NAPIBOWRIWEE 2014: Day Six – Inspirational Diversity Quotes! (May 6)
(NOTE: For this entire week, I will post a new blog every day by 6 AM PST here. So check back daily! Also – I will post fun Tweets live each day! Follow me on Twitter @paulayoo)
WELCOME TO DAY SIX!
Guess what? NAPIBOWRIWEE IS NOT OVER YET! Even though it’s Day Six, it means you still have 48 hours to get those 7 picture book drafts done!
Congrats to those of you who are working on Draft No. 6 and are not fazed at all by this week of intense hard work. I bet your hair looks perfect, too. Obviously I hate you. 🙂 KIDDING. And for those of you still struggling on Book 1, 2, or 3 or are behind, do NOT despair! You’ve got 48 more hours left! A lot can happen! Hang in there! 🙂
(Keep reading after the break for my Day Five update, some new hi-tech writing recommendations, and some inspirational quotes for this year’s NAPIBOWRIWEE theme about Diversity in Kid lit!)
MY DAY FIVE UPDATE: My Day 5 was off to an early start because I had to drop my three cats (Oreo, Beethoven & Charlotte) off at the vets. I posted a funny picture of them on Oreo’s Twitter account (@oreothecatyoo) and then suddenly had an inspiration for today’s Day 5 picture book. Cats at the vet! 🙂 So yay! Day 5 was much smoother than Days 1-4. I think Days 1-4 were a bit too stressful for me because I had an orchestra gig with two rehearsals May 1, 2, 3 and I have to maintain this blog and the comments section as well as deal with social media. So my plate was too full. Now it’s back to a much more manageable portion, so I think Days 6 & 7 will go smoothly as well. It’s almost as if these are MY Days 1, 2, and 3 that I’m making up for! 🙂 (PS. Unfortunately when I picked up my cats at the vet later in the day, it turns out that although they are all in good healthy, they gained weight. Oreo went from 17.0 to 17.9 pounds, Charlotte from 8.0 to 8.9 pounds, and poor Beethoven went from 12.9 to 14 pounds! I totally spoiled them!)
And now for today’s Hi-Tech Tip: All week, I’ve been recommending some writing apps for your computer and iPad and smart phones as ways to spark your creativity. So today I wanted to recommend something new! I’ve written about SCRIVENER writing software in the past – I swear by Scrivener. I love Scrivener. If I could marry Scrivener, I would. LOL! 🙂 Scrivener is this fantastic multi-platform writing software that I now use to write all my novels and picture books. To find out more, go here: http://www.literatureandlatte.com
Now Scrivener has a new software program that I am curious to try. I am downloading it for my Day 6 and will report back on it in tomorrow’s blog. I’m curious if anyone else has used this program. It’s called SCAPPLE.
Scrivener describes SCAPPLE as: “Scapple is an easy-to-use tool for getting ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them. It isn’t exactly mind-mapping software—it’s more like a freeform text editor that allows you to make notes anywhere on the page and to connect them using straight dotted lines or arrows. If you’ve ever scribbled down ideas all over a piece of paper and drawn lines between related thoughts, then you already know what Scapple does.”
I know today in a lot of schools they are teaching students how to do “cluster” thinking for essay writing. I was not taught “cluster” writing/brainstorming when I was in school. It seems to be a more contemporary educational method in our schools today. So I have a feeling it might be hard for me to wrap my brain around SCAPPLE compared to younger people who were raised on “clustering” methods. I’ll report back tomorrow with how my SCAPPLE adventure went.
For more info on SCRAPPLE, go here: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php
DAY SIX & DIVERSITY IN KID LIT: And now to celebrate DAY SIX, here are some wonderful quotes on diversity to celebrate this year’s NAPIBOWRIWEE theme of diversity and multiculturalism in children’s literature. Special thanks again to Hannah Ehrlich of LEE AND LOW BOOKS and picture book authors and illustrators Don Tate, Kelly DiPucchio, Greg Neri, Ken Min, and Erin Eitter Kono! Their books (as well as mine) will be autographed and available as prizes for our random prize contest drawing!
Here are some quotes on diversity that I hope will inspire you on Day No. 6 of NAPIBOWRIWEE!
“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
― Maya Angelou
“He who is different from me does not impoverish me – he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves – in Man… For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. [Commencement Address at American University, June 10 1963]”
― John F. Kennedy
“If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.”
― Gene Roddenberry
“Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.”
― Carlos Fuentes
Do you have any favorite writing quotes that inspire you? Any in particular about diversity, too? Please post them in the COMMENTS section and share with us! 🙂 Thanks!
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I hope you are inspired! Remember, you do NOT have to write a multicultural themed book for your NAPIBOWRIWEE drafts. But if you are curious to try, go for it! I am just using my annual writing event to encourage both veteran published and novice aspiring writers to remember that diversity is a huge issue right now in children’s literature and will continue to be in the future. Whatever you write, whoever you write about, always remember – write from the heart and keep your themes universal so ALL children can relate to your voice.
Hugs and I hope everyone has a fantastic Day Six! Please comment below on how your Day Six went!
REMINDER: If you have signed up to post comments on my blog or have emailed me privately (paula at paulayoo dot com), then you are automatically included in our drawing. Winners will be announced in a special blog on May 8, 2014. For more info, check out our FAQs blog here: https://paulayoo.com/napi/?p=689
Until tomorrow, remember… HAPPY WRITING! WRITE LIKE YOU MEAN IT! 🙂
Okay, Day 6 and I have SEVEN DRAFTS! Tomorrow I’m shooting for many more. Maybe I’ll get them today? It’s my short list of ideas driving it. Keeping a daily journal is how it’s done.
As for diversity quotes, I chose this one :
Art [writing, diversity] for me…is a negation of society, an affirmation of the individual, outside of all the rules and all the demands of society.
~Emile Zola, a French writer and social activist. (1840-1902) (Mes Haines 1866)
I got up early and wrote. Day #6 is done…..can’t believe it. This week is almost over.
One and all have a great day.
hjr
A heavy cat is a happy cat…not necessarily a healthy cat though, so I guess they must lose some weight. Poor babies! Tell them they do *not* look overweight to me! 😀
Oh gosh, yesterday was like bleeding a rock for me and my story was even pithier than the previous day’s “glorified outline.”
Today, I swear blood started forming on my forehead. I think I have a story going though (thank goodness for the random idea I’d jotted down in my notebook several months earlier).
I’ve love to wrap up with a bang tomorrow and write another multicultural story but I’ll be lucky if I can crawl with bleeding fingers to the finish line. Hahahaha!
Good luck to you and everyone else on the final 2 drafts!
Thank goodness it is SCAPPLE and not *SCRAPPLE* which is an ookey sausage/cornmeal/pork-like breakfast food from the Pennsylvania area. My boss used to make us scrapple once a year, and we choked it down while pretending to actually like it. I think I’ll like SCAPPLE more than scrapple!
Draft 6 is limping toward the finish line!
LOL I actually wrote SCRAPPLE so I had to edit my blog. Thanks for the alert. 🙂 And I’ve had scrapple before and actually liked it. It’s very comforting. 🙂 LOL!
Scapple sounds cool. I cannot wait to hear how it went. Day six was like going in to have a tooth pulled. But I made it. Onward to day seven. I love the quotes especially the Carlos Fuentes one. 🙂
Working on my 6th book..trying to keep up….!
Love that Saint-Exupery quote! Also kinda loving my Day 6 Draft.
Not so much love on Scrivener. I don’t know about using that technology for writing–I feel a little like Wendy when Peter Pan came back for her and she was just too old. 🙂
LOL Wendy! 🙂 FYI I also write quite a bit by longhand too. I’m a mix of old-school longhand writing and hi tech software geek. 🙂
Hi Paula and fellow PB writers,
Today I got a late start, luckily I put something in the crock-pot for dinner this morning! Today, I thought about the book Tea Cakes for Tosh by Kelly Starling Lyons, and the Reading is Fundamental video I posted on Twitter (@RachelHamby if anyone wants to watch.) I thought about my own Grandma food memories and wrote a PB story about a funny one. 6 drafts done. Thanks for the motivation! Love the cat pic, I have 3 dogs, can’t take them to the vet on the same day. I’d be tied in a leash knot. 🙂
Finished #5 today and hope to get done w/#6 before bed (I surprised myself by getting caught up: a meeting getting cancelled mid-day and my kids getting invited over to friends’ in the neighborhood after school certainly helped).
I came into the week with a batch of ideas but have only used 3 of them. I am loving how new stories have emerged from the morass that is life. Its a pretty amazing process. Also: I’m finding that I’m doing this funny dance of alternating between writing fun/uplifting pieces and serious/somber ones. With the latter, of course, being highly unmarketable — which I kind of love too: when I’m PRODUCING in greater volume I feel more free to JUST WRITE.
And as for marketability (apropos of this year’s focus): look where misdirected notions of “marketability” have gotten us in terms of diversity anyway…
I am interested in the technology… I haven’t been able to imagine how it can help, but I am willing to give it a try. 5 drafts so far.. 2 more tomorrow!
Thanks for the motivation!
My kids have been sick the past three days, so that’s necessitated some rearranging in priorities, but I was able to play “catch up” some today! I have a majority of my 7 drafts done, the remaining are already briefly mapped. I feel confident I’ll be able to finish up tomorrow! Thanks, again, for this push.
Switched to a nonfiction picture book today. Nice change of pace.
No comment on day 6 draft (I don’t even know where yesterday went.)
But I did have a “connection” as my daughter’s kindergarten class is taught to look for while reading.
I’ve noticed her early reading books from school (you know the 8 page books with sight words) show a lot of diversity. So it seems those companies have made a choice to support diversity. (or perhaps there is some sort of government funding and I am naive 🙂