One Bad Day/Dedicated to the Tuesday Kids of Massapequa

Yesterday I had my first GOOGLE MEETS. A child of ZOOM, I was unfamiliar with the buttons that surrounded my face on the screen and, as speaker, my face filled the whole screen. The whole screen. I could barely see the students I was visiting. The boxes to the right of my face were so tiny that despite the fact that I was prepared, I kept  losing my train of thought. Talking only to my own face was just too disorienting, It was a mess. And I was a mess. I had never had such a terrible virtual visit. For the rest of the day, I alternated between tears and worry. 

Today I have three more virtual visits. If you are reading this, the visits went well. If the visits do not go well, this post will remain unpublished. 

This, then, is what I want to say. What I want to believe. What I tell my kids. What I once told my own students, and what I am telling myself now, three hours before my next GOOGLE MEETS. This is what  I believe to be true and what I hope to prove. 

ONE BAD DAY DOES NOT DETERMINE THE DAYS TO FOLLOW. ONE BAD DAY DOES NOT A REPUTATION BREAK. 

At times, we all find ourselves lost. We find ourselves confused and sometimes it seems, the harder we try the worse the situation gets. But, I tell myself (without looking at myself), the beauty is in the trying. If that weren't true, I never would have learned to ride a bicycle. Wiping the mud off my knees, I got back on my Schwinn, I pushed my sneaker off the curb and peddled as fast as I could until the wind took me in her arms. I trusted her and I flew. 

That's what I hope to do today. To trust myself. To succeed where just yesterday I failed.

I'm visiting to talk about the writing process especially how it relates to my first verse novel, All the Broken Pieces. I want to tell the students that I've wanted to be a writer since I was four years old. I want to tell them about plotters and seat-of-the-pants-ers. I want to tell them that there is no right or wrong way to approach a story. Most of all, I want to tell them that their voice is important. What they have to say is as important as what I have to say. I want to tell them to ignore the naysayers and believe in themselves. 

Then I'll talk about All the Broken Pieces. How it was my first verse novel. How I learned that writing is more than just making up stories. Writing is listening too. Writing is using our senses,  noticing things and making connections.  

Because I write historical novels, for me, writing is a combination of  research, experience and imagination. An answer to the great question, WHAT IF? 

All the Broken Pieces is a story about the strong bond between brothers. I had read an article in an education magazine that claimed that girls would read about anyone, but boys hesitated to read a book with a girl protagonist. It also said that boys were less sensitive. As a mother and a middle school teacher I had found boys kind and caring. I also had two brothers, one older, one younger. Could I write a story with emotional depth that would appeal to both girls and boys? I remembered how much my younger brother missed my older brother when he left for college. True, but not very dramatic. WHAT IF instead of going to college, the older brother was enlisting in the army?  WHAT IF it was wartime? 

The Vietnam War was the soundtrack of my childhood. But even having lived through the daily recitation of battles and bodybags, I had lots of research to do. All the Broken Pieces is a combination of research, experience and imagination. 

For me that's how writing starts. Something piques my interest, I read, I research, I think.  I hold my thoughts in my heart, until a character slowly forms in my mind. That's when I listen and start to write. 

These are the things I want to say. I'll let you know how it goes. Or not.

☀️

How things change when kids are involved and can be seen! How sneakers, backpacks and smiling faces can change a bad yesterday into a lovely today.