Today is National Face Your Fears Day.  I really like this one.  It’s the opposite of the old maxim, “Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you.”  I prefer to know what it is I’m running from.

Facing one’s fears is a perennial subject in children’s literature.  Childhood is supposed to be a marvelous time of freedom and exploration, but anyone who hasn’t blocked off his or her childhood memories completely knows this isn’t even close to the truth.  Even under the best of circumstances, children live in a  world peopled with incomprehensible giants and surrounded by all sorts of grist for their fear mill.

What were you afraid of as a child?  A monster under the bed or in the closet?  Spiders? Snakes?  Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

I had a veritable jungle that I had to maneuver my way through every day.  There was a tiger outside the bathroom window that would jump in and eat me if I closed the bathroom door all the way.  There was a gorilla outside my bedroom window that used to stand and look in at me.  I wasn’t sure what he wanted, but I knew it wasn’t good.  If I kept the filmy inner curtains closed, though, he couldn’t get in.   There was an alligator under my bed, so I had to get a running start and leap into bed every night lest he bite off my toes.  When I went out at night with a big pipe wrench to turn the antenna on the TV (if it was turned one way,  it picked up Colorado Springs stations, turned the other way, it picked up Denver stations),  I sang “This little light of mine” all the way around the house and back so the bears wouldn’t get me.

Compared to the kinds of threats far too many children have to contend with–war, starvation, abuse of all kinds, homelessness, abandonment–my menagerie of fears seems rather silly, I know.  Well, except the bears.  We lived in the mountains and there really were bears in the nearby woods.  But, to me, all these threats were as real as real can be, and I had to come up with a strategy to deal with each one.

Nowadays, my fears take other forms.   They mostly revolve around being vulnerable and/or forgotten.  Poverty, illness, old age, loneliness.   These are the monsters in my closet now.

It’s all right, though.  My childhood experiences with fear taught me what to do.  Face my fears.  Name each one and devise a strategy for coping with it.  Love, gratitude, courage, wisdom, reaching out to others, accepting help when I need it.  These are the best defenses I have for dealing with my current crop of fears.

Of course, a bit of singing in the dark doesn’t hurt, either.  It still keeps the bears away.

FIRST GOPHER AND THE THREE SISTERS

In the beginning,  First Gopher and First Mate lived on a dark, dank world without any sun or warmth.  All they had to eat were muddy roots and slimy fungus.  Many enemies hunted them, so they lived in holes deep in the ground, never daring to venture outside.

One day, First Gopher was making her weary way through a seldom-used tunnel.  Suddenly, she saw a flash of light above her.  When she searched for the source of the light, she found it came from a small fissure in the ceiling.  Putting put her eye to the hole, she saw a beautiful, world with a blue, blue sky and sunlight and growing things.

First Gopher hurried to find First Mate.  He, too, was thrilled at the sight of the bright new world, but the opening in the ceiling was very small and the rock around it was very hard.  Try as they might, they could not did their way out.

“What shall we do?” cried First Gopher.  “If we cannot get to that marvelous place, I will die!”

“We will help you,” a soft voice called through the opening.

The Gophers looked through the crack and saw three lovely, green maidens smiling down at them.

“Who are you?” asked First Gopher.

“We are the Three Sisters,” one of the maiden’s replied.  “If we help you get into our world, will you promise to help us, as well?”

“Gladly!” cried First Gopher and First Mate.

The Three Sisters formed a circle around the opening and dug their strong toes into the ground.  Soon, the rock began to split and flake away until there was a hole big enough for First Gopher and First Mate to climb through.

When the Three Sisters withdrew their toes from the rock, it collapsed into the hole.  No enemies would be able to follow First Gopher and First Mate from their old world into their new one.

“Thank you!” cried First Gopher and her Mate.  “You have saved us!  What can we do to repay you?”

“We cannot walk about as you do,” one of the Three Sisters said.   “We are very hungry and thirsty but we cannot get to water or good soil, which is our food.  Carry us to a place where there is rich earth.  Water us and tend us well, and we will feed you.”

First Gopher and First Mate carried the Three Sisters to the top of a tall Mesa where the soil was thick and fertile.  They dug irrigation ditches to bring sweet water to the Three Sisters.  They watched over the Three Sisters’ field, pulling weeds and chasing away pests.

The Three Sisters happily dug their toes deep into the earth.  At the end of their first growing cycle, they gave their fruits to the Gophers, and taught them how to cook and preserve them.

“We will sleep through the winter,” the Three Sisters explained.  “But if you save some of our seeds and plant them in the spring, we will grow for you again.”

The Gophers did as they were told and prospered.  The Gopher Tribe–for First Gopher and First Mate had many children who had many more children–built dwellings in the cliff faces of the Mesa.

From that day to this, when Gophers tend the fields, when they prepare a meal, when they look up and see the sun, they say a prayer of thanksgiving for the many gifts the Three Sisters–Sister Corn, Sister Bean and Sister Squash–give them and gave to their ancestors.

York was a poor farm boy from Tennessee who joined a Christian sect that denounced killing and war.  He was drafted in 1916, shortly before his 30th birthday.  The government denied him conscientious objector status, so he went into the army where his commanding officer talked him into believing that it was right to defend his country.

The heroic act he became famous for happened on October 8, 1917.  German machine guns were mowing down the Allied Forces.  York, who was quite a sharp-shooter from hunting squirrels back in Tennessee, was ordered to take out the gunners, which he did.  He, and the seven men left in his outfit, then captured 132 prisoners, and he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

York wasn’t proud of what he did or interested in getting a lot of publicity for doing it.  But the media–then as now–loved to have something to crow about.  So, York became a hero in spite of himself.

York died in 1964 after a long illness.  What he said he wanted to be remembered for, and what he considered his greatest accomplishment, was not his wartime bravery but his support of education in rural Tennessee.  The Alvin C. York Institute, an agricultural high school in Jamestown, Tennessee, was founded by him and is still in existence.  It has the highest graduation rate of any high school in the state.

York fought his conscience through two world wars, waffling back and forth between his religious beliefs and the need he saw to protect his country.

He never wavered, however, in his belief in education.  It’s a shame they didn’t make a movie about Alvin York the educator rather than Sargeant York the soldier.  Maybe someday they will.

I am working on Halloween costumes for my granddaughters (fairy dresses with “ice cream cone hats,” as ordered).  As I was tweaking the pattern for the dresses, I realized how similar my process is in both sewing and writing.

When I was a beginning seamstress, I did exactly what the pattern directions told me.  Now, the balance of power has subtly shifted.  I have a picture in my mind of what I want the finished dress to look like.  I use the pattern as both a jumping-off place and a shortcut, but am no longer confined by it.  My skills have taken me beyond imitation and into the realm of creation.

When I first started writing, I read every “how-to” book I could get my hands on.  I also read every children’s book in the particular genre I wanted to try. (You should see the stack of early chapter books I went through before writing Dragon Dilemma.)  From both types of reading, I learned the rules of story making and followed them as diligently as I once followed pattern directions.  Lately with my writing, however, I am finding that I am more willing and able to “adjust the pattern” if my vision demands it.

For instance, in my new YA historical novel, The Book of Dove, conventional wisdom says that a story must have conflict from the outset in order to grab the reader.  The book starts with Dove telling how she washed ashore on Iona as a baby, all alone in a small boat.  So far so good.   However, Dove isn’t terribly angst filled over her mysterious beginnings because:

1. She has good and loving foster parents.
2. This conflict isn’t, as the book progresses, the major conflict of the plot.
3. Dove is a very spunky character.  Fretting about her past isn’t at all in keeping with her personality.

All good reasons to branch off from the established pattern.  But, I wasn’t confident enough when I first started sending out the manuscript to stick to my guns.

First there was an editor who really liked the manuscript.  She sent me two pages of notes that said, among other things, that Dove was too complacent and needed more tension and there was too much detail in the first chapter.  Getting a two page revision letter is, as any of you writers out there know, a very BIG DEAL.  So, I rewrote the manuscript, adding a rather contrived scene in the first chapter where young Dove agonizes over her abandonment. I also cut a lot of details, or moved them to farther on in the book.  The editor said she  liked what I’d done but ended up turning down the manuscript.

Then, an editor at a conference critiqued the first chapter and said Dove seemed more upset than the situation warranted, and I should put in a lot more details to help ground the reader.   In other words, she also wanted me to follow a certain pattern, but one that was the exact opposite of the first editor’s suggestions.

Totally confused and feeling damned if I did and damned if I didn’t, I put the manuscript aside.

I told a writing friend of my frustration.  She asked me to read both my old first chapter and my new one out loud to her.  When I was done, she said the voice seemed truer in the old version, and pointed out that Dove’s voice is the real strength of the story, which I agree with totally.

So, I sat down, threw out all the patterns, and simply wrote what felt right.  The first chapter is now closer to the old one in that it is more telling than showing and the conflict is understated.  I’ve “killed my darlings” by the drove, though–I condensed three chapters into one– and the writing is much cleaner and tighter than before.  Most importantly, Dove’s authentic voice comes through loud and clear.

Will I be successful with this attempt to color outside the lines?  In a commercial sense, perhaps not.  Only time will tell.  But, in an artistic sense, yes, I think I have succeeded.  I stayed true to the needs of the story rather than following the rules of the game and have a manuscript I feel really good about.

But–and this is very important–I learned the rules thoroughly and practiced them diligently for years before taking such a risk.  So, learn your craft.  Learn it well.  Then be brave enough to adjust the pattern if that’s what your vision demands.

Happy word stitching!  Let me know how you do.

NUTS!

“I’d better get the recyles cleared out,” Daddy said.  “I can’t believe it’s October already.  Pretty soon, it’ll be cold enough to freeze an ogre’s toes!”

“Can I go with you?”  Heather asked.

“Of course.  I could use your help.”

Heather and Daddy carried stacks of newpapers and magazines and boxes of cans, jars and plastic containers from the garage to the truck.

“”There!”  Daddy said as they shoved the last box in and closed the tail gate.  “Now I can park in the garage when it snows.”  Heather knew that by spring the stack of recycles would be so big that Daddy would have to start parking in the driveway again.  The recycle place was a hundred miles away, so they only made the trip once a year.

“It’s a good idea to give the truck a workout before winter hits,” Daddy commented.  “We sure didn’t use it much this summer, did we?”

“No,” Heather agreed sadly.  Usually the family went camping nearly every week in the summer.  This year, however, they’d only gone a couple of times in June.  The truck had sat for months under the English walnut tree, looking as forlorn as Heather felt.  Heather sighed as she climbed into the cab and buckled her seat belt.  Maybe next summer Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t have to work so many weekends.

Daddy turned the key.  “R-r-r-r.  R-r-r-r.”  The engine refused to turn over.

“Dang it!”  Daddy popped the latch, got out, and lifted the latch.  “What on earth . . .?”  He exclaimed.  He started to laugh.  “Heather, get the camera!”

“Why?”  Heather hopped out of the truck and ran around front, standing on tiptoe to see into the engine.  “Oh, my goodness!”

The entire engine was full of walnuts!  Nuts had been crammed into ever nook and cranny.  Heather ran inside and got both the camera and Mommy.

After taking several pictures, they all began throwing the nuts out of the engine.  “Ch-r-r-k-k-k!” Heather looked up.  A squirrel was sitting on a branch of the walnut tree.  It chattered and scolded, jumping from branch to branch.

“Daddy, we’re ruining the squirrel’s winter nut supply!”  Heather said.

“Well, he can’t keep his nuts in the truck,” Daddy pointed out.

“But it seems such a shame to spoil all his hard work.”  Heather thought of something she’d seen in the garage as they were clearing it out.  “I know!  Don’t throw any more nuts out.”  Heather ran to the garage and grabbed the big box that Daddy’s computer came in.  There were holes cut in the side for handles.  “Let’s put the nuts in this,” she said, dragging it out to her parents.

“Good idea,” agreed Mommy.

When all the nuts were cleaned out, the truck started right up.

As they pulled away from the curb, Heather grinned as she watched the squirrel scamper down the tree and squeeze through one of the  hand holes and into the box under the lilac bush with “Nuts !  Do Not Move Until Spring!” written in black letters on the side.

I’ve been reluctant to promote Woolly Bear because of some snafus and miscommunication with the publisher.  I have tried to take action to change the situation, which hasn’t worked so far, so I’m now focusing on simply cleaning up my own vibration–which is all I need to do, according to Abraham.  And, yes, I am a believer in the Law of Attraction.  Sometime I’ll go into my reasons for knowing it works (not that I always am in top vibrational form).

Anyway, back to school visits and Woolly Bear.  It’s an incredibly beautiful book, thanks to Michele Coxon’s illustrations.  Kids love the story and adore acting it out with my puppets.  They also love my other two books, Turtle Island and Dragon Dilemma. It’s ridiculous for several hundred copies of a couple of really good books to sit in boxes in my garage while I sit in my office beating up on myself because they’re only good rather than “perfect”.

Kids don’t worry about things being perfect (until they are taught to do so).  They’re all about enjoying  what is, moment-by-moment.   Jesus said we needed to become like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.   I think what he meant was that we need to let go of all those pesky, ego driven “shoulds” and reclaim our birthright of wonder and appreciation.  When I am able to do that, I’m definitely in heaven right here on earth.

So, back to school for me.  The kids and I have a lot to teach each other!

Today is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron Saint, according to American Catholic.org of animals, ecology, Italy and merchants.  The last seems very odd to me since Saint Francis renounced all material wealth, even going so far as to take off his clothes and walk naked through Assisi to show his committment to a life of poverty.

By all accounts, Saint Francis was a complicated and somewhat peculiar person.  On the one hand, he was sincerely intent on leading a life in strict accordance with the teachings of Jesus.  On the other hand, he was so literal minded that when  a vision of Christ told him to “go rebuild my house” Francis got some bricks and mortar and started fixing a delapidated church.   A  lot of people, particularly his father, considered Francis a few eggs shy of an omlette.

Saint Francis is credited with uttering the famous prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen

Chances are, he never said this, though, since the first time the prayer appeared was in 1912 and Saint Francis lived in the 13th century.  Not that I discount the possibility of saintly inspiration, as anyone who has read my YA historical manuscript could tell you.

On the other hand, Saint Francis probably did write the following canticle around 1224:

Most high, all powerful, all good Lord!
All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.

To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
and clouds and storms, and all the weather,
through which you give your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water;
she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you brighten the night.
He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth,
who feeds us and rules us,
and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you;
through those who endure sickness and trial.

Happy those who endure in peace,
for by you, Most High, they will be crowned.

Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whose embrace no living person can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those she finds doing your most holy will.
The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks,
and serve him with great humility.

I find Saint Francis’ personification of the forces of nature fascinating, considering that he lived during a time when the Church taught that only men–and I do mean men, not women or children–had souls.   Perhaps it is his paradoxicalness, as much as his saintliness, that makes Saint Francis such a well-known and revered person nearly nine hundred years after his death.

“George knows his colors!”  5-year-old Susan exclaimed.   George, her 2-year-old brother stood grinning in the doorway.

“Really?  That’s wonderful, George,” Mother said.

“Debbie and I just taught him red and green and orange and yellow,”  Susan said proudly.  She ran back outside.

“So, George.  What color is this?”  asked Mother, pointing to a red rose in a vase on the table.

“Shoe!”  George declared.

“Hmmm.  What color is this?”  Mother asked, pointing to the green tablecloth.

“Pants!”

“Susan!  Debbie!  Could you come in here a minute?”  Mother called.  The two girls came running.  “Girls, how did you teach George colors?”

“We used Debbie’s clothes, ’cause she’s wearing lots of colors today, ” Susan explained.

“Like this,”  Debbie chimed in.   She pointed to her shoe.  “Shoe, George.  Red.”

Mother looked at Debbie’s red shoes, green pants, orange shirt and yellow hat.

“George, what’s this?” she asked. pointing to one of Susan’s yellow sandals.

“It a red,”  George said.

“What color is it?”

“Hat!”

“Oh, George!  It’s a yellow shoe,”  Susan said.

George shook his head.  “Hat red,” he said firmly.

Debbie giggled.  “George got it all backwards,” she said.

“Never mind,” said Mother.  “It’s lunch time.  Let’s eat.  We can sort George out later.”

“What’s for lunch?  asked Susan.

“Fish sticks, green salad and orange juice,” Mother answered.

“Don’t you mean ‘pants’ salad and ’shirt’ juice?”  Debbie asked with a grin.

“Shoe berries!” added George, pointing to the bowl of ripe red strawberries.

“And shoe berries for desert,” Mother agreed with a laugh.

Lawrence Block, in his book on writing, Telling Lies For Fun and Profit, points out that the “admonition to shun the first person [narrative style] . . . seems to be part of the conventional wisdom of writing courses.”  Later, he goes on to state that he questions this advice because, as a reader, he often prefers a book to be written in first person, it being “more likely to have a sense of reality about it, and the lead character is more apt to come alive for me.”

I believe that there is another factor at work, as well.   First person narration, especially first person reminiscent narration, possesses a weight to it similar to that of a myth or saga.  Block touches on this when he points out that first person narration is a convention of the Ogallala Sioux.  “An acquaintance who was raised on a reservation told me how Indian oral history. . . . is always couched in the first person.  it’s an accepted tradition for [a storyteller] to speak in the voice of a participant or observer.”  There is an immediacy in this kind of telling which appeals to something very basic in the human psyche.

Another device that is especially effective–which I touched on in yesterday’s post–and which, again, has mythic overtones, is that of the wise mentor.  There are grownups in most children’s stories, some good, some bad.  In the mythic tales, however, there is always an important older counselor figure.  This mentor models, with stories and their own example, how a sane, mature person thinks and acts.

Certainly, it’s possible to have wise mentors and other saga-like elements in a third person narrative.  But, with first person reminiscent style, the mythic quality is far more obvious.  The voyage from childhood to maturity is the most heroic journey any of us undertakes.  To complete it successfully, one must not only undergo the events of the  passage but make some kind of sense of them.  Reminiscent narration allows the narrator and her readers to do just that.

With the demise of extended families, elders were seen in our society as useless and, like old horses, put out to pasture.  With all us Baby Boomers turning wrinkly and silver, though, that paradigm is shifting. Grandparents in other parts of the world have always had an honored place in their societies.   It’s nice to think that’s begun to be the case again in our own culture. Older people have the wisdom of long experience for which there is no real substitute.

I’ve been thinking about how many of my favorite children’s stories have wise elders in them.  Some are wizards such as Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books and Dalben in Lloyd Alexander’s Pridain series.  Some offer the main character a safe haven and a listening ear, such as Hannah in Witch of Blackbird Pond, Matthew and Marilla in Anne of Green Gables and Crane Man in A Single Shard.  All of them add richness, texture and depth.

Do you make a point of putting older people in your stories?  I often do.  It just seems natural and right to have an elder or two somewhere in the mix.

Elders make good writers, too, expecially for children.  Many authors begin their careers late and/or continue writing into their seventies, eighties and nineties.  Scott O’Dell was sixty when he wrote Island of the Blue Dolphin, his first children’s book.  He penned nearly thirty more children’s books before his death at the age of ninety-one.

I found a list of books on starting a writing career later in life at September University, a good site for creative aging in general.

So don’t get discouraged if you are an elder who wants to write.  And if you are a writer, remember to include a few elders in your cast of characters.  Your stories will be the better for it.