Outlines

Last week I wrote about my difficulty finding the balance between down time and working time, and how a lot of that difficulty is that I lose focus very easily. That feels like a natural segue into a topic that I've also seen getting some attention again lately in the writing community. Plotting versus pantsing.

I know most of the people who might read my blog will probably be familiar with those terms, but in case you're not, plotting is when a writer plans out what they're going to write in advance (self-explanatory term, I think), and pantsing is when a writer figures out the story as they go (flying by the seat of their pants).

I'm not here to argue one way as being better than the other. Everyone's brains work differently, and a method that's golden for one person will be garbage for someone else.

I think that those of you who can sit down and write out a whole novel and produce something cohesive without planning it out first are magical. How do you do it? How do you not get side-tracked or end up with something completely different from what you wanted? How do you foreshadow? How do you not get side-tracked? How do you mix in hints for twists that haven't happened yet if you don't know they're going to happen? Seriously, how do you not get side-tracked, I need to know this secret? I don't know how you do it and I think it's witchcraft and you are phenomenal.

I used to be a pantser. Or I guess I should say I used to try to be a pantser. And every time, I would lose the thread of my story and wind up somewhere wildly different in a way that didn't make sense. Not just that! Arguably worse, I'd also get completely bogged down in absolutely unnecessary exposition or back story or trivial nonsense. In one draft of a novel I wrote, I had an entire chapter of a character doing chores on her family's farm.

What I'm saying is that I need an outline.

But before I can even start outlining, I have to brainstorm. I am so bad at unstructured writing that I literally start by typing, “What is the thing I want to talk about with this story?” And then I type anything that comes into my head until I have a couple that resonate with me. Then I type, “What is the story about this?” A character usually pops up there, and with a character comes the sort of thing that character would be in conflict with. A situation or another person. From there my questions can get more specific (with the occasional “but why do they do this” or “how do I get them there” mixed in with the rest), until eventually I hit the kind of flow that lets me summarize the basics of the story.

Then I can start outlining. With novels I go chapter-by-chapter, and the first thing I note for each chapter's outline is what I want the character development to be like. I will then make a bullet point for the major events that happen in the chapter, with sub points for character reactions and motivations and any transitions I need.

I outline my short stories as well, although that's a lot less extensive. The beginning of the process is the same, but after the basic summary is written the last step is to more or less just expand on that and then get writing.

As I draft the story or the novel, I refer back to the outline frequently. At the beginning of every chapter or section, any time I find myself starting to drift (which happens a lot) and any time I get stuck. As I finish drafting a section of the outline, I change the font on that part of the outline to red.

I cannot imagine myself writing a whole novel without having the roadmap my outline gives me.

So that's my basic method, it works really well for me. Maybe if there's anyone out there struggling it would work alright for you, too.

As a side note, I don't outline my flash-fiction pieces. Those I do pants, I start with a concept and wing it. Anything longer than flash, though, and I get lost again. And – can you tell? – I don't outline my blogs, either.

If you have a different plotting method, or if you are a pantser and you want to shed some light on how you do that incredibly enviable magic, feel free to comment and share how your writing happens!

Unbalanced

I have difficulty giving myself down time. That might come as a surprise to people who knew me in childhood or high school, when procrastination was my specialty. These days, I don't give myself enough rest.

Part of me likes it like that. If I'm controlling my environment by cleaning or, more recently, packing for our upcoming move – or if I'm controlling my inner experience to some degree by sinking into my writing – or if I'm controlling my future actions with excessive planning and list making – then I'm not worrying as much about the things that I can't control.

(The other factor that keeps me busy, busier than everything else, is motherhood, but I can't control my children and I don't try to, so the engagement and time spent with my kids is its own category, neither the kind of work that I throw myself into to avoid thinking about anything stressful nor the kind of break I'm thinking of when I say “down time.” It's just...being a parent.)

And if I start moving – literally if I'm cleaning or working out, metaphorically with the writing and planning – and just...never stop...then the procrastinating slacker I am deep down inside can never break back through again.

Honestly this wasn't a problem in 2019 or before. I had my plans, I had my schedules, I had my tasks and my lists. But I wasn't excessive. This blog post was planned four months ago, because planning my content in advance in case I have a couple of weeks during which I don't have the inspiration for a topic works for me. Today's post was supposed to be about how I found the balance between letting myself relax and keeping myself productive. I was going to have started on that already.

Then 2020 happened. March is when the pandemic started to actually affect life here in the USA, but my husband and I had been watching the news since January. So when the governor of my state announced on March 12th that schools would be closed a few days later for, he claimed at the time, three weeks, we knew what was coming and went into hard lock down in our house on that day.

When it started, when coronavirus stripped away so many of the illusory pieces of control a lot of us let ourselves think we had, my coping strategies went into overdrive. It was alright at first, it made me feel better. But now it's starting to stress me out.

Okay, not starting. By now it's been stressing me out for a couple of weeks. I get up at 5 am every day to write before the kids wake up. I have a four year old and a one year old and I keep my house both clean and tidy – and that's not a brag, it's a cry for help. I have only been able to give myself one hour of down time a day, after the kids are in bed when I watch one or two episodes of a tv show before I go to bed to.

If I thought this was sustainable I'd probably never stop, but that wouldn't make it healthy.

So I'm working on trying to find the balance. I bought that super calm video game everyone's talking and meme-ing about (am I allowed to say their name? I don't know? but you know the one I mean) and I expect that to help. But this post was supposed to be written after I'd already accomplished the whole balance thing. But since I never found that balance I couldn't write the post and old procrastinator me got hold of my blogging habits in a bad way.

Which means that I'm doing it even right now. My original intent in writing this entry at last was, I thought, to force myself to find the work / down time balance. The idea was that if I publicly said, “I have a problem letting myself relax, I'm going to work on that,” then I'd have to. It would go on the list. I'd schedule it. Is that cheating? I don't care. It'll work. But I also used writing this post to get moving again on my blogging and now I feel like I just...can't...stop again.

Look for a new blog post exactly on schedule next week.

And maybe eventually screen shots of my island because gosh dang it I am going to start taking time for myself to relax.

5 out of 5 stars for "The Wolves In The Walls" by Neil Gaiman

My four year old son’s favorite book is easily Neil Gaiman’s “The Wolves In The Walls,” illustrated by Dave McKean. It was given to us by a friend as part of a care package after I had my daughter, and she also sent to my son his own pig puppet, which he loves to hold while we read the book.

I love reading this book to my son. The story is engaging, the characters are well developed in spite of the length constraints of the story book format, and it has funny little moments throughout. It’s also very easy to read out loud.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It’s one of my favorite ones to read, and it’s my son’s favorite one to hear.

Of the book, my son had this to say:

What's your favorite part of the book? When the wolves come out of the walls, because I love them

Was there anything in the book that surprised you? When Lucy thought there was an elephant in the walls at the end

If you could be a character in the book for one day, who would you be? Lucy's mommy. Because I like when she tells Lucy there's no wolves in the walls but then she's wrong.

If one of the characters could come to our house to play, who would you like it to be? Lucy's brother, because I like everyone in the whole wide world.

If you had to pick one color to describe the book, what color would you pick? Why? Brown. Because we saw that in the pictures.

If you had to describe this book in one word, what word would you choose? Adventure

Did you like the ending of the story? Yeah, I like when Lucy said there's something in the walls again. The elephant.

Were there any new words that you learned from reading the book? Yeah, I learned about a tuba.

What do you think the author wanted us to take away from this book? Everything!

If you could ask the author one question, what would you ask? I would ask him why were the wolves even IN those walls.

Would you read other books by this author? Yeah, I want to read Coraline, because I saw the movie a lot of times. I want Wolves in the Walls to be a movie next!

Find it here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wolves-in-the-walls-neil-gaiman/1100594180?ean=9780380810956

https://www.amazon.com/Wolves-Walls-Gaiman-Audio-Collection/dp/B002RSRP6A/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+wolves+in+the+walls&qid=1587337858&sr=8-1

Stories By My Four Year Old

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about teaching storytelling to my son. I mentioned that we would begin writing the stories down together.
Over the past few weeks we’ve developed a method. I ask him who the story is about, what the character wants, why they want it, what stops them from getting it, how they try to solve the problem, whether it works or not, and what happens afterwards. He answers all of these questions while I take notes, and then I put it into a story structure and read it to him. He tells me if he wants me to change anything, and I do. Then I read it to him again. If he likes it, it’s done. Once it’s done I print it up and he takes it to show his dad and then put in his room.
It’s been really fun.
So here, presented with my son’s permission, are three of the stories I’ve helped my son to write so far. (The third one is my very favorite)

The Boy With Two Balloons
by G.R. Dotson

Once there was a boy who had two balloons.

He flew with them in the sky, heading towards the jungle. He wanted to visit all of the jungle animals.

But a plane flew past him, and its wind blew him off-course!

When he landed, he wasn't in the jungle. He was in a desert!

The first thing he saw was a spider who came along and touched him with one leg. The spider was wearing the fangs of other spiders all over it.

“Why are you wearing other spiders' fangs?” the boy asked.

“So that I can be the strongest!” the spider answered.

The spider poked the boy, but the boy held his balloons out of reach of the spider's pokes. So the spider crawled back to his web.

Then the boy jumped into the air with his balloons again. He wanted to go to the jungle to visit all of the jungle animals.

But an eagle on his way to the desert flew past the boy. The eagles' wings blew the boy away.

When he landed, he wasn't in the jungle. He was on a farm!

The first thing he saw was a barn cat who asked the boy, “Will you pet me?”

The boy petted the cat for a long time, until it jumped away.

Then the boy took his balloons again and jumped up into the sky and tried one last time to fly to the jungle.

Finally he made it! While he was there he visited an orangutan, a peacock, and a lemur. When he was done meeting them he waved goodbye and flew back home to his mommy.

THE END

Baboochi Can't Find His Friend
by G.R. Dotson

Baboochi the puffer fish wants to go and visit his best friend, Gonteess the epaulette shark. But he cannot find her anywhere! He starts to swim around the reef looking for her.

Instead an eel finds Baboochi, and it tries to eat him. So he swims in circles around the eel's head over and over, as fast as he can, until the eel is too dizzy. Then he swims away.

Then a dog jumps out of a fisherman's boat and tries to catch Baboochi for the fisherman. But dogs breathe air, so Baboochi just swims to the bottom of a trench under water and waits for the dog to go away.

But the fisherman threw garbage in the water and the garbage tangles Baboochi up. Baboochi asks a giant crab to use its claws to get the garbage off of him.

Once the garbage is off of Baboochi the giant crab tries to pinch him! He swims way out to sea to escape from the crab.

Out in the sea Baboochi meets a sperm whale who wants to eat him. Instead, Baboochi tells the sperm whale a story about a dragon, until the whale is so distracted that Baboochi can swim right back to the reef.

A big splash surprises Baboochi. It's his friend, Gonteess the epaulette shark! She was walking on land over the top of the reef when he couldn't find her before, and now she jumped into the water again. Baboochi and Gonteess go together to play at Baboochi's house.

THE END.

The Spider Who Stole All Fangs
by G.R. Dotson

When Zursu was a baby spider, his mommy spider told him a story. The story was about how to get the strength of many spiders by taking their fangs.

When Zursu was almost a big kid spider, he decided to get the strength of all the other spiders in the desert. He had to get their fangs.

He told the first spider to walk onto some sticks hiding a hole. The first spider fell through the sticks into the hole, and Zursu ate him all up except his fangs. Zursu used his spiderwebs to stick the fangs to his own body.

He made a trip-trap for the second spider using his silk. When the second spider tripped over the trap, Zursu ate her all up except her fangs. Zursu used his spiderwebs to stick the fangs to his own body.

He tricked the third spider into going in front of a bear walking through the desert. The bear stepped on the third spider and squished him, and Zursu ate him all up except his fangs. Zursu used his spiderwebs to stick the fangs to his own body.

Zursu trapped, tangled up, or tricked every spider in the whole desert. He ate them all up except their fangs. He used his spiderwebs to stick their fangs to his own body.

Zursu was the only spider left in the desert, and the strongest spider in the whole world.

The next day was Zursu's birthday party, he was a big kid spider finally. But he had no friends left to come to his party. He had eaten them all and stolen their fangs. He realized that even if he was the strongest spider in the whole world, he was still lonely.

So Zursu puked out all of the other spiders. He took their fangs off of his body. He used his spiderwebs to stick the fangs back on all the spiders. As soon as they had their fangs back they all came back to life.

They were very mad at Zursu. So he told them he was very sorry and gave them all some of his birthday cake.

Zursu promised that he wouldn't eat other spiders ever again, only birthday cake.

THE END

Three Stars for Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

I recently read Sleeping Giants by Silvain Neuvel.

I wasn't a fan of the interview-style narrative all throughout. I liked the first interview in the book, mostly because I didn't realize at that point that the whole thing was going to be like that. It seemed to me, initially, to be an interesting way to set up the past events and include some exposition. But then the next section was an interview also. And the next. And the entire book was either interviews or transcriptions of recorded phone calls or something like that. I think that the author was trying to really drive home the point that if (spoiler) alien technology was ever found on earth,(end spoiler) every aspect of finding it and researching it would be completely taken over by the government. And it would. But the plot could have made that point without making the whole book a series of interviews. It was an interesting concept to try but I think this was the wrong story for it. I'm reminded of World War Z, which was also presented in the format of a series of interviews, but in the case of WWZ, the interviews were being conducted by a journalist character rather than a government official, and that impacted the tone of the narrative and the way that the interviewed characters related their stories in a meaningful way. It's also worth noting that World War Z was presented as an alternate future society's history book. Sleeping Giants didn't have that vibe, I had the impression it was meant to be read as if it was currently or very recently occurring as a story, and in that case the interview format was a mistake in that it completely removed any sense of urgency or immediacy from the story. There was a single scene, which was presented as a transcription of a recorded telephone conversation, that had any sense of currently-unfolding stakes within the narration. Even in that scene the format dulled the impact of the events unfolding in the story.

I loved the characters. Neuvel does a good job of creating a rich cast of characters whose distinct personalities are apparent even in the interview format. Character development was present and good, which again I feel was all the more impressive for the style of this book. I wish that I could have felt a deeper emotional connection to them through the narration.

The plot of the book was interesting, the events of the story were well-conceived. I liked the twist, and I'm curious about the mysteries. The ending was really good. It left me wanting to know more about what was going on.

It would have been such a good book if not for that interview format. I would have given it four or possibly even five stars rather than three. If further books in the series abandon that choice, I will absolutely read them all. If, however, Neuvel continues to present these stories in this way, I'll pass.
I guess I half-recommend this book, read it for the characters and the interesting plot presented if you can get past a lack of engagement caused by the feeling of separation created by the interview style.

Find the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Giants-Themis-Files-Book-ebook/dp/B00ZNE44FK/ref=sr_1_2?crid=MEDAZ9IC1620&keywords=sleeping+giants+sylvain+neuvel&qid=1584368714&sprefix=sleeping+giants+sylvain%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-2
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sleeping-giants-sylvain-neuvel/1122089821?ean=9781101886717

My abbreviated review on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3200655732

Mitigating Distractions Online

What does your browser look like right now? How many tabs do you have open? I’m not asking in any attempt to shame the reader, I typically have between five and ten tabs open at any given time.

We’re all busy most of the time. We have jobs, school, pets, maybe kids, chores, errands, cooking, cleaning, maybe trying to stay healthy, maybe trying to have an active social life, and at the end of all of that it can be hard to find time to pursue our own interests, too. For me — and probably most of the people who read this blog — that’s writing. And when there is time to do that, there’s the internet. The internet is so full of distractions (profound, I know — don’t worry, that was sarcasm) that it can overwhelm any intention of doing something more fulfilling than scrolling and scrolling.

This has been a huge problem for me. I have struggled with maintaining focus for as long as I can remember. I am still very easily distracted.

In fact, right after I typed the phrase “I am still very easily distracted,” I leaned back to stretch and then took a sip of my coffee, and that was all it took for my attention to be broken away from the blog post that I am actively in the middle of writing. I tabbed over to Twitter, saw a tweet about book blurbs, composed a response to it, realized I didn’t know or care enough about the series specifically in question to get into any kind of debate about it, especially not at 6 in the morning, deleted the tweet, tabbed over to Facebook and checked that, and then caught myself and came back here..

And you know, for me it’s not social media. I mean, it is partially social media, but not as much as other things. My big weakness in terms of focus-killing is mindless games. Online jigsaw puzzles are a big favorite. That’s part of why I have an easier time with the drafting process. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about how I’ve turned my fixation on instant gratification into a kind of game I play against myself by tracking my word count. But right now I’m not drafting, right now I’m editing one project and outlining another. I don’t have a quick fix for those processes yet.

And I can’t just… stop myself from losing focus. I have tried. The harder I try to force myself to pay attention the more my mind wanders all over the place. Instead, I’m trying to find ways to mitigate it, to work around or within it. For me, this has meant not trying to control when I get distracted, but rather trying to guide how I get distracted.

I’ve started trying to keep only certain tabs open on my laptop. I still have Facebook and Twitter up, because I know myself, and if I tried to not include them then all I’d do is take the time every distraction-cycle to open a new tab, go to those sites, scroll around, and then close the new tab, every time. So I’ll skip that futility and just leave them up. But the other tabs I keep all focused on one theme. I have my email inbox open, because I exclusively use that for my book club and for short story submissions; this website’s page; Google docs with notes on current works in progress, ideas for my website, a file where I track my submissions, and shared drafts of novels with suggestions from my beta readers; reedsy with its story prompts; when I’m drafting, nanowrimo for the word count tracker; Google, to research for my writing; inkarnate.com, where I have my worlds’ maps for my own reference; and submittable.

With the exception of my social media accounts, all of my tabs on my laptop are themed around my writing. It helps me keep my head in the right space for what I want to be doing even when the distraction does hit and I wander away from my current project and onto the internet. What I’ve found is that it helps me get back to what I want to be doing faster, and it mitigates the loss of my momentum when I do get back to it.

It’s not perfect. I still have my phone right here in easy reach, and my phone has my current favorite time-wasting game on it. And nothing actually stops me from getting distracted in the first place. But it does help. I think that it could be applied to any kind of profession or hobby, not just writing. If you’re the kind of person who gets distracted in the same way that I do, you might try it and see if it helps you as well.

What methods do you use to keep your focus? Or to mitigate your distraction when it does hit? How do you bring your wandering mind back to where you need it to be?

I'm Not Worrying About Titles Anymore

I have laid on my back and stared at the ceiling making soft ocean noises under my breath for an hour, trying to come up with a name for a sea goddess for one of my novels. I have scrolled through lists of baby names. I've scrolled through lists of popular names from other eras. I've sung the ABCs in my head, trying to think of a name that starts with each letter of the alphabet. I've thought of real names and then replaces a letter or a whole syllable. I've overused apostrophes in fantasy names. I've made noises until one sounded like a name. I've sat on Google translate with an English word that I felt encompassed a character's biggest trait in the first box, clicking through every available language in the second box, just looking for a jumping-off point for a name. I've used any random word I've ever seen that looked name-y as a last name.

There have been times when I've been in a flow, the words are coming and coming, look at me go! And then I need a brief interaction with a side character, or a new character, someone who in my outlining was listed as “General Sorne's personal aide,” but when the time came to write her that person needed a name. And there's a grinding of gears, a screeching of tires, progress comes to a halt. It has thrown off entire writing days. (Why is it so hard? I've named two real live actual human beings and this feels harder than that sometimes!)

And that's just character names!
I can't tell you how difficult chapter titles and, oh jeez, story or book titles can be. I mean I probably don't need to tell you. You know. You know. You've been there, staring at the screen when you try to save your document for the first time and the suggested file name is “Untitled 1” and what do you change it to?

It's stressful!

Compared to titling a book, naming characters is an absolute breeze, in my opinion.

Well I've finally figured out a method that makes that a lot easier. Granted, it works best for me, so far, on novels and chapters within the novels. For short stories (and blog posts) this method isn't as useful 100% of the time, but it has still helped.

What did it was realizing what my favorite kinds of titles are. I love titles that are pulled from a significant phrase within the book or chapter or story itself. Well, okay. I realized that way before I realized that I could do that too, but that's beside the point, I think. But I mean think about it. To use as examples a couple of really popular authors, Patrick Rothfuss and Brandon Sanderson both do this. And their book titles, especially Sanderson's Stormlight Archive books, are really evocative. I love the book “Words of Radiance,” but I also love that phrase, just the way it sounds, the image it produces in my mind. And then what it means within the narrative. So good. “The Slow Regard of Silent Things,” by Rothfuss, is the same for me. In my mind, those are perfect titles.

What this means is that for a while I save my works in progress under “Book One” file names. But it also means I'm not worrying about titles anymore. As I'm drafting I'll find the phrase. The thing I wrote that was just right, the thing that just is the title. It works for chapters, too. And sometimes while I'm editing I do have to keep an eye out for those phrases, sometimes I don't catch them as they're appearing on the page.

But it is nice to finally have figured out a method of titling books that works so well for me.

What Happened When I Embraced My Problem With Instant Gratification

There's only one video game I've ever gotten any good at. It's Rogue Legacy. If you haven't played it, it's really fun and very simple. I have maxed out the stats and equipment, I've found all the fairy chests, I've found all the blueprints, I've beaten all five bosses (I haven't beaten the four alternate special bosses, I don't care to but I'm not sure I could even if I did care to, I'm not actually great at video games) and finished the story line. And I still play it sometimes, just running through the castle amassing gold that I can't even spend on anything anymore. Useless gold. I love it. It's instant gratification, baby. Look at that number climb higher and higher.

I have a real problem with instant gratification, in more or less every aspect of my life. It's probably even why I don't take care of my health as well as I should. And it can definitely impact my writing.

Word count tracking! Oh man. When I hand-wrote everything it was too tedious to track my daily word count. I tried for a while, I would mark in the margin of a page where I was when I started writing in the morning, and then at the end of the day I'd count out the words in five lines, get the average of about how many words I wrote per line, then multiply that by how many lines I'd written. It was never exact, though, and it didn't feel super concrete. It wasn't as helpful. When I switched to writing on my laptop I would ctrl+f the phrase that I started on that morning and then at the end of the day highlight what I'd written and check the word count of the highlighted selection. That was a lot more helpful, much better motivation for someone like me. And then finally I checked out nanowrimo.org and found their stat tracking page, which you can use for non-nanowrimo writing projects any time of the year. Oh guys I love it. I can compete with my own daily word count. I can set a writing goal and then try to beat it. It's totally arbitrary, like the gold I earn in Rogue Legacy, and I love it just the same. Look at that number climb higher and higher!

I see a lot of bad advice about word count tracking. Nonsense prescriptive advice. “If you don't write X amount of words in a month/week/day then you're not a real writer/not dedicated enough/not taking it seriously.” I cannot stress enough how much I don't mean this like that. Instant gratification and useless competition against my own self is just a huge motivating factor for me. I can churn out a first draft when I can look at that line graph and see how far ahead of my own self-determined goal I am. Instant gratification. I enter in my updated word count sometimes after five-minute bouts of writing if I'm having a hard time getting into the flow. Oh I love it. It helps me so much. Instead of struggling against my need for self-gratification and seeing it as a detriment I've embraced it and it's actually become an asset, at least for writing my first drafts.

Now, holy moley, if I could just figure out how to assign a point-system to revisions and editing, then I'd really be in business.

4 out of 5 stars for "Philomena's New Glasses" by Brenna Maloney

Last night my I read “Philomena's New Glasses” by Brenna Maloney to my four year old son.

This is a photographic picture book about three guinea pig sisters named Philomena, Audrey, and Nora Jane, who don't know how not to have what other people have. In the beginning of the story, Philomena gets glasses, and first one of her sisters copies her and then, reluctantly, the other. Philomena gets a handbag in which to keep her glasses and the same thing happens. Philomena gets a dress, and the same thing happens. In the end, Nora Jane is uncomfortable in her unnecessary glasses and outfit and says that she doesn't need a handbag. Audrey accepts that not everyone has the same needs. So Philomena keeps her glasses, Audrey keeps her handbag in order to have a place to store her snacks, and the last line of the book says that everything was fine until Nora Jane got her new necklace.

The writing in this book was very clear and I liked the voice. It was expressive and easy to read out loud. I love the pictures in this book, the dressed up guinea pigs eating little snacks are incredibly cute. My son loved them too, and kept interrupting the story to ask me all sorts of questions about the guinea pigs. I myself am the oldest of three sisters, and so though my own sisters mostly borrowed from and copied one another rather than me, the story was very familiar. My son has a one year old sister, and she can't really copy him yet, but he's already hands down her favorite person, so that will come in the next couple of years. It was relevant and relatable in that way.

When I was reading this story last night there was something about it that was bothering me a little bit, though, and I couldn't put my finger on what until this morning. I felt like Philomena's exasperation with her sisters for copying her created an undertone that undermined the point of the book. Following trends just to follow trends isn't great, and people do have different needs. I wouldn't dream of debating those lessons. Also, though, do Audrey's sunglasses invalidate Philomena's glasses? Does Audrey's handbag lessen the value of Philomena's handbag? Does Nora Jane getting a necklace cause problems between the sisters, after they've just agreed that people can have different things, because necklaces aren't functional? I feel like the ending muddies the point of the book in this way. People have different needs, this is absolutely true. It's also true that people using or doing the same things as one another for different reasons – necessary glasses versus fashionable sunglasses – can be perfectly okay. Following trends that make you uncomfortable, like Nora Jean, is silly, but following trends you enjoy is fine. It's okay for people to have different needs and it's also okay for people with different needs to enjoy the same kinds of things as others. If Maloney was also trying to make a related point about appropriation with Audrey's actions (rather than what I saw as perfectly normal sister behavior), it would have been better to do that more clearly and without equating it to something harmless like glasses and accessories.

My son really liked this book, he gave it two thumbs up.

What did you think about this book? “Good!”

What happened in this book? “They put on things.”

Why did they put things on themselves? “I don't know.”

Well, Audrey was copying Philomena and Nora Jane was copying Audrey, even though it didn't make her happy. “Yeah. Oh, yeah!”

This book is called “Philomena's New Glasses,” do you think that's a good name for it? “I think it should be called 'Philomena's All New Stuff.' Yeah, let's call it that.”

Okay, but it started with glasses. And the sisters didn't all need the same things. So sometimes different people need different things, right? “Yeah, like you.”

What is something I need that's different? “Your blue shirt. It's different from my dinosaurs shirt.”

That's right, but we both need shirts even if they look different. Maybe I need glasses and you don't? “Yeah!”

And you need someone to cook for you, but I don't. “That's right!”

Can you think of one? “My sister needs diapers and I don't.”

Good! If you could meet one of the characters from this book, who would it be? “Philomena!”

And if you could ask the person who wrote this book one question, what would that be? “I would ask, I would say that they're all lunch boxes.”

You would say they got lunchboxes, not handbags? “Yeah.”

And did you like this book? Would you read it again? “Yeah. Only not tomorrow, a different night. After a little while.”

Two thumbs up from my son and four out of five stars from myself for Philomena's New Glasses by Brenna Maloney

Goodreads review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3194268675?book_show_action=false

You can buy this book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Philomenas-New-Glasses-Brenna-Maloney-ebook/dp/B01MRNJQB9/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/philomenas-new-glasses-brenna-maloney/1125190272?ean=9780425288146

Teaching Storytelling To My Son

I'm fascinated by animals that some researchers believe have moved beyond basic communication and into having their own form of language. Bees dance, prairie dogs use calls and body language, and dolphins have names. That last one is my favorite. And we can't forget that chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans can all be taught sign language.

My daughter is one year old, and she's learning to talk now. But she's understood my words for a little while already (like the time I gently told her “no no” a couple of months ago, when she tried to touch the unlit fireplace, and she burst into furious tears). It's neat watching her learn to really speak. It started out, like it always does, mostly as parroting, and then when it moved beyond that it's been almost all nouns. Mama, dada, baba (bottle), buh-buh (brother), doh-doh (dog), duh (duck), that sort of thing. She's moved on to slightly more complex concepts. Hi, bye, uh-oh, and no. No is one of my favorite things to ask her to say. And “no” was the first word she said that I felt was interaction and not just naming or parroting – one night I put her to bed when she wasn't ready to go to sleep, and she started shouting “No, no, no, no!” It's also the first word that she said in response to something I said to her, rather than simply repeating what I asked her to repeat. I asked her to say a different word and she shook her head and said, “No, no. No.” Watching her learn how to communicate is fascinating. I loved the process when my son was a baby, also.

My son is four now and his language skills are impressive for his age. He's smart and sweet and funny and also occasionally deeply unsettling (like the time he told me that he had to challenge the monster that lives inside our mirror and “makes that noise”). And as excited as I am to teach my daughter to really communicate, I'm excited to be teaching my son the part of the human experience of language that I believe is the most fundamentally important to us as something a step further along than the other animals on our world – storytelling.

We read every night after the baby is asleep; one bedtime story, a few poems, and two animal facts pages. He knows what a story is. But anyone who's ever let a little kid tell them a story knows that their version has a beginning, and a middle, and more middle, and more middle, and middle forever, with no end in sight. My son's imagination is wild and wonderful, it's perfect. All that I really have needed to do is show him the structure and he's going to be an amazing storyteller. It's been easy to do that using the books that I read to him. After we finish his bedtime story, we talk about what part was the beginning, and what part was the middle, and what part was the end. He likes to talk about the beginning and the end together, and define the middle that way. It's funny, that's how he writes the words “mom” and “dad,” too. The first and last letters first. And I think that's how a lot of writers figure out their stories. This is where I'm starting. This is where I want to end. How do I get there? Or at least I do. I have a file in my laptop called “How I want it all to end” for both of the series I have in the works. Maybe thinking in that way is part of storytelling. Maybe he's going to be really, really good at this someday. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

He's almost got it at this point. And he's becoming very interested in telling his own stories. Right now what he wants to do is tell me what characters and events he thinks I should add to my own novels. That would be fun for him, if I started adding little elements that he suggests into my books. But my books are for adults, he wouldn't recognize how I'd have to change and arrange things. He wouldn't be able to read them until after he didn't remember what his suggestions were. I think it will be more fun for both of us and much more fulfilling for him if I help him to write his own stories. I'll be guiding the structure and helping him with things like continuity and clarity, but the characters and the plots will be his. I'll be printing them up and putting them in a binder for him to keep. And I think, if anyone would be interested in children's stories by a child, I might share them sometimes here on my blog. With my son's permission, of course.

I'm excited for this. I think that he'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it. And even if storytelling isn't something that he winds up falling in love with the way that I have, he'll have these stories to keep for as long as he wants to revisit them. Something we did together, something that I helped him learn how to do. Exploring a deeper kind of human communication.

Edited to add:
I was thinking after I posted this, and I want to clarify that nonverbal communication is communication, that nonverbal storytelling — music, art, dance, gestures, laughter, glances, expressions — is storytelling. Most of the thoughts in our minds are the stories that we tell ourselves. When I say “Exploring a deeper kind of human communication” I in no way mean to imply that this applies only to verbal communication or verbal storytelling.