The Former Anne Spollen's Author Blog Is Being Retitled to "Notes from Living Upghetto": They're Baaack....

Saturday, September 12, 2009

They're Baaack....

My kids all fell asleep in the living room last night in a big heap of end-of-the-summer-exhaustion. The boys have to be out the door at 7 am which, after long afternoons of summer slumber, is like the middle of the night to them.

Emma has to take "orders" from people who "are only taller, not any smarter" than kids. (Yes, that's how she put it)

I actually got almost, not quite, but almost caught up with the wash and I had all my papers in order when I got to campus. I even had on matching clothes and earrings. I hope my students don't get too used to that.

And I'm starting a new novel. I keep saying that, but I keep changing the way it opens. I think the problem was the voice just didn't sound authentic to me. I put books in the heap after about three pages if the voice doesn't hook me. Kids do, too.

That being said, here is a sampling of real voices from my kids on the first day of school. Voice really is character.

When I asked Christopher, he said, "Mom, everything is all good." He pushed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth so he couldn't say anymore then high tailed it to his room.

Philip reminded me, "He knows if he tells you too much, you'll call the school or something." When I asked Philip which of his teachers he liked, he smirked and said, "Mom, no one likes teachers. They're not likeable; they're just all control freaks.You tolerate teachers; you don't like them."

Right. I forgot.

Emma had the most descriptive assessment of the first couple of days. Her "friend" L. got a new haircut so now she looks like a "fuzzy pumpkin." I put friend in quotes because L. is one of those people we talk to, but never truly befriend. I should say that L. sees ghosts, carries tarot cards, and could use a little help in the hygiene department. She came over once, and Emma decided she needed to remain a school friend.

Anyway, L. informed Emma that the bathroom in their classroom was haunted. Not only did several ghosts inhabit it, but the janitor is somehow involved in maintaining the ghosts' secrecy. (I felt a little guilty when she was explaining all this; I couldn't help but see the huge difference in the YA mind and the MG mind)

All day, Emma and L. listened to toilets flush when no one was in there, lights blinked, faucets ran and there is a low creaking sound which is, of course, how the ghosts speak to one another.

"Could it be the water running in the pipes?" I asked, "the school is pretty old."

"It's not water," she explained (barely hiding the exasperation in her voice), "water sounds wet. This is more like wind."

"So how is everything else?"

"I almost fell asleep during history. What's the point in learning about the colonies? Aren't all those people dead?"

"Maybe they're the ghosts," I suggested.

She looked at me for a second. "No, I don't think so. That would be interesting. And there's nothing interesting about school."

So much for the first three days...

8 comments:

Elizabeth Bradley said...: L. sounds like an interesting character. My youngest son (he's 19 now) was so stoic in high school. After I'd pick him up in the afternoon, I'd question him about his day and he was so...let's just say unresponsive. Right down to when I asked him what he ate for lunch & he would grunt & answer, FOOD. Sheesh, kids.; Saturday, 12 September, 2009
K.C. Shaw said...: Poor history teachers! If there were more ghosts, maybe history would be more interesting. (Although isn't the history of magic professor in Harry Potter a ghost? And his class is painfully dull?) I ended up minoring in history in college, but I hated it in middle/high school. We seemed to go over and over and over the colonies and Revolutionary War. I was much more interested in 20th century history, and I don't think any of my classes ever made it that far.; Monday, 14 September, 2009
Anne Spollen said...: I don't know why teenage boys don't speak, but he stopped around the end of eighth grade. Not to other people, but to me. Occasionally, he tells me stuff lately, so maybe he'll talk to me again one day. Yes, I've received the food answer. And, "What did you learn in English today?" Stuff. Stuff only you would like...

I wish history were more interesting for them, K.C. In fact, Emma pointed out that they did the colonies in third, fourth and fifth grades. Even the class trips are all centered around the colonists and the Revolutionary War. Plus, her history teacher gives a ton of hw that is straight from the book with lots of maps. I can see why they're listening for ghosts.; Monday, 14 September, 2009
Adrienne said...: Emma has a point about people not getting smarter as they grow up. We gain more knowledge, maybe...

We seem to be transitioning between MG and YA voices in my house. I'm already getting more shrugs and grunts from my son, but I can still eek out some information - we'll see how long that lasts.; Monday, 14 September, 2009
storyqueen said...: I love this post! I love the voices of real kids.

And you are right. I often start a piece over and over again to get the voice right in the first few pages. If the voice isn't right, it's really hard to continue the writing.

Good Luck to you!

Shelley; Tuesday, 15 September, 2009
Christy Raedeke said...: Love the "school friend" vs. "real friend" distinction. Fuzzy Pumpkin sounds like a fascinating character. I still remember kids like that from my own middle/high school years. In a strange way, kids who are into astrology, dreams, ghosts, and/or oracles like runes or tarot seem to wield a strange amount of power no matter how unpopular they are. Must be the pull of the Dark Arts....; Thursday, 17 September, 2009
Anne Spollen said...: Adrienne, you get good at stalking and eavesdropping. My boys think I'm psychic -- I could work for the CIA at this point.

Yes, Shelley, real kids voices are the best. If they don't sound authentic, kids know it right away.

I think, Christy, that L. would be a whole lot more popular if she showered more. But Emma absolutely loves talking to her since she knows so much about witches, spells, tarot -- maybe after the showering kicks in, she'll become more than a school friend only.; Friday, 18 September, 2009
Glynis Peters said...: LOL my son in law called his vows...Stuff. His mother grinned and said, that is what he did in school. I laughed and said my boy did stuff too!
You sound very busy, I hope your jewels always match and you continue to impress your students! LOL; Friday, 18 September, 2009

Books

Light Beneath Ferns

"I have this strange sense that my silence is preparing me for something I can't name . ."

Elizah Rayne is nothing like other fourteen-year-old girls. More interested in bird bones than people, she wraps herself in silence. Trying to escape the shadow of her gambler father, Elizah and her mother move into an old house that borders a cemetery. All her mother wants is for them to have "normal" lives. But that becomes impossible for Elizah when she finds a human jawbone by the river and meets Nathaniel, a strangely hypnotic boy who draws Elizah into his dreamlike and mysterious world.

Only by forgetting everything she knows can Elizah understand the truth about Nathaniel—and discover an unimaginable secret.

Teen made trailer for Light Beneath Ferns.

Order Light Beneath Ferns here.

Foreword Magazine's Review of Light Beneath Ferns

Excerpt from THE SHAPE OF WATER

CHAPTER ONE
I discovered windows one afternoon and after that, nothing was ever the same. They had always been there, of course, glass panes shimmering in the color of rain, but that spring for the first time, I was able to open the windows in my room. For years, the locks had been painted stuck, and during the winter, heat from the radiator beneath my windows finally steamed off enough paint off the metal wings of the locks could be twirled open. Knowing that I could open the windows attracted me to them, and I began sitting under the windows, staring through the glass at the sky. From that position, on a chair in my room, the sky did not seem real; it seemed a place I was making up, so I watched it.
The white wood of the window panes acted as frames so the sky came to me slowly, and the huge openness of its space did not touch me. All the window glass in our old house had wavers and bubbles inside it, so at times the clouds moved like water, melting and blurring until they passed outside of the warp. After a few afternoons of sitting, the heavens seemed too quiet to keep watching so I began watching a small patch of woods next to our yard that housed little more than trees and a scatter of bony, mean-looking rabbits.
I started gazing at the sky and the woods in March when the branches were still wet and it was then, with nothing outside my window but trees and rain, that I noticed a shine inside darkness, I noticed colors glimmering within the darkness of the wood. I watched birds come and go, I watched rain nipple down from buds to the grass. The water dripping from branch edges and leaves created optical tricks; I could see that as I watched leaves melt.
Then one day I ventured into the space outside. I did not think about doing this much beforehand. I simply opened the window and dropped to the ground below, uncertain as to why this should be such a more satisfying exit than simply using the door; my father worked until seven o’clock and I could do whatever I wanted until then. But I liked the solid sound my legs made when I landed. Leaving via a five foot drop seemed so much more a decision than just using a door. The sense of escape made my heart pound, though all I escaped was the soundless spread of moss-colored light inside my house and the silence.
I had come to know silence well during those months after my mother died. When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, but with weight, exactly like water. Its color is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, flute notes rising up like the words of glass speaking. There comes a point when you must shatter the silence, when you must shatter the blindness of its words, the blindness of its light. I did this by going into the yard. Once I stood there, in the grass next to the trees I had been watching, I found silence outside as well. But I was happier outside than I had been in the house, so I stayed for a bit. I stood beneath my bedroom window for a few minutes, looking up at the branches and the crooked pieces of sky colliding between the branches. I believed I could identify the scent of the sky as I stood there, a blue menthol fragrance similar to the scent of seawater that sprayed into my face when I first dove into the ocean. That initial scent smelled much more subtle than the ocean’s heavy, fishy aroma, a whiff of salt and mint that warned a more powerful scent would enter my nose just as I approached the water on a dive. It was the scent I dreamed in. And it was the scent of that spring sky as I stood in my yard.

***