Laura Shovan: Working on a Jigsaw Puzzle with Moving Pieces

Notebooks are great for recording ideas and research, writing first drafts of poems and scenes, for sketches and doodles. But there comes a time in the life of a big writing project when an author needs to get organized. That's when I go for the binder.

When Amy asked me to put together a post about constructing THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY, I knew that the centerpiece of the post would be my big, giant binder of revisions. However, my novel in verse started small -- as a page of scribbled notes (and one important doodle) on the back of a writing conference handout.  Here is the story, from scribbled notes to my new book.

Click any photo to enlarge.

Literary Inspiration

I read SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY during my first year of teaching high school English. The class was “Literature About Society.” I loved the layers of this verse novel, published in 1915. Each poetic monologue adds to the nuanced view the reader has of a small town outside of Chicago.

The idea of re-setting SPOON RIVER in a fifth grade class bubbled up after I started working in elementary schools as a visiting poet. But it didn’t really solidify until…

Human Inspiration

 … my son’s fifth grade year. I was active at his school and knew his friends, his teacher, and observed many little details about their class.

They were obsessed with the WARRIORS series. They made little origami boxes out of Post-it notes and kept their erasers in them. Their teacher, Mr. Schoenhut, shook hands as the children walked into the classroom each day. (BTW: Robbie is in the red and white stripes.)

Initial Book Ideas

The summer after Robbie moved up from fifth grade, I was at a local SCBWI conference. Agent Stephen Barbara and I had a conversation about SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, a book we both loved. That night, I sketched out the initial ideas for my book. You can see above where it says “Spoon River ES.” On the left is a sketch of a concrete poem in the shape of a boy – one of the few things on this sheet that exists in the finished book.

Jason Chen's Bio-Sheet

Initially, I stuck close to the structure of Spoon River. I developed a collection of 30 poems, each in the voice of a student in one fifth grade class. There was no true plot, but together the poems were a portrait of a year fifth grade.

When I received feedback, readers liked the voices but didn’t understand what this was. It wasn’t a novel yet.

Over several years, I developed the characters. Above you can see a bio-sheet for one student: Jason Chen. It lists his character arc, what happens to him in each quarter of the book, facts about his family, who his friends are, what activities he likes. I have a sheet like this for every character.

Early Character Seating Chart

I created spreadsheets and lists and kept writing. The book went from 30 pages and 30 characters, to 50 pages, and finally 150 pages and 20 character when it sold. It was like working on a jigsaw puzzle with moving pieces.

One of the ways I kept track of the voices was by making seating charts. This is an early one. Some of these characters were cut from the book.

Giant Draft Binder

Working on revisions with my editor meant cutting two more voices and overhauling the book again.

Above you can see the giant binder where I kept drafts of all of the poems. Each tab represents one character. Every time I worked on a major revision, I pulled the book apart and focused on one voice at a time, so that each character’s voice sounded consistent and true to him or her. Then I reconstructed the order of the poems.

Despite cutting two voices, the book grew to 180 poems during this final phase.

Almost eight years later… THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY made its debut. It was a team effort, with lots of help from my agent, Stephen Barbara,  my editor, Wendy Lamb, and the team at Random House Children’s Books.

Laura Shovan

Laura Shovan is former editor for LITTLE PATUXENT REVIEW and editor of two poetry anthologies. Her chapbook, MOUNTAIN, LOG, SALT AND STONE, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. Laura works with children as a poet-in-the-schools and was the 2015-2016 Howard County Poetry and Literary Society's writer in residence. THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY  is her debut novel-in-verse for children (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House).

Visit Laura Online Here:
Website
Blog
Twitter
PDF of LAST FIFTH GRADE Educators' Guide

Laura has generously offered to send a signed copy of THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY to someone who comments on this post.  Please leave a comment, including a way of contacting you should you win, by Sunday, May 22, to be entered into the drawing.

Please know that Sharing Our Notebooks welcomes all kinds of notebook keepers - of any age and interest - to open up their pages and share their process.  At the present time, I am accepting all notebook entries and am especially hoping to receive some entries from boys and men who keep any kind of notebooks.  If you are interested in writing in this space, please contact me, Amy, directly.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

Melissa Stewart: My Most Critical Writing Tool

I began my first nature notebook in 1989, while taking an ecology class in college. Initially, I used it to record observations I made during field trips we took as part of the class. I still have that notebook, and I sometimes refer back to it for information as well as inspiration.

My professor recommended that we purchase a specific brand of notebook and waterproof pen. He told us to keep the notebook in a plastic bag, so it wouldn’t get wet, and suggested that we keep a small ruler in an envelope secured to the inside front cover. Of course, I followed all his recommendations, but over time, I’ve developed my own persnickety notebook habits.

For many years, I only pulled out my notebooks when I went hiking or explored natural areas near my home. But in 1996, I began a special notebook, a travel log, when I went on safari in Africa. After that, I kept a special notebook for each major trip I took—the Galapagos Islands, the Costa Rican rainforest, the coral reefs off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, Hawaii, the Florida Everglades. Those travel logs now reside in special folders inside a giant file cabinet in my office, and I pull material from one or more of them for almost every book I write.

When I became a fulltime freelance writer in 2000, an account advised me to keep records of how I spent my days to use as evidence if I was ever audited by the IRS.

At first, each entry was just a brief listing of projects I worked on each day.

But soon they evolved into much more. Today they are a hodgepodge of everything from lists of books I want to read to research notes to snippets of poetry.

They include sketches and observations, lists of title ideas, and thoughts about how to structure manuscripts in progress. 

My notebooks might seem like a cluttered mess to someone else, but not to me. By keeping all kinds of thoughts and ideas together in one place, I always seem to be able to go back and find what I need when I need it. 

I never go anywhere without my notebook, and I can’t imagine my life without it. It’s my most critical writing tool.

One thing I like to do in my notebook when I’m out exploring is make quick lists of observations. I write down anything that makes an impression on me, and then I try to use the observations to write a haiku. 

During a recent week-long residency at Wealthy School in East Grand Rapids, MI, I accompanied a group of students in grades 3-5 to a local wetland. I was intrigued by three female mallard ducks furiously feeding, probably because they wanted to fatten up before migrating. 

One student said, “It looks like their heads are vibrating.” What a great comment! That was all the inspiration I needed to start writing.

Here are the notes I took:

You can see I used pencil because I wanted to be able to erase. Based on those notes, here’s the first haiku I wrote:

Three female ducks
shaking, quaking, vibrating,
furiously feeding.

I wasn’t totally satisfied with that, so I left some blank space in my notebook. I thought I might give it another try later. 

Sure enough, while I was eating dinner, I had an idea. I realized that if I showed a photo I had taken of the ducks along with the haiku, I could use my words more wisely. 

Thanks to the photo, I didn’t need the first line of the haiku at all. Readers could see the three mallard ducks I was writing about. That allowed me to include some information about the setting.

Here is my revision:

Three vibrating heads

in a shallow wetland,

furiously feeding.

What do you think? Which version do you like better?

Melissa Stewart is the author of more than 150 science books for children, including FEATHERS: NOT JUST FOR FLYING (Charlesbridge, 2014, illustrated by Sarah S. Brannen), an ALA Notable and winner of the Cybils Award for Nonfiction and the Nerdy Book Club Award for Nonfiction. She is the co-author (with Nancy Chelsey) of PERFECT PAIRS: USING FICTION AND NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS TO TEACH LIFE SCIENCE, K-2 (Stenhouse, 2014). To learn more about Melissa and her work, please visit her website. 

I am very grateful to National Geographic, one of Melissa's publishers, for offering a giveaway of these three wonderful nonfiction books - SNAKES, DEADLIEST ANIMALS, and METEORS - to one lucky commenting winner! Please leave your comment by Sunday, January 31 to be entered into the drawing.  

As winners have sometimes not claimed their books, I would like to remind you that I will announce this month's winner in this space on January 31, and I will also make announcements at my Twitter page and at The Poem Farm Facebook page. Please consider following either of those pages if you would like to receive such updates.

Please know that Sharing Our Notebooks welcomes all kinds of notebook keepers - of any age and interest - to open up their pages and share process.  If you are interested in writing in this space, please contact me, Amy, directly.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Mary Lee Hahn: Following an Idea

I’ve been keeping journals or writer’s notebooks since I was in high school. In this picture is a stack from recent years. The rest are in a box somewhere in the basement!

My first notebooks were journals where I wrote about the trials and tribulations of being a teenager.  Later, when I became a teacher and learned about writing workshop, my notebooks were partly a model of what I wanted my students' notebooks to be, and partly a place where I took notes at conferences and meetings  It's embarrassing to admit, but my notebooks seldom did what they were supposed to do -- few pieces of writing were ever born in my notebook.

Fast forward to Poetry Month 2010.  I challenged myself to write a poem every day that April, and post it on our blog, A Year of Reading.  In honor of this project, I bought a new red notebook - my first poetry notebook.

That red volume lasted for two years worth of April Poetry Month poems.

This past March, I took part in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 and the four poems I wrote for that competition were all born in that red notebook.

Here's a peek (below) at the early drafts of the poem that became Saffron Harvest.  My early notes were about how the stigmas of crocus flowers are used to make saffron, but then I spent several pages trying to write a poem about pigs and several more pages trying to write a poem about dandelions! Five pages later, I got back to saffron, and the final poem started to take shape.

Click image to enlarge and read

This year, something happened after Poetry Month was over:  I KEPT WRITING POETRY!  Now my poetry notebook is the pink one in the picture above.

Last weekend, I decided (at the eleventh hour) to take part in Jama Rattigan's month-long celebration of peanut butter.  Below, you can see the entire process for the poem I wrote.

Click image to enlarge and read

I won't need to start from scratch for my next poem.  I have notes in my notebook about this week's full moon, about the frost on the grass a couple of weeks ago, and about truth, lies, facts, honesty , and self-discipline.  The hardest thing about writing poetry isn't finding the ideas; it's making the time to follow an idea around and around, page after page, and for hour after hour until the poem is just right!

Poet, blogger, and fifth grade teacher Mary Lee Hahn blogs at A Year of Reading where you can explore her poems, musings, wisdom, photographs, and book recommendations.  She toasts writers' notebooks here!

In honor of Mary Lee's notebook keeping, I would like to offer a giveaway of an ecosystem notebook, just like the pink one above (your choice of color).  Please just leave a comment and a way to reach you, or check back at here on Saturday, December 15 to see if you have won.  

Please share a comment below if you wish.

To find a poem by topic, click here. To find a poem by technique, click here.

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J. Patrick Lewis - "Odd Things in My Daybook"

Almost every professional writer/poet I know encourages young writers to keep a journal or notebook.  That's terrific advice...which I never follow.  (Writers are a weird bunch; we all have our own idiosyncrasies.)

Here's how it works for me: I start to work on a poem.  Then I rewrite it dozens of times (on my computer).  Before I am "finished" with the poem, you might see me talking to myself, yelling, cursing, staring at the walls, stopping to read a poem by Larkin, Auden -- the usual suspects, drinking a dozen cups of coffee, playing with the dog, taking a walk.  (Did I mention that writing is hard?)

In short, I have no first drafts or sloppy copies to show you, even though I sometimes do what seems like a googleplex of them (look up that word).  My computer has seen to it that all of my rough drafts have been eliminated in the act of rewriting.  That's the story of how I work, and I'm sticking to it!

What I do have, however, is a daybook, nothing more than a compendium of random thoughts on all manner of things that I come across in other people's books.  Reading, by the way, as I never tire of saying, is far more important than writing.  I usually avoid rules, but that's one I never break.

The odd things in my daybook are only marginally related to poetry or children's poetry.  They include thoughts on politics, writing, novels, life, people, popular culture, in a word, everything that interests me.  I include these things because when I read them, they seem so compelling that I will kick myself if I haven't written them down in my daybook.

As a famous anthropologist once said, these are ideas that are good "to think." They may give me an idea that I want to put in a poem, but just as often, they won't.  They're just there, to enjoy whenever I am looking for a brain massage.

A page from my daybook:

"'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but 'Once upon a time' lasts forever." 
Philip Pullman


"Life began for me when I ceased to admire and began to remember."
Willa Cather


"Nothing sickens me more than a closed door of a library."
Barbara Tuchman


"I work continuously in the shadow of failure."
Gail Godwin


"[Emily Dickinson is] a poet who could enamel the inside of a raindrop."
Clive James


"I believe that if I ever had to practice cannibalism I might manage if there were enough tarragon around." 
James Beard


"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world, a mother's love is not."
James Joyce


"What does education often do! -- It makes a straight-cut ditch of a meandering brook."
Henry David Thoreau


"A free verse poem that doesn't justify its line breaks hardly deserves the name poem."
Helen Vendler


"The meaning of life is to go back to sleep and hope that tomorrow will be a better day."
Charles Schultz



J. Patrick Lewis has published over seventy-five children's picture books to date with Knopf, Atheneum, Dial, Harcourt, Little, Brown, National Geographic, Creative Editions, Chronicle, Candlewick, Scholastic, and others. His first book of adult poetry, GULLS HOLD UP THE SKY, was published in 2010. He was recently given the 2010-2011 NCTE Excellence in Children's Poetry Award, and is the Poetry Foundation's new U.S. Children's Poet Laureate (2011 - 2013).

Pat is the proud co-owner of three children and five grandchildren. He lives in a garden of unearthly delights with his wife Sue and an undetermined number of moles.

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