GRASSHOPPER: Where the Student(s) Become the Teacher!

Ok, so in the past few posts, I've let you know about  a few of my students who have had works published that had some kind of connection with works I've published. But today, let me tell you about two other writers I was lucky enough to teach this year--and they've done something I haven't been able to do...

The Vancouver Readers and Writers Festival is HUGE--plenty of big name authors converge on Granville Island each year, and for a week, the place is filled with readers and writers. Their writing contests are also prestigious and highly competitive. While I was shortlisted in the poetry category for adults two years ago, I have never won. But this year, two of my students won their age groups. Grade 11 student, ROBIN GEORGE, won for her story, "A Child's World," and Grade 12 student, SALLY ARANG, won for her story, "The Boa Bandit."  Sally also won the overall youth award. Three first prizes, in one class--I was proud and jealous at the same time. In any case, here's a photo of them and the younger winners. Sally is on the extreme right, and Robin is next to her, wearing the purplish pink checked coat:

The author they're with is Sarah Leavitt, a writer they got to spend a day with in a workshop, working with their own writing, as part of the prize. I'd call them lucky, but I KNOW the hard work that went into the pieces that won it for them...! Here's a link to the page:

YOUTHWRITES WINNERS

THE VALUE OF SPINOFFS

Ok, yesterday, you learned how a headline led to hundreds of articles and article ideas, thousands of dollars, and even mystical connections with writing from one of my success story students. But that article did much more for me than that--it also gave me my first bit of fan mail, which appeared in a December 2004 issue of Writer's Digest, and it caught the eye of the editor of a sister publication of theirs whose editor offered to reprint my article in Writer's Guide to Creativity...also put out by Writer's Digest. It was my first experience with reprint rights (second rights), but pleasurable nonetheless. Those two articles caught the eye of the editor of a book called Writer Profits: How I Got the Gig, and I was paid to write a 5000-word chapter for that book. You just never know where a few words (like a headline) might take you!

WRITER'S DIGEST SUCCESS STORY

Ok, the previous Chicken Soup for the Soul post made me think of one of LAST year's student success stories--also tied to me in a strange way. Way back in September, 2004, I published a nonfiction article in Writer's Digest called "GET A GIMMICK." It talked about how a single headline from a previous issue a year earlier, "Get Started! Get Involved! Get Inspired!" twigged my imagination just enough to give me an idea. I would become the GET guy! Sure enough, I landed a column, GET GOD, with a religious publication, featuring articles I wrote with catchy titles like "Get a Faith Lift!" and "Get an Amazing Offer!" I followed up with GET WRITING and GET POETIC columns for a few other publications, GET HEALTHY columns for an online magazine, GET MORE BUSINESS for a California magazine...and so on and so on. Basically, that one idea led to thousands of dollars in my account--and hundreds of articles including one in WRITER'S DIGEST.

Ok, in a totally UNRELATED activity, our class took on one of the Writer's Digest writing contests as a class activity. JESSICA KRUGER, a grade twelve student won even though her work was up against more than 600 other writers, most of whom were adults! Her FICTIONAL story, "Conquered Fear," was published in the February 2010 issue. Now, if you look at the cover of that magazine, guess what the biggest headline on the top of the front cover says? "GET Creative!" These things have a way of connecting in strange ways... (Ok, I realize that the student cover is smaller again, but it's the ONLY one I could find on an image search...you just try and find a bigger one!)

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL SUCCESS!

Ok, today I need to mention a bit of my role as a Writing Coach. Each year, I get to teach a small group (twenty-some, usually) of mostly sixteen and seventeen-year-old high school students, in a course called Writing 12. That allows me to talk about and introduce them to magazine articles, personal essays, picture books, chapter books, novels, scripts and screenplays--almost every kind of writing they won't find in an English class. It's refreshing...and rewarding, to see them succeed and see their poetry and prose get into print. It gives me great pleasure to see my work and their work published, and sometimes, we connect in unexpected ways.

Here's one. I was THRILLED when I got the acceptance from the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul : MY RESOLUTION when a personal essay I wrote, "The Write Way: Write Away," was selected for that anthology. It wasn't the money or the free books or the millions of copies they sell, it was that the essay I wrote was a special piece that explained a bit about why I became a writer and a writing teacher despite a nightmarish beginning in university. I had a writing prof who completely humiliated students (myself included) for works he considered unpublishable. I decided then and there that I would never treat my own students that way once I was a teacher.

Flash forward to July 26th, 2011--yesterday. That's the day one of my grade twelve students had a personal essay of HERS published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: JUST FOR TEENAGERS. The student, CARMEN ANG, will now receive a few hundred dollars, ten free copies of the book, and some attention for her writing--but I know her story is important to her as well--it's a piece she wrote for Writing 12! (Ok the size of the image of my book is bigger, I realize, now that I uploaded the pics, but it's not intentional, really--those were the first two images I grabbed from a Google search...really!)

THE ABRACADABRA AMULET--GREAT NEWS!

Ok, I might be jumping the gun with this, but a publisher that specializes in literature for children--from picture books to young adult novels, has said YES to publishing the first book in my chapter book series, The Arkymalarky Adventures of Ackamarackus Artleby. I don't have a contract in hand yet, but they said that they were interested in publishing it near the end of 2012. The head editor also said that she liked the concept of the series, so I think if the first book does well for them, the others I have planned may have found a home too.

In any case, the first book, THE ABRACADABRA AMULET, is set in ROME, ITALY. The second book, THE BURIED BOOMERANG, is set in Australia. The third, THE CAIRO CAT, is set in Egypt...the twenty-sixth, THE ZOO ZOMBIE, is set in the Night Safari of Singapore!

You can see why finding a publisher for this could be BIG NEWS for me! Once I have a contract in hand, I'll write more of the details here, but for now, I'm on cloud nine--with an eye to even higher heavens...

PNWA RESULTS--OUTSTANDING!

This year, I submitted a children's picture book, JOANIE ARK: DRAGON SLAYER, and three of my poems to PNWA's writing contests. Each work comes back with critiques...and that's got me excited:

Here are some of the judges' comments about JOANIE ARK: DRAGON SLAYER:

• "The character is a tough little girl with a wonderful imagination--I totally fell in love with her."
• "There is an easy flow, a natural buildup of suspense, and the conclusion is wonderful."
• "Magical and imaginative!"
• "A charming story about a little girl who doesn't want to be a princess."

Now here's the kicker: one of the judges scored it 97%. The tougher marker gave me 89%, which resulted in it not making the shortlist--sigh--but many of the comments given showed me that this is PUBLISHABLE NOW! I fully expect to see this picture book in print in the not-too-distant future.

As for the POETRY, here are some of the judges' comments:

• "The vocabulary of these poems is simple but effective. The author combines words to form unique phrases and images, as in "a marriage of two soles" and "words waking between us."
• "Best lines: "In the daylight, winter wills me to you. I follow" and "startles strangers who wade / into a world where even the weave of seaweed / can't wall us away."
• "Strong images in 'Boys of Summer' deftly place the reader at the center of the action. The reader is invited to experience the poem rather than just observe it."
• "The author has an excellent grasp of form. The two interlocking poems in 'Silver Anniversary' are a great example of this deftness. Similarly, in 'The Swing of Things,' the subtle repetition of the first stanza as the final line of each consecutive stanza is brilliant."
• "The last lines of 'Boys of Summer' appropriately mimic the vanishing footprints that the speaker describes." 
• "Nothing in these poems feels contrived, and nearly every line strikes just the right tone."
• "The spare, energetic imagery of these poems does a great job of showing emotion, rather than telling the reader how to feel. A great example of this is the speaker staring at the fading footprints at the end of 'Boys of Summer.' We are not told directly that the speaker is upset, wistful....We are simply left with an image."
• "The speaker's tone is even-handed and appropriate to the subject matter. 'Silver Anniversary' is tender but not sentimental.
• "The author is adept at both simple, direct lines and more experimental devices. The jumbled lines at the end of 'Boys of Summer' are an enormous risk to take in a poem of such direct imagery, but they end up working very well to slow the reader's eye, catching us in that final image."
• "All in all, these are some truly professional poems."

The bad news? You guessed it--my poems, despite the glowing comments--did not make finals. Arghhh! 

Still, the comments given are food for my poetic soul. I KNOW my poetry is breaking into new levels--reaching places it just WASN'T in years past. I fully expect to see some of my poetry win contests and get published within the coming year. Yes, I do feel that good about it--even with the possibility of having egg on my face and a foot in my mouth a year from now...!

NINE MONTHS OF BUILDING MY WRITING...MY BABY!

Here's what I've managed to keep track of in the past nine months...good chance of missing something, but I'll do my best not to:

• Completed the 50000-word version of my YA mystery / thriller, ONE WAY TICKET
• Joined several writing organizations--SCBWI, CAA, FEDBCW, and PNWA. Have learned a lot from them already.
• Wrote a "dissection" nonfiction book about the writing technique found in the prologue of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting.
• Wrote a novella called DATESASTERS that I'm aiming at Orca Books hi-lo market.
• Wrote two picture books--one that I changed to a prose form instead of its original verse form, IF VOLCANOES SPEWED TOMATOES, and the other, an updated fairy tale: JOANIE ARK: DRAGON SLAYER.
• Completed NINE new poems and several original mashups of older work.
• Completed major research and the first hundred pages or so of my new novel, a medieval fantasy, ARIETTA: SUMMER OF BLADES.
• Wrote a short story, "Black and White Negatives," and completed four different versions of it--3500+ words, under 3000 words, under 2500 words, and under 2000 words--to ensure it qualified for entry into different contests. An excellent exercise in culling, to be sure.
• Did research in a way I've never before attempted for a new novel I'm planning and have banged out about 10 000 words of: GANGSTER GIRLFRIEND.
• Did research in a way I've never before attempted for a new novel I'm planning and have banged out about the first 10 000 words for... STACK THE DECK: NEW DIRECTIONS.
• Did research in a--well, you get it by now--for another new novel I've been playing with: THE PRIMORPHIANS: MILLA'S STORY.
• Completed a 10000-word chapter book, THE ABRACADABRA AMULET, which is to be the first of a series entitled The Arkymalarky Adventures of Ackamarackus Artleby (Acker, for short!).
• Planned out a girl's chapter book series which I'm calling THE GALAXY GIRLS. First book planned, and in the process of being written now. 
• Wrote a cascade poem--a new form for me--and LOVED the result!
• Created two chapbooks of poetry to enter into contests: KALEIDOSCOPE: Bright Lives Broken, and ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN.
• Took Food Network's Spice Goddess  Bal Arneson's rough notes and story and rewrote it into a compelling memoir, VILLAGE GIRL. 
• Started submitting my work more seriously--my goal in 2011 was to enter at least 12 writing contests, at a rate of one per month. By the end of July now, I've entered 14! 
• Started submitting my poetry to higher level literary journals as of June 29th. I started with four different sets of poems to four different journals I love: Fiddlehead, Event, Capilano Review, and Antigonish Review. I feel it's at a level now where it belongs...maybe those rejections won't be so automatic...maybe some published works may result from it--we'll see...
• Oh, and I have one VERY exciting piece of news, although I'm not sure if it's too early yet to tell it...

SO WHERE IS THIS GOING, EXACTLY?

Ok, so I started my "heavy" journaling about my writing and my writing life in November of 2010. I decided it was time to get serious and really throw myself into my writing fully. Well, hundreds of journal pages (and a few filled books) later, I've decided to try it online. I can post links here--really hard to do in a pen and paper book--and keep notes and whatnot in one place, where I can access it anywhere from any computer, so I think it's a good idea, overall.

I AM quite proud of my results within that time, though. Nine months--it's like giving birth to a writing career (although there have been YEARS of hard work leading up to it, really). In any case, in the next post, I'm going to list (I'll check out the bullet feature on the blog) what I've accomplished in that time frame...