NaPiBoWriWee 2012: Day Six – May 6, 2012
Welcome to DAY SIX of NAPIBOWRIWEE!
Can you believe it? Only two days left! In 48 hours, you will be the proud author of 7 first draft picture books written in 7 days, thanks to my fourth annual National Picture Book Writing Week goal! 🙂
I am so proud that y’all are still in it to win it! 🙂 For those of you who successfully finished five first drafts of picture books – congratulations! For those of you who are still working on Books 1, 2, 3, and/or 4, hang in there!
Today’s blog includes a special prize announcement from critically acclaimed and veteran picture book author ANN WHITFORD PAUL, plus some more random musings from me and other updates.
(Please keep reading after the jump for all the NaPiBoWriWee Day Six goodies!)
For Day Six, I wanted to introduce you to the WONDERFUL ANN WHITFORD PAUL. She’s an award-winning veteran children’s picture book author. I remember meeting her at an SCBWI critique picnic event more than ten years ago when I was just a newbie aspiring non-published children’s book writer. I was amazed by her insightful advice and devoured all her picture books. A strange coincidence – a few years later, I would end up working with her brother, actor Bradley Whitford, when I was a staff writer on NBC’s THE WEST WING. (He played the character of Josh Lyman on that show.) What a talented family! 🙂
Ann Whitford Paul writes picture books, poetry and early readers. Her books have won numerous awards including NY Times Notable books, Carl Sandburg Award for Children’s Literature, Bank Street College Best Books list, Notable Science and Social Studies Books, National Parenting Centers “Seal of Approval,” 2001 Recognition of Merit from the George C. Stone Center for Children’s Books of the Claremont Graduate University, and been nominated for numerous state reading awards. She is the author of the popular WRITING PICTURE BOOKS: A Hands-On Guide from Story Creation to Publication.
Ann has graciously offered TWO prizes for this year’s NAPIBOWRIWEE. Winners (chosen at random) will win these personally autographed books:
WRITING PICTURE BOOKS: A Hands-On Guide from Story Creation to Publication by Ann Whitford Paul (Writers’ Digest Books 2009)
and…
WORD BUILDER by Ann Whitford Paul and illustrated by Kurt Cyrus (Simon & Schuster 2009)
Thank you, Ann! For more info on Ann and her wonderful books, check out her website here: http://annwhitfordpaul.net/
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I wanted to blog again about DISTRACTION. Because I know real life just gets in the way of writing. I know everyone has children’s soccer games to attend, dinners with friends, dealing with house repairs, work deadlines, or fill-in-the-blank massive distraction that ruins your plan to take some time off to write.
And then we have the temptations of FACEBOOK, TWITTER, all forms of social media, emails, etc.! So how do you deal with the INTERNET when it sucks you into its procrastination vortex?
I wanted to share with you this amazing article from POETS & WRITERS Magazine (I subscribe to this magazine, it’s fantastic).
The article, “Inner Space: Clearing Some Room for Inspiration” by Frank Bures, brought up some great points about how much INFORMATION we digest every day just from being on the Internet.
The article link is here:
http://www.pw.org/content/inner_space_clearing_some_room_for_inspiration_0?cmnt_all=1)
From his article:
“Scientists at the University of California in San Diego calculated that in 2008 (a year after the original iPhone was released) Americans consumed thirty-four gigabytes of information per day, the equivalent of one hundred thousand words—or 350 percent more than we consumed on a given day in 1980.
“Not surprisingly, there has been an avalanche of stories about the effect this is having on us, and specifically about what this means for our brains. Most of the news is not so good: One study suggests our lack of downtime is lowering our ability to think critically and to analyze. Others claim distraction causes loss of IQ points, and that it can take up to twenty-five minutes to regain our focus after an e-mail or phone call. Another study estimates that distraction is costing the U.S. economy around $650 billion a year in lost productivity. Much of this research seems to validate the words of the Roman thinker Publilius Syrus who said: ‘To do two things at once is to do neither.’
“These deleterious effects are catalogued at length in Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (Norton, 2010).
“This is an increasingly common lament among writers these days. Novelist Richard Powers, author most recently of Generosity: An Enhancement (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), says that he used to work for twelve or fourteen hours straight, but that such immersion has become impossible. In her lecture after receiving the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, Doris Lessing said: ‘Writers are often asked, ‘How do you write? With a word processor? An electric typewriter? A quill? Longhand?’ But the essential question is, ‘Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write?’ Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas—inspiration.’
“Other writers such as Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen, and Jonathan Lethem have gone on record saying they write on Internet-disabled computers. There is, of course, a very good reason for this.
“In his landmark book, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (HarperCollins, 1996), psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discusses the five stages of creativity—preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration. Of these, it seems that at least three, if not four, are incompatible with the constant influx of new and fascinating information we encounter online. What creativity needs most of all is time for the mind to percolate, to mix old ideas together in new ways, and to find connections no one else has found. For this the mind must be left to itself.
“In Creativity, Csikszentmihalyi identified four major obstacles that keep people from creative accomplishment: psychic exhaustion, easy distraction, inability to protect/channel creative energy, and not knowing what to do with that energy.”
To read more, go to this link to read the entire article: http://www.pw.org/content/inner_space_clearing_some_room_for_inspiration_0?cmnt_all=1
I was so floored by the information in this article, that I bought and read the books Bures recommended. I highly recommend these books – they really open your mind to how the Internet can sometimes be a block to creativity. It’s GOOD to research and explore social media and the Internet for discovering new information. But sometimes, too much information can lead to an overload where you can’t find that “zen” to take the information you’ve learned, process it, and WRITE.
Here are the links to those books:
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (HarperCollins, 1996)
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (Norton, 2010)
So how do we apply all this fancy schmancy theory talk to NAPIBOWRIWEE?
Here’s my suggestion on how to use these FIVE stages of creativity to writing 7 picture books in 7 days. Every day, follow these five steps to inspire you to finish one picture book each day!
1. Preparation: Spend a quiet amount of time (whatever you can spare, 15 minutes to an hour), and re-read a favorite picture book that you want to inspire you, or a favorite writing book (like Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird). Think about what area you want to write about for Book No. 6 – will it be a poem? A funny story? A quiet Good Night Moon type story? Will it be about an animal or human character? Will it be based on your own childhood experiences? What theme are you interested in exploring?
2. Incubation: Then get your work done – be it at the office, school, or at home. Let what you read gestate in your brain.
3. Insight: When you have another 15 minutes (or one hour) available, brainstorm on your idea. Think about the picture books that inspire you, the writing book advice that you feel is helpful for this idea. Write everything down on paper – your outline or your notes or your brainstorms of where you want this story to go. What’s the beginning/middle/end? Who is your character? What do they want? What’s in their way? How do they overcome the obstacle? How do they change at the end of the story?
4. Evaluation: When you have another free hour, read over these notes and evaluate which ideas/thoughts/sentences you wrote down are worth keeping in the draft.
5. Elaboration: When you are ready – WRITE. Don’t correct or self edit yourself. Just get the draft done.
Then… after NaPiBoWriWee ends, you can go back and follow these five steps again when you revise your first draft! 🙂
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And if all else fails with Internet distractions, do what I do when I need to “break the glass in case of emergency.” MAC FREEDOM. You download the software from this program that BLOCKS all Internet access (email, Facebook etc.) for anywhere from 15 minutes to EIGHT HOURS.
The only way to get online? SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTER.
LOL!
So here’s the link if you’re interested:
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As for myself… well, unfortunately, I had to rush to the Apple Store in the afternoon to fix this problem. Check out this picture…
Long story short: Since February, I have had this problem. Every day, about 50 times or more per day, these scary “checkerboard pixels” flash across my screen. I’ve been to the Apple Store several times to get a bunch of things done to my computer, from having it re-set to re-installing the software to removing third-party plug apps and replacing the logic board AND the RAM. Nothing has worked. So when these pixels flashed AGAIN today, I had to take the compute BACK to the store. Which ruined my perfectly planned “Writing Saturday.” Boo! 🙁
So I lost a lot of time in the store, waiting for them to fix this problem. Fortunately, the geniuses at the Apple Genius Bar are definitely geniuses! YAY! 🙂
But talk about a massive distraction for NaPiBoWriWee today! 🙁
But… the good news? I came home and managed to finish Book No. 4 today on Day 5. 🙂 I also came up with a non-fiction idea for Book No. 5 and did some major research and took notes.
So at the end of Day Five, I have FOUR really really rough drafts done plus an idea and rough outline for Book Five.
The goal for Day Six? WRITE the draft for Book Five and brainstorm an idea for Book Six. I always fall behind in my OWN NaPiBoWriWee event. I wonder if it’s also because I have to write a blog too every day! LOL!
I have Monday off, so the goal is to use Day 7 to TRY and write two books at once. We’ll see if it actually happens. I’m behind by one book. Fingers crossed!
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So that’s it for DAY SIX. Please keep your comments coming. I’ve read them all but haven’t had time to reply specifically to everyone because of my computer mishap today. I’ll catch up by tomorrow night.
For your DAY SIX blog inspiration, here’s my cat Oreo dealing with my computer problems. LOL! 🙂
DAY SEVEN BLOG will be posted before 12 PM PST on Monday May 7th. Until then, I look forward to your comments on Day Six and I hope you guys are hanging in there! 🙂 And as I’ve mentioned before, everyone who comments or emails me (paula at paulayoo dot com) will be included in the special prize contest drawing at the end of the week with special prizes, including Ann Whitford Paul’s autographed books! Thanks again, Ann!
Until the next blog… Happy Writing! WRITE LIKE YOU MEAN IT! 🙂
I began pb #6 in the wee hours because I’ve got other plans for the rest of the day. “It’s The Pits” will be a non-fiction book. This bare bones draft is only 275 words, but the structure is in place. Much research is needed to really flesh out the manuscript.
Six down, one to go…
YES! I love it when you write non fiction. Let us know how this book progresses!
DNF for Day 5 #NaPiBoWriWee – I never write on the weekends. It feels so weird. Gonna try and finish yesterday’s story today, about ½ way through.
Good luckers everyone!
It is good to take the weekends off. The May 1-7 dates are permanent cuz it’s just easier to remember every year, so this year has been weird with how it fell sort of mid-week!
Number #6 is typed and saved!
Margaret, I am soooooooo thrilled you are participating in this! 🙂 Congrats! You’ve done better than me, I am behind but I think my broken computer is a good excuse. LOL!
Broken computer is absolutely an excuse, and knowing you I’m sure you’ll knock out three drafts before lunch today.
Being a picture book novice, I gave myself a break and planned to write seven semi-autobiographical stories about the same two characters. Saves a lot of planning!
Thanks Margaret. I thought I was going to LOSE it, this computer has been such a nightmare and has chosen to break every time I’ve been on some sort of urgent deadline. LOL! 😛 I like your idea of the stories on two characters – could become a middle grade novel or chapter book series or a PB series, that’s great!
Coincidence? I meant to start the day with a sketch but grabbed Ann’s book (WRITING PICTURE BOOKS: A Hands-On Guide from Story Creation to Publication) while still under the covers. Opened somewhere, anywhere, read a few paragraphs and VIOLA! The skies cleared and light was shed on an older MS draft! So I jotted quick notes lest I should have a brain-spill on the way to the computer. Despite the clock reading 6:02 on a Sunday morning, I was unable to contain my happiness and woke my husband to bask in the rays of the computer screen and read my solution! Much later I read today’s NaPiBoWriWee post – coincidence? Now to get #6 out!
Julie the coincidence here is CRAZY. Wow. Glad we had such good timing! 🙂
The best laid plans…often change. Finished #4 on day 5 and started #5. Plan for today: finish #5 and do #6…let’s see what the writing gods have in store…
I’m just happy to have gotten this far…thanks again Paula for the PUSH.
I think I am on your same schedule! LOL! So I will push you if you push me, too! 🙂
Love the five steps to creative writing! I happened to do that Thursday and it was amazing what the characters do when left loose in your head. I need to schedule step 1 so I can turn it into a daily habit.
Oh I like Step 1 as a daily habit! 🙂 Good idea!
Thanks so much for a great post, Paula. So much good info and things to think about–Oo la la, distraction :-p .
I wrote up a sixth rough draft today. It’s kind of silly but it comes full circle so I’m calling it a day.
BTW, I think Oreo has a bright future in tech support–get that resume out there, boy!
One more day, everyone! This has really flown by.
LOL Oreo could be the first Cat Genius at the Apple Genius Bar. 🙂 Congrats on your wonderful productivity this week!
Just as I expected I’m not going to finish 7 drafts in 7 days (unless a miracle happens tomorrow.) I do read all the posts though, so much information! Thanks again for the inspiration and advice 🙂
That’s okay, I may join your ranks as well cuz this week was insane for me. But I’m glad you have had fun and learned a lot. Thank you for your kind comments as well.
I had forgotten how much I love writing rhyming poems. I used to write them all the time when I was a kid and then I got a book about publishers and listing after listing said “no rhyme,” and I kind of gave it up. Then I grew up and I decided I wanted to write for kids and people were again saying, “no rhyme.” Well the last two days I’ve been writing in rhyme again and I LOVE it. I love it, I love it, I love it! Day six done. One day to go!
Glad u r rhyming again! I think they say NO RHYME because most of the time, it never really works and most people are clunky at rhyming. But I say rhyme because it’s good writing exercise and you know what they say about getting to Carnegie Hall… you gotta practice, practice, practice! 🙂
Started out rough. Absolutely nothing on the page. It started to hurt. So I took by pad and a pen to lunch. While eating the best albondigas soup in the whole wide world, I actually did a rough draft for day five. Don’t know where it came from. it must have been in the soup—just popped into my head. It needs a copious DONE.
We’re all an amazing thing here.
Take care
holly
I must have some of this magical albondigas soup. Yum. Love that soup actually. Glad it helped you! Food is important for writing – there are certain foods they recommend for creative people like blueberries etc. for brain food. 🙂 Clearly albondigas soup is on that list. 🙂
A person can tell what a rough draft it is today by seeing how I am not even editing my blog writing. lazy Sunday. Silly me.
holly
My Day #6 —
Sit with the laptop on my lap. Stare at a blank Word doc.
Check Facebook. Nothing new. Stare at blank Word doc again.
Check email. Nothing new there either. Stare at blank Word doc again.
Repeat all steps for a few hours.
Finally give up to do the dishes in the sink. Magic happens! I get an idea. Run back to the computer to jot down a few notes before finishing the dishes.
Mull over idea during dinner.
Write #6 after dinner.
SUCCESS!
By the way – I keep hearing about “Writing Picture Books.” I have got to buy a copy (or hope I’m lucky enough to win it).
LOL best. comment. EVER. 🙂 Loved how even your comments are creatively written! 🙂
Congrats to all who are still riding this fun wave. Thanks to you, Paula, for putting in the incredible effort and time to give us these fantastic posts to spur us on. Really great stuff. So sorry to hear about your technology glitch – yuck. I’m wondering…do you have extra hours in your day out there on the West coast? You have a LOT going on and seem to be getting it all done…what’s the catch?
I have a question Re: Day 5’s advice on keeping it short. The draft I wrote that day has ONE word (repeated several times, as in Jez Alborough’s “HUG”). Of course I had to include “art notes” so the storyline makes sense. How big of a “no-no” is this for a person just starting out? Too presumptuous? I’d love to hear thoughts on this.
Hi. Art note is NOT presumptuous. If you need an art note, especially for certain repetitions, by all means, put in the art note. 🙂 As for your question about my schedule – the first part of the week was easier. I knew ahead of time that my Friday, Saturday and Sunday would be super busy (and then I had the added computer problem fiasco as well). So on Days 1-3, I brainstormed ideas for Books 4, 5, 6 so at least I had rough ROUGH outlines of what those books would be and then just wrote some HORRIBLE vomit drafts. I’m behind tho, thanks to the vomit draft, so I’m still researching my non fiction book. I have Monday off, so I’m gonna go for broke on Day 7 and try to make up for lost time! Plus, I’m actually a very fast writer cuz it’s my job, and my fast training was in part due to being a journalist for ten years plus dealing with high pressure TV deadlines. So I’m pretty good at focusing and can get a LOT written in just one hour. Not that any of it is any good, though. LOL! 🙂
Good question about the art note. I’ve wondered the same myself. Thanks for asking. And thanks for responding Paula.
You’re welcome!
Life happened to I wrote #5 this morning and just finished #6 tonight. #6 has a beginning, middle, and end and ressolves the problem but only has enough page turns for 22 pages so I guess I need to flesh it out a bit. At 290 words, there is still space to do that so I will return to it after this week is done.
BTW – Ann Whitford Paul’s book is the first one that I bought myself years ago – it is excellent. I had no idea that she was related to Bradley or that you were a staff writer for West Wing (we loved that show nearly as much as we love Eureka)- Cool!
Keep chipping away at it Alison, it sounds like you are right on schedule. 🙂 And yes, I was a staff writer, it was my first job at WW. My script credits are Process Stories and The California 47th in Season 4 and Han in Season 5.
Wow – looks like a tire tread dragged across your screen!
Nothing frustrates me like laptop problems…nothing!
Thanks Cathy! I know, it was really scary to see those checkerboard pixels on my screen. I back up everything etc. but it was so annoying! I can’t believe they fixed it! 🙂
THANK YOU to Ann for this post! Distraction is my demon. The input today was most enlightening. I have to go back and reread, tho’, cause I was distracted the first time by my grandkids. LOL – seriously! Appreciate the Poets & Writers link and all the others from you too, Paula. So appreciate all the resources that have been provided this week. OH- I got distracted – meant to say Draft #6 is done-I have a series I’ve been working on about a pet I grew up with when we lived in a lighthouse. So #5, #6 and hopefully #7 have flowed easily. Blessings to all—Oh Paula—West Wing too? Wow another of our favorites. Let us know where you will be next, it’s bound to be another favorite show if you are there:)–Sorry about your tech issues-blessings on your computer too.
LOL I loved how you got distracted while writing your comment. 🙂 Glad you are having fun and thank you for your kind comments. It’s always a joy to meet people every year at NaPiBoWriWee and have us all bond as writers together on this crazy adventure! 🙂
Skinned by today’s PB. Attempted rhyme. Needs a lot of fixing later.
That article you shared on Clearing room for inspiration is disturbing. Loss of focus, lowered IQ, low productivity… That explains it all! No more social media for me!
Phew! Glad you at least got the PB done. You can revise it later to make it shine. yes, the article was really scary – but I think social media is fine, just as long as it’s done in moderation. It can be a time suck, definitely. 😛
I’m enjoying writing. I look forward to No. 7 on Monday.
Thanks Stacy, I’m glad you are having fun!
Hi – I’ve written 3 picture books featuring the same character. It has been fun because a personality is definitely developing. This will probably blend into one manuscript but it has been a valuable exercise. Still hoping to finish all 7 by tomorrow night.
Hi Claire. I’m excited to hear that some of your PBs might meld into a longer novel or chapter book. I love that this writing experiment yielded some fantastic results for you! 🙂
I finished drafts 5 and 6 last evening. I didn’t like the way 6 turned out, and have been revising it this morning, and then I will start on my last draft and hope to have it completed by this evening.
Hope everyone had a great writing weekend.
OMG guess what? I didn’t like my Book 6 EITHER last night. I thought it would be a good story and then when I wrote it, I was a little disappointed. I still think however there is potential, I’m just not getting the right tone. I hope your Book 6 turns out the way you want it to when you go back to revisions! Hope you are well! 🙂
What a GREAT WEEK this has been! One more draft to go for me. It was the perfect time and perfect challenge to get me fired up. THANK YOU for doing it.
Donna, I’m excited this got you fired up. I will be posting more blogs AFTER NaPi ends, just some wrap up blogs etc. and contest winner announcements. So stay tuned for that and good luck writing today!
OK. Its 1pm on Day 7, but I just finished Draft #6! Woo hoo! Its the home stretch now. 🙂 Thanks for the info on Distraction. So helpful. One of the best things that ever happened to me creatively was that I canceled tv. No tv at my house! It was a huge distraction.
Congrats Marcie! And yes, TV can REALLY be distracting. And I say this as a TV writer producer. LOL! 🙂 I think the way the TV industry/technology is headed, more people are watching TV on their computers anyway. I will force myself to write at a coffeehouse just to avoid turning on the TV. My weakness is Food TV cooking shows. LOL!
Got day 6 done this morning. I haven’t a clue what I’ll write for day 7. Oh,boy. %(
Hi! It’s almost 2 PM and I just got home from some work meetings. Day 2 has finally begun for me! 🙂 Happy Writing and glad to see so many fun comments so far. Yay! 🙂