundreds of children's books - and no writer has touched me like you have. I'm sure I've read Missing May twenty times.

Finally I realized why your writing touches me. You write from the heart - and plunk your characters right down in the middle of your heart's home...That's when I knew how to bring my voice to my writing.

Without this letter, you would never know that your writing has touched another writer to the core - and has continued the chain of creative spirit. 


-->Imagine my excitement when she wrote me back!!!

Well, recently, an amazing thing happened.

I received a letter from an author named Sybil Berkey that totally blew me away. 

It read, in part:

As you know, there's great power in stories, and your storytelling has affected me deeply, as a person and as a fellow writer. There aren't many people who've impacted my creative process and expression the way you have. Your work consistently challenges me to dig deeper and always make sure I'm giving my everything - story and style - with well-developed characters.

In short, you've encouraged me to find my true place and voice as a writer.

Reading that note was a magical, full-circle moment for me.

I felt such joy and satisfaction knowing that I was able to do for another author what Cynthia Rylant did for me.

And I was so grateful that she took the time to tell me.

Thank you, Sybil.

Funny how the world works that way, isn't it? 

 





-->

Memory Lane

Ever since I sold my first book a million trillion years ago (okay, okay...1991), I've kept scrapbooks of book-related stuff.

I call them my Ego Books because during those times when I'm feeling insecure and inadequate, like a has-been and a loser (You know you've been there, right?), I can whip one out and thumb through it and I sometimes feel better about myself. (Saves me a ton of money on therapy.)

I read the nice letters folks wrote and see how blessed I am to have lovely, supportive friends and to have achieved some wonderful goals, I'm back in my groove.

So I recently decided to look through them.

Here are some of the highlights from the first one, which is 1991 to 2000.

This is my very first acceptance letter. It was for a biography of Maria Montessori. I remember that day so well. I was over the moon excited:

 This is a letter from David Freaking Small, y'all!! He did the cover art for my first novel, Beethoven in Paradise. I wrote him a note thanking him, and he wrote me back. I love that he told me how lucky I was to have "that great lady, Frances Foster" as my editor and FSG as my publisher.

This is my very first review of my very first novel (Beethoven in Paradise). It's a little hard to read because it was faxed to me. (Remember fax machines?) It's a Kirkus POINTERED review, which back in the day, was their version of a starred review. (Anybody remember those pointered reviews?):

This is a note from my son telling me I did a good job. Awwww. Better than a starred review!

This is a letter from Cynthia Freaking Rylant, y'all!!! We corresponded after I sent her a copy of my second book, Me and Rupert Goody:

This is Cynthia Freaking Rylant telling me that my novel "was lovely." Swoon. (I cropped out her signature cause I don't like to post that on the internet, but trust me, it's her. In fact, she signed it CYNDI RYLANT.

And this is from School Library Journal. Me and Rupert Goody was named a Best Book of 1999. I was beyond thrilled for that!

So, those were good years and I am blessed.

Celebrating Words and Voice

Writing voice.

Hard to define.

Difficult (impossible?) to teach.

But there's nothing I love more in a book than a distinctive writing voice.

I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it. Or, more correctly, I know it when I HEAR it.

And if you think about it, that is really the literal meaning of the word "voice" - something that you HEAR.

To me, a distinct writing voice is one that sounds unique. It has a rhythm and flow and melody to it that sets it apart from another author's writing voice.

So here are a few examples of voice that I love:

From Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall (even the TITLE has a wonderful voice):

He was homely and plain, and he had a terrible holler and a horrid smell. 

and...

There will be Sarah’s sea, blue and gray and green, hanging on the wall. And songs, old ones and new. And Seal with yellow eyes. And there will be Sarah, plain and tall.

From Cynthia Rylant's Missing May:

Whirligigs of Fire and Dreams, glistening coke bottles and chocolate milk cartons to greet me. I was six years old and I had come home.

 and...

Home was, still is, a rusty old trailer stuck on the face of a mountain in Deep Water, in the heart of Fayette County. It looked to me, the first time, like a toy that God had been playing with and accidentally dropped out of heaven. Down and down and down it came and landed, thunk, on this mountain, sort of cockeyed and shaky and grateful to be all in one piece.

From Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane:

Lolly was a lumpy woman who spoke too loudly and who wore too much lipstick.

 and...

The days passed. The sun rose and set and rose and set again and again. Sometimes the father came home and sometimes he did not. Edward’s ears became soggy and he did not care. His sweater had almost completely unraveled and it didn’t bother him. He was hugged half to death and it felt good. In the evenings, at the hands of Bryce, at the ends of the twine, Edward danced and danced.

 From Kate DiCamillo's Flora and Ulysses:

He looked exactly like a villain.

That’s what Flora’s brain thought.

But her heart, her treacherous heart, rose up joyfully inside of her at the sight of him.

 

 From Natalie Lloyd's A Snicker of Magic:

I think that’s one of the best feelings in the world, when you know your name is safe in another person’s mouth. When you know they’ll never shout it out like a cuss word, but say it or whisper it like a once-upon-a-time.

and...

Lonely had followed me around for so long. That word was always perched somewhere close, always staring down at me, waiting to pounce out my joy.

From Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting:

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.

 

 



 

I hear voices

There's nothing I love to read more than a distinctive writer's voice. 

Some writers have it.

Some writers don't.

I believe that writing can be good - even great - without a distinctive voice. A great story - a skillfully developed plot - perfect dialogue, well-drawn characters.

But the voice is what sets one author's writing apart from another's.

It's like the blindfold taste test - can you read a passage of unidentified writing and know who wrote it?

Maybe lots of writers could write the same story, but only a writer with a distinctive voice can write it THAT way - that particular way - that way that tells the reader - "This is clearly HER writing. I'd recognize it anywhere."

For me, distinctive voice usually involves rhythm and word choice. It also involves the ability to write about ordinary things in an extraordinary way, so that small things become more important. And last, distinctive voice is the ability to show the perfect emotion.


The writing voice I love most in the whole world belongs to

Cynthia Rylant. She can weave together concrete, detailed description with perfectly described emotion and the words just flow together so flawlessly. Like this from Missing May:

Whirligigs of Fire and Dreams, glistening coke bottles and

chocolate milk cartons to greet me. I was six years old and I had come home.

And she can drop in a heartbreak of a sentence when you least expect it:

May was gardening when she died.

Or this:

When May died, Ob came back to the trailer, got out of his good suit and into his regular clothes, then went and sat in the Chevy for the rest of the night.


Next up? Linda Urban. Ooolala....that distinctive voice. Linda's got the gift of making the ordinary extraordinary - and for nailing emotion.

From The Center of Everything:

Ruby is an underreactor, Lucy says. So they are yin and yang -

which are not the names of twin zoo pandas, like ruby thought at first, but two opposites that fit together.

Lucy is dramatic; Ruby is calm.

Lucy is impulsive; Ruby takes time to figure things out.

Ruby does what she is supposed to do, and Lucy? Well, "I count on you for balance," Lucy always says.

Which is why they are friends, Ruby thinks.

And which is why she hasn't told Lucy how out of balance she felt since Gigi died. Instead, Ruby pretended things were normal. That she was normal.

And it worked.

Mostly.

Until yesterday.

"We're supposed to be best friends!" Lucy had said. Yelled, really. Her eyes had been slits, her voice as loud as it had ever been on the Hungry Nation Youth Theater stage. "I tell you everything and you didn't tell me anything!"

Ruby's stomach hurts remembering what she had said back. "Mind like water."

"This is not a stupid pebble, Ruby Pepperdine! This is a meteor! You have hurled an enormous meteor into the lake of our friendship. You've caused a tsunami!" Lucy had balled her fists and dashed away, and Ruby was left bobbing stupidly in her wake.

Bobbing stupidly in her wake?  Really? Love that.

I don't own a copy of Hound Dog True. Why? Because I am lame, is the only reason I can think of. So...I can't offer up an example. But here's what you must do: Go immediately and get a copy of that book. Then immediately turn to the scene where Mattie is in the cloakroom (coatroom?) and a classmate steals money from backpacks and mispronounces the word ogre. OMG! I'm kicking myself for not writing that scene before Linda did. Dang! (But then, I couldn't write with her distinctive voice, of course.)

Ordinary turned to extraordinary.


Kirby Larson. Sigh...what can you say about Kirby's writing voice?

Here's a word that comes to mind: perky. I know, kind of a stupid word choice. Maybe lively? Upbeat? I'm sure there's a better word but I can't think of it. All I know is that her writing voice sings. You'll get my drift with the examples below, from Hattie Ever After:

I needed to find my own place in the world. My own true place. And something in me believed that place was connected to the working end of a pen, not a plow. And certainly not a polishing cloth!

And this - which I adore:

As I scrubbed, two voices whispered around me. Hattie Go spoke into my right ear: "Don't you see? This is your chance to do something Grand."

Hattie Stay buzzed in my left ear. "What about Charlie? What will he think if you move even farther away?"

"He'd want you to have that adventure," urged Hattie Go. "Want you to pursue your dreams."

"He wants you to marry him!" protested Hattie Stay.

"The Pacific Ocean!" sighed Hattie Go. "Think of it!"

See what I mean about lively? Hattie Stay and Hattie Go? (Not to mention those dialogue tags.)

Here's one more:

It was him, too, who'd given me Mr. Whiskers, that sassy old tomcat. I don't know how Charlie knew that that bundle of fur and purr was just what a lonely orphan girl needed, but he did.

What about Rita Williams-Garcia? Her writing voice is just pure personality. I've never had the good fortune to meet her, but I'm sure I would love her. Her personality JUMPS off her pages.  

Only she could write the following (from P.S. Be Eleven): 

"Delphine." The "Del" pulled down low and quick and the "phine"

had no choice but to follow like a shamed child.

I love this:

You put on a smile and say it again. "That's nice, Pa. Very nice," because none of Miss Merriam Webster's words will show up in time to save you. You remember how Mrs. Peterson forbade the use of the word very in book reports because very was fine for fourth graders, but too lazy for fifth graders. Yet here you are, getting ready to start the sixth grade using fourth-grade words. You can't help yourself and add another very. "Very, very nice, Papa."

And only the character of Big Ma could use words like ooga mooga and some-timey friend and a grand Negro spectacle.

Such personality! Rita! Call me! Let's do lunch.

Now who could talk about distinctive writing voice without

mentioning Kathi Appelt? Not me. Her voice is melodic, like a song. Only Kathi can write sentences like these (from The Underneath):

She sniffed the air. It was wrong, this place. The air was heavy with the scent of old bones, of fish and dried skins, skins that hung from the porch like a ragged curtain. Wrong was everywhere.

Who else could write that sentence: It was wrong, this place?

Who else could write: Wrong was everywhere?

Who else could write: Hatred, like sweat, coated his skin.

Or this: Glory, glory, the warm dry sun bounced onto his silver fur. It sank right in. He walked farther into its goldy beams.

 Goldy beams? Really? *fist bump, Kathi*

That book is just so full of bluey blues and greeny greens and piney woods. Lovely.

Sara Pennypacker has a super duper funny dang voice. She has a wonderful way of dropping little unrelated nuggets into a sentence or paragraph that provide a great glimpse into the main character (for instance, those ceiling snakes in the second example below). I also love the way she varies the length of her sentences - some long and run-on - some short and choppy.  

From Clementine:

While Margaret was looking under the bed for Mascara, I accidentally touched her lamp, which is a china poodle with an umbrella that Margaret calls a parasol because she is a show-off. Margaret turned around fast, but my hands jumped into my pockets even faster.

And:

If they had a special class for gifted kids in art, I would definitely be in it. But they don't, which is also unfair - only for math and English. I am not so good at English, okay, fine. But this year I am in the gifted class for math. And here is the bad surprise - so far, no gifts.

I told Principal Rice about that problem when she got back from calming down Margaret's mother.

"So far, no gifts," I told her, extremely politely.

Principal Rice rolled her eyes to the ceiling then, like she was looking for something up there. Ceiling snakes maybe, just waiting to drip on you. That's what I used to be afraid of when I was little, anyway. Now I am not afraid of anything.

Okay, fine, I am afraid of pointy things.

[And notice that she didn't say the ceiling snakes were ready to DROP on you - she chose DRIP. Perfect. *fist bump, Sara*]

Since this blog post could become the longest in the history of the internet, I'll only add one more: Kerry Madden. What I love about Kerry's writing voice is her great word choices. A perfect word sprinkled here and there, like this from Jessie's Mountain:

No wonder I can't sleep, worrying over spiteful letters saying PAY

UP OR ELSE!

Don't you just love that word spiteful? 

Two-year-old Appelonia races straight into Louise's arms and starts crawling up her like a tree frog.

A tree frog? How perfect is that? 

Though I can't help but feel a sadness that she's throwing her life away marrying Mr. Pickle. Maybe I ought to sing "Single Girl, Married Girl," an old Carter Family song, to her today to get her to rethink her plans of disaster.

Plans of disaster? Love that.
 
The plum sky is filled with crystal stars.

Those words plum and crystal = perfect. 

In the end, it's Uncle Buddy who gives us the miracle we need. He does something so terrible, so generous, and so unexpected that nobody can believe it. He has himself a heart attack on a moonshine run somewhere over in East Tennessee. 

I love the combination of the words, terrible, generous and unexpected. (Okay, I have to do it here...*fist bump, Kerry*)

I could add lots more but then you will get tired of reading and click over to TMZ to find out what The Biebs is up to. So I'll stop here.

The Stalker

If I were ever going to stalk anyone - which I AM NOT - it would be Cynthia Rylant.

For one thing, I adore her writing.

I consider her the person who inspired me to find my own writing voice.

She is notoriously introverted, which fascinates me.

I have spent unhealthy amounts of time trying to find out information about her.

Here are some things I know:

She used to have a white dog named Martha Jane who liked pizza.

She once had a cat named Blueberry.

She worked in the children's department of the Cabell County Public Library in Huntington, West Virginia when she was 23.

She has a son named Nate, who was born "in the oranges and reds of the fall."

For many years, her "sweetheart" was Dav Pilkey.

She likes to go to the movies in the afternoon.

There are 8 boxes of cool stuff of hers in the special collections department at the Kent State University Library, including "an interesting written dialogue between a TV movie producer seeking the rights to Missing May and a reluctant Rylant."

I love that: "...a reluctant Rylant."

(A side note: That library has a cool online feature where you can "talk" to a research librarian in real time. They are amazing and very helpful.)

This is part of the letter she got from ALA when she won the Newbery:

And, I'm saving the best part for last.

She has written me two letters:

(She is recommending a book called I Am One of You Forever by Fred Chappell and anything by James Agee.)

(She is telling me that my novel was "lovely." That is such a perfect Cynthia Rylant word: lovely.)

She signed the first letter "Cynthia" - but she signed the second letter "Cyndi."

See how close we've become?

(Note to Cyndi: I promise I will not stalk you. Call me. Let's do lunch.)

My best friend, Cyndi

One of my favorite blogs is Shrinking Violets, Marketing for Introverts. There was recently a post nominating Cynthia Rylant as the Coolest Introvert in Children's Literature.

I TOTALLY second that vote. I adore Cynthia Rylant. She's my literary crush, no doubt about it.

I consider her my ultimate, all-time, tip top, A-one inspiration of all time. Missing May spoke to me like no other book. Her voice. Her sense of place. Her heart.

So when my book, Me and Rupert Goody, was published, I sent her a copy and told her how much she had inspired me. I told her that she had continued the chain of creative spirit. (Good line, huh?)

Well, guess what?

She wrote me back! I mean wrote - as in by hand - on pretty pink note paper.






I've blurred the signature cause, well, this is the nasty ole internet and all. But trust me, she really wrote me. She said all these nice things about my book. Like, she thought my novel was "lovely." I mean, who else could use that word in a normal sentence and sound normal?

Oh, and she liked the goodness of the characters' hearts. Isn't that just so Cynthia Rylant?

And get this, here was her favorite line in the book (I'm not making this up): "I ain't eating another pinto bean as long as I live."

AND she signed the note CYNDI RYLANT.

Not Cynthia.

Oh no - not for me, her new best friend.

It's CYNDI (that's right, with a Y and an I)

And check out that little heart. I mean, come on!

So, Cyndi, if you're out there: Keep up the good work (and call me - we'll do lunch.)