Fiddler on the Roof
One of the amazing photos our photographer Caiti Lord took last week during our cast photo shoot. This is featuring our Tevye (Adam Wagner) and our fiddler (Divara Harper).
Since Fiddler on the Roof is my main creative project right now, I decided to write about it for this blog post. (And because I wanted to show off our photos!). I am loving being in this show, and think the cast are such talented and kind people. For school this week I have an assignment due about how art transforms, and I chose to write about theater, because I feel that it is one of the most transformative art forms that exists. Most plays and musicals are based off of some written or lived experience, transforming written words into a live production complete with music, dancing, costumes, set pieces, and special effects. I love that theater really combines all of the many arts into one spectacular, emotional experience. Of course, many musicals have then been further transformed into movie adaptions (although I rarely feel that a movie can do justice to a stage production).
Fiddler on the Roof premiered on Broadway in 1964 and has become incredibly popular and famous. Here is an article about the history of the show: Fiddler on the Roof
More of the cast - I play the second oldest sister, Hodel.
The musical was based off of stories by Sholom Aleichem written between 1894 and 1914 that you can read here: Tevye the Dairyman I’ve only read the story about Hodel so far, but it is quite close to what they included for her and Perchik’s love story in the musical.
Me and Stuart Neef, who’s playing Perchik in this production.
I’ve been surprised to find myself so invested in this story and so connected with my character, but I do feel that it speaks to a lot of themes that are still current and ongoing in our world, and emotional experiences that I have had in my life. I grew up in a conservative household with many siblings just like Hodel, and also pushed past the limits of what I was “supposed” to become, like she does. I love her relationship with Tevye and her sisters, and can see why she falls for Perchik, too. Her song, Far From the Home I Love, really speaks to the heartache of being separated from family - a heartache that I think we have become too accustomed to in the United States, as so many families spread farther and farther apart.
Chava played by Nandi Streiker, Tzeitzel played by Mariah Bolla Olesen, and me.
I appreciate Tevye’s character a lot because while he believes in tradition and God fiercely, he also loves his daughters and is flexible enough to see that it’s okay when they are making choices that push them outside of tradition. He struggles the most with Chava’s decision to marry a Russian, but by the end, he starts to accept even that. The show ends bittersweetly as everyone is forced out of their homes by the Russians and must immigrate to other countries. The production that I’m currently in feels especially timely, with the themes of people being forced out of their homes by those in power speaking to the current events in the United States especially involving ICE.
The whole family
On a personal note as well, this is only the second time I have ever actually gotten the role I auditioned for (the first was in 2022 when I played Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret). While I have loved all of the roles I’ve been cast in, there’s something really affirming about getting the role I wanted. I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I hadn’t believed I wasn’t “good enough” to pursue theater professionally when I was eighteen, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter, because I found my way back in the end, and it is something that enriches my life so much.
If you are in Santa Fe, come see our show! Fiddler Tickets
Motherhood
I’m considering taking a brief break from this blog until the musical I’m in is over, because it’s been a lot to juggle school, work, the musical, and being a mom. It occurred to me I could just post what I worked on for school this week, though. I got to work on a drawing from River’s book finally, (I made it be a part of a school assignment), and while I’m not totally happy with it yet, it felt good to do some art again. A critique partner I met with a couple of times after the children’s writing conference suggested that I rework my illustrations to make them look even more like a kid made them, since the book is written from River’s perspective. I picture something with actual crayons, and more mixed media elements too. I think that’s a great idea, but now I’ve done the sketches for the entire book, so I’m stuck with the dilemma of starting over with that new style in mind, or just continuing to work on the ones I have, like the one above. It sounds exhausting to start over, so I’m not sure what I will do.
Along with this drawing that I submitted for school, I wrote two little snippets about being a mom. Here they are:
Things I have googled this week: How to get your toddler to ACTUALLY PEE on the toilet? And, Why is my 2.5 year old randomly hitting other kids? Reddit tells me it’s all normal (thank god for reddit), but it still takes a momentous amount of internal deep breathing to get through the long moments of waiting for her to stop playing with the toilet paper and pulling it out of the cat litter (again), and running to stop the situation at the children’s museum before another kid is crying and another mom is looking at me like my child is the spawn of satan. But it’s all normal, right?
And these are only the moments in-between all of the sweet ones. Her demand for more hugs, more books, more bugs. Her deep obsession with skeletons, “Big guys” as she calls them, first inspired by the halloween decorations towering over her at Home Depot. The twinkle in her mischievous little eyes, the cackle as she says something she thinks is hilarious, as she climbs my shoulders to try to be taller, taller, to reach the sun.
Why is it so hard to brush teeth? A question most mom’s must have pondered at least once or twice. First, I told elaborate stories to get her to sit still. Then, when that didn’t work anymore, I pretended to be a horse, bouncing her on my knee while I, (not so expertly) attempted to scrub her molars. Tonight, first we tried sitting her on my shoulders (she likes to be tall), while her dad did the scrubbing, except she body slammed him and he gave up so I was left to dangle her upside down with one hand while once again awkwardly finagling the toothbrush into her mouth. All this for approximately ten seconds of toothbrush bristles on teeth.
Recently I pondered why, despite working less than I have since the first time I was in graduate school, I still don’t have any time to do graduate school. I realized that it’s because at least 50% of my time is still spent following a tiny gremlin around our yard as she searches for beetles. So as I sit and remember all the homework that I am not doing while she swings and demands songs from me, (I cannot begin to say how many reiterations of the wheels on the bus I have invented for her tiny demanding lordship), I try to remind myself to soak in the slow moments despite the undone dishes in the sink, the assignments that I will turn in half finished.
I remind myself as I rock her before bed for the 100th time singing to the tune of wheels on the bus “Mama siiings ew, ew ew, because River tooted, because River tooted…” While her body convulses into giggles in my arms, that in ten years I will miss the fingers wrapped around my neck, the demand for more songs, more time with mama. And it won’t matter that I didn’t finish my drawing in time.
The only thing that matters; this moment in time with her.
3 Act Story Mapping
I am a bit behind on posting this week, partially due to starting rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof on Wednesday and partially because my work schedule has moved around and now I don’t have 30 minutes carved out every day for writing. I need to figure out how to squeeze that back in, but I’m not there yet. In some good news though, I finished the second draft of my novel! It turns out that what I needed to get it done was some long chunks of time to work on it, as 30 minutes at a time wasn’t working very well. I went to Maine last weekend for my best friends wedding, and was pleasantly surprised that because of that trip I was able to work on revising for probably 5-6 hours, and that was what I really needed. It still has a long way to go and I have a ton of line editing to do, but it feels good to have at least completed the second draft and know what direction to go in now.
Because I don’t have a ton of time to work on this post this week, I thought I would share an exercise that I worked on for school recently. We’ve been learning about 3 act story structure in my narrative arts class, which is when you break down a story into turning points. The structure looks like this:
Act 1
The story begins with . . . .
And then . . .
Until . . . (give your first turning point
Act 2
And then . . . .
But then (mid point, it gets DEEPER) . . .
And then . .
Until . . . (give your second turning point)
Act 3
And then . . .
The Climax . . .
Resolution . . .
We were supposed to write something to practice this, so I wrote a very short story about my main character’s parents, as a way to keep developing their characters as well. Please remember that I wrote this very quickly in one sitting and it was supposed to only be a page (I couldn’t keep it that short), so it’s not very fleshed out. It was a fun exercise though and my classmates liked it. Can you see where the turning points are to follow the three act story map?
Irish Blessing by Anna Balsamo
Belle was having the time of her life. She had been terrified when she’d signed up for the study abroad trip - she’d never been out of the country, after all, never even been on a plane by herself. But something deep inside had told her that she needed to do this and here she was in Dublin, Ireland, singing along loudly to the traditional Irish music at the pub with her classmates. She looked around at their brightly colored cheeks, laughing eyes, and full pints of beer, and felt something like happiness bubbling up from her toes.
Later that night, she was dancing a little sloppily with her new friends at the pub, as the musicians played louder and louder on their fiddles and drums. Belle suddenly looked across the room and locked eyes with a tall young man, whose long reddish hair was pulled back into a bun. Belle never could resist a man bun, and she found it impossible to look away for a moment, before tearing her eyes back to her friend, who had noticed her staring and was giving her a knowing grin. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing back in his direction, and the man caught her gaze again and smiled, starting to walk over to her. Belle felt her heartbeat drumming in her ears and swallowed nervously.
The man introduced himself as Liam, and he pulled her away from the music to a quiet booth in the back, where they talked for the rest of the night. Her friends eventually gave up on her and went back to the student housing, but Belle couldn’t make herself end the conversation with the Irish stranger, whose accent seemed to have hypnotized her. When he finally asked her if she wanted to come back to where he was staying, she said yes without a moment of hesitation. Somehow, she knew she would be safe with him.
Belle completely forgot that she was supposed to be staying with her study abroad group and spent the entire weekend with Liam. They explored the city together, since he was from a small town far from Dublin, and when they eventually ran out of things to tell each other about their lives, they spent time in comfortable silence, trying to absorb the presence of each other. Belle had never been in love before, but she was pretty sure this was what it felt like. Liam was funny, bookish, and had a quiet lilting voice that sounded like music to her ears.
On Sunday evening as the day started to draw a close, Belle felt more and more anxious. She knew that she needed to rejoin her group, as they would be leaving Dublin the next morning to move on and fly to Rome. She and Liam had briefly touched on her plans during their weekend together, but they hadn’t had any sort of conversation about whether this relationship could live past the weekend, and Belle desperately didn’t want it to be over. At dinner that night she stared silently into her beer, trying to find the words to tell him how she felt.
“Belle,” he finally said softly. “This can’t end now. I don’t know how we can make it work, but I want to try.” She looked up and met his eyes, her whole body flooding with relief.
They spent every last second of the weekend together, and Liam brought her to the airport to meet up with her group. Her friends all stared with wide eyes at the tall Irish stranger who walked her to her gate and then kissed her like they had been dating for years. Belle fought back tears as she watched him walk away from her in the airport, but he had made her promise to call as soon as she landed, and he was going to meet up with her in Florence. She would see him soon.
As soon as the plane touched down in Rome, Belle called Liam’s number, but it went straight to voicemail. She frowned at her phone, a sick feeling in her stomach.
“Maybe his phone is dead,” her roommate pointed out, nudging her shoulder. Belle nodded, but she knew that something was wrong.
She called several more times that night, only to get voicemail every single time. She started to spin with thoughts of him not being who he had promised, or being dead in the street somewhere, and she tried to ignore them. She regretted not getting any other contact information for him. She didn’t know any of his friends or family and she felt like a crazy person even thinking about contacting people who knew him. After weeks of silence, she finally accepted that he had ghosted her, even though she couldn’t make sense of him doing something like that. She had been so sure about their connection.
When Belle came home from the study abroad trip she was still replaying the weekend in her head, looking for clues or signs that he hadn’t felt the way that she had. Everyone told her to let it go, but she started to feel sick along with sad, and couldn’t keep any food down, especially in the morning. She woke up one day so nauseous that she wanted to vomit, and stared at the ceiling with the sudden realization that she and Liam had not been exactly careful when they had slept together. She wasn’t usually so irresponsible, but she’d felt as if she was in another world when she was with him. She covered her face with her pillow and groaned.
An hour later Belle was sitting on her toilet, staring at two pink lines on the pregnancy test. Her mind was a scramble and she had to remind herself to breathe. She pulled out her phone and tried calling Liam one last time, leaving a shaky voicemail and telling him that he could be a dad, if he wanted to be. Something inside of her told her that he would want to know, that he wasn’t some flaky 25 year old guy who had ghosted her. She closed her eyes and imagined his arms around her, telling her that everything was going to be okay.
When she looked into the green eyes of her tiny baby nine months later, the only people in the hospital room with her were her parents and her sister. But somehow, she still knew that everything was going to be okay.
“Hi, Fern,” she said, touching the babies chin. “You’re my Irish blessing.”
Reminiscing on Cabaret
This past weekend I participated in my theater companies annual Gala fundraiser, as I have for the last three years. We were highlighting all the shows that Tri-M has ever put on, so we performed some pieces from all thirteen shows they have done in the last four years. I have been in five of them, and will make it six when we start rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof on October 1st, (I’m playing Hodel!).
In honor of the gala and in looking forward to Fiddler on the Roof, I decided this week I would post an except from a creative non-fiction piece that I wrote a few years ago about Tri-M and theater. I wrote the piece for a creative nonfiction class that I was taking through our local community college, which I loved and learned so much from. That class was part of what pushed me towards going back to school. I also credit returning to theater when I was 28 and getting the role of Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret as fundamentally changing me as a person. It built my confidence more than I could have dreamed, and started me on this path back towards my creative self that I’m now on. Without further ado, here is the excerpt.
Backstage preparing for the show.
Except from Singing is Twice Praying by Anna Balsamo:
It was opening night. I arrived at the Women’s Club, our makeshift theater for Cabaret, full of jittery nerves and excitement. Some of the other actors were already there, enthusiastically applying layers of makeup and blasting pump up music, but I slipped into the empty bathroom, knowing I needed some quiet to center myself. My brown eyes stared back at me from the mirror as I started the process of pulling back two tiny braids into a crown around my head, then wrapping thick chunks of my long hair around the braid to pull my hair up into a 1940’s updo. My best friend, the previously mentioned tap dancer, as well as my husband would be in the audience tonight. I felt fairly calm, but knew the nerves would hit as soon as the show started.
Later, in the back room of the Women’s Club, all of the actors gathered to warm up and prepare ourselves. Tables were strewn with makeup, discarded clothes, and water bottles. I touched the mike taped to my face over and over to make sure it wasn’t going to fall off. Music was blasting, probably something by Rihanna or Beyonce, and our tiny energetic dance captain made us all gather in two long lines, creating a makeshift runway. We took turns strutting our stuff as the cast whooped and hollered. I fought back a little anxiety about doing something sexy, cool, or cute enough, and made myself do it anyway, leaning into the new found confidence that this show had created in me. My castmates cheered just as loudly for me.
“Let’s circle up!” Julie called after a few rounds of the runway, and someone turned off the music as we all gathered. Julie started a game, calling “Woop!” as she pretended to throw a ball across the circle at Ian. Ian bounced it back and the invisible ball made its way around the circle, each person coming up with a new sound and miming the ball being heavy or very light or dropping it. After a few rounds we all took hands, and the energy shifted to something quieter. I looked around, making eye contact with Julie, whose hair was extravagantly curled 40’s style and her glittery makeup sparkled. We sent hand squeezes around the circle, seeing how fast we could pass the squeeze. Then someone, probably Julie or Ian, made a speech about how much they loved us and this show and how we were totally ready to kill it. Jensen, my love interest and scene partner, taught us his tradition of touching every cast member on the back and saying “I’ve got your back.” We circled around the room, making sure to get everyone’s backs, with a few hugs thrown in. And we were finally ready. “It’s time!” someone said, and the excitement caught in my throat. We all filed out of the room and through the connecting door to backstage.
Backstage at the Women’s Club was tiny, and it was full of racks of our costumes, wigs hanging on the wall and props carefully set on one of the tables. We pressed ourselves against the walls and crammed into the corners, as Marilyn made her opening speech and then the lights went down. I listened to the opening number with my stomach rising into my chest, trying to keep my breath even. The audience roared their approval as the song ended and those of us backstage grinned at each other, knowing that they were going to love the show.
Later, I prepared for my big number, standing in the hallway outside of the bathroom and trying to get into the headspace of Fraulein Schneider, who had just decided to break off her engagement with her sweet lover because she had realized that it wouldn’t be safe for her to be married to a Jew. I quickened my breath as if fighting tears, a technique I had picked up from Julie somewhere in the rehearsal process, telling my body that I was upset as much as my brain. Then it was time to stand behind the curtain next to Ian, readying myself to go onstage for my starring moment. I was shaking a little. I heard my cue and walked onto stage, no longer myself but an older German woman with a broken heart. I couldn’t really see the audience past the glare of the lights, and as I started to sing What Would You Do? I felt the heaviness that Donna had asked for in my audition sink into my bones. The nervousness I felt in the beginning of the song dissipated as I continued to sing, and I felt the power in my voice, low and strong. I did not falter.
Revisions, revisions
I made it through the read-through of my novel, and at first I felt really overwhelmed by the revision process because I’ve never revised a novel before and it’s quite daunting. I still feel somewhat overwhelmed, but I also have a lot of ideas for new twists to try with the plot, developing my characters more, and overall rounding out the book better. The good news is that I do like it, and I think it’s fairly entertaining (but I’m still going to raise the stakes and focus in on the characters emotional journey’s a lot more). Something about my main character Fern’s voice has always been super clear to me, and I genuinely like her as a character, so that really helps. I think if I didn’t have that, I would feel a whole lot more lost right now.
I thought I could share some of the resources that have been helping me with this revision so far. Firstly, Alice Kuipers book Spark has been hugely helpful for me not only in the revision stage, but also last winter when I was starting to think about writing for kids and teens. I randomly saw the book in one of my favorite bookstores in Santa Fe and bought it, and it pretty much launched me onto the journey of writing picture books and middle grade. The book covers all the details of writing for kids and young adults, and offers resources for further learning. In her chapter on revision, she shares some questions that she thinks about as she reads through her first draft - questions that have been helpful for me in figuring out how to start with revising. Just a few good ones are: “What is a reader looking to find out by reading this? One chapter in, is enough happening? Narrative Arc - has the character found what they want?” She also has a great breakdown of what to look for with line editing, which I will definitely be using when I get to that step.
Alice recommends a website called Writing the Other that offers classes and resources about bringing diversity into books, especially if you’re writing from a life experience that you don’t share. Taking some of their classes is high on my list to do during this revision.
I also stumbled across a writer and writing teacher named Lauren Kay on Instagram, and she has a ton of really useful free resources on her website here. I’m using her character interview worksheet to help me flesh out my characters, because right now the only character that I feel really strongly about in my book is Fern, and the rest feel sort of one-dimensional to me. Lauren Kay also has worksheets for figuring out your plot points to keep readers engaged, pacing worksheets for revising, and all kinds of other ones that I haven’t looked at yet.
I’ve still been able to access the recordings for the SCBWI conference I did in July, and I’ve been trying to watch as many as I can before they take them down in the middle of September. Last night I watched a presentation that the author Elana K Arnold gave about connecting with your characters (just what I needed!). It was super useful and interesting and she shared some of the essential questions that she asks about her characters in every scene, not just the story as a whole.
What do they love?
What do they hate?
What do they fear?
What do they want?
What do they want to avoid?
Elana also highlighted the importance of embodying your characters, or in other words bringing their bodies onto the page to make them more real. She had a really excellent example from one of her books of two little sisters squatting next to each other and eating. One sister nibbles her bread and the other sister “is not a nibbler” as Elana said. Squatting and nibbling are such great descriptors that can give an immediate sense of the character. She also talked about the concept of “psychic distance,” which is a term another author came up with to describe how close you feel to a characters experience. I wish I had written down the examples she shared, but basically it’s the difference between writing “In the winter of 1860 a man stood in his doorway” to “Henry hated the cold, stinging wind that winter brought.” So this is something that I will be looking for as I revise the draft, too.
Elana shared that instead of asking herself if she likes her book or if it’s good or bad, she asks herself if she is “satisfied.” Currently, I am not satisfied with my book for several reasons, but I like that way of thinking about it. I plan to go through each chapter, asking myself these questions that I’ve shared and investigating whether I’m satisfied as a whole. She also shared that she feels like she has a novel when the has three different ideas that she can weave together into a book. I was thinking about this and trying to figure out what my three different things are that make my book, and I think they are: 1. Celtic magic and myths, 2. Grief and feeling your feelings, and 3. Being vulnerable in relationships to build family. I didn’t always feel that clear on what the point of my book was as I was writing the first draft, so one of my goals with the second draft is to really hone in on that.
Maybe at some point in the revision process I will share a look at first draft pages and how I’ve edited them into the second draft, if that seems interesting to anyone on this journey with me!
Irish myths and magic
I finished the first draft of my novel (woo!) and it comes in at 56,000 words right now, making it probably the longest single piece of writing I’ve ever completed. When I was teenager I wrote several novels for National Novel Writing Month, but those were right around 50,000 words since that’s the goal of NaNoWriMo. And that was the last time I wrote a novel (when I was 16), so this feels like a pretty big accomplishment. Of course, in its current state I’m pretty sure it’s quite bad, but now I get to do the second draft (and 3rd, maybe 4th), before it’s actually done. I somehow never edited any of my novels when I was a teenager, so writing a second draft is going to be a first for me. I plan to print it out and mark it up like crazy, focusing more on the structure than line edits. I’m making myself wait at least two weeks before I start working on it again, but it’s been a struggle to keep my hands off of it. I actually miss it, which I take as a good sign. When I first started thinking about writing seriously last winter, I had some doubts about whether I still really wanted to be a writer or if that was just an old dream that I had grown out of. Turns out, I think I do still like writing, (at least I would hope so, 56k later).
I thought for today’s post that I would share some of the research that I’ve done so far for the book. It involves a lot of Celtic Irish mythology and druid magic, so that’s been the main focus of my research. There are a ton of Irish myths, gods, and creatures and I’ve barely scratched the surface so far with my research. Deepening my understanding of Irish myths and beliefs will be one of the things I work on with the second draft, in fact I plan to go to Ireland next summer to do research there.
In my book, my main character Fern discovers that one of her ancestors was a Celtic Irish Druid, and she starts to learn about druid magic. I read a whole book on the subject which now I can’t find anywhere in my house, so I’ll have to add the reference later. Druid’s were teachers, healers and spiritual leaders in their community, and they believed that all poetry was magic. They had magical items that they carried with them to help with the spells they made, often using elaborate rituals involving water, fire, and trees. They had a deep respect for nature, especially trees. One of the items they usually carried was a crane bag, which plays an important role in the story.
My characters go into the Irish Otherworld, which is a sort of parallel universe where Irish fairies and gods live (they are called the Tuatha Dé Danann). In Irish myths fairies are typically not depicted as tiny creatures with wings, but as creatures that mostly look and act human, with magical abilities. They tend to be tricksters and are not always friendly to humans. In Ireland, they believe that Hawthorn trees are connected to the fairy realm, and often Hawthorn trees have been left alone because of this.
The Cave of Cats - this is on the itinerary for the Ireland trip!
There are other portals to the Otherworld as well, including the Cave of Cats, which is in County Roscommon, Ireland. Some sources say that this cave leads to the Underworld, while others call it the Otherworld. There doesn’t seem to be a really clear distinction between the two places in Irish mythology, but the “Underworld” doesn’t seem to be any kind of hell that is described in other myths. There is the “House of Donn” which is described in some myths as an in-between place on the way to wherever you go when you die (Donn is the god of death according to some myths, although his stories may be somewhat based on stories originating from places outside of Ireland). Donn and his house are both in my book as well.
One of the easiest to access tales that talks about the Otherworld is the voyage of Oisin, who was an Irish man who fell in love with the fairy/god Niamh and went to the Otherworld with her. He eventually became homesick and asked to return to Ireland, and Niamh granted permission reluctantly but warned him not to touch the ground. Of course he did, and immediately died because it had been 300 years in Ireland since he went to the Otherworld. A key factor of the Otherworld is that time moves differently there, and what feels like days are really years. It is called the land or city of eternal youth, because no one ages there and it’s described as a perfect place. Niamh is a character in my story, and of course my characters are in a race for time as soon as they step into the Otherworld because they know that time is passing in years in their “real” world."
Did you know one of the original (some sources even say it was the first) stories about the headless horseman comes from Irish mythology? They say the Legend of Sleepy Hollow was based off of the Irish myth. Of course, I had to throw in a headless horseman just because of that!
I feel excited about my novel all over again writing this blog post. I first became interested in Celtic Irish mythology and druids because of my own explorations into my ancestors, and the idea for this novel developed out of that. I can’t wait to start working on the second draft!
SCBWI Conference
I attended the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators virtual summer conference last weekend, and I wanted to share some of my takeaways, both as a way to process everything I learned, and if there are any aspiring writers/illustrators reading my blog that might find it helpful. It was so informative and inspiring! I walked away feeling like I have SO much more to learn, but also feeling inspired to continue creating, to see what happens in this author illustrator journey that I’m on.
I attended a workshop with the YA author Stacey Lee (I haven’t read any of her books, but now I want to). The workshop was on three essential pieces to make every plot move along well, and I chose that workshop because my plot for the novel I’m writing feels ALL OVER the place right now. I don’t remember it being this hard when I was writing novels as a teenager! Stacey shared how three super important components of a good plot are Goals, Obstacles, and Stakes. She had excellent examples from shows and books (lots of references to The Princess Bride, which I loved). I do think that my novel has all of these components, but it made me think about how I could raise the stakes for the main characters. She also had us practice writing loglines, which are essentially a one sentence hook that summarizes your story. She uses loglines as a sort of compass while writing her books, so that if the plot starts to get a little haywire she can always return to that one sentence to remember WHAT she is writing about.
Here’s the logline I came up with for my novel! And, (fangirl moment) Stacey Lee just commented on this post on my IG!
I also attended a workshop on writing characters with mental health challenges, since several of my characters in this book struggle with their mental health, and I anticipate it being a common theme in my books because of my work experience and personal experience with mental health. I appreciated the authors perspectives on not writing about mental health diagnosis without having lived through what that experience is like. They also pushed the importance of mental health challenges not being a characters flaw in the book - characters should have flaws that are not only tied to that. They gave us an exercise to think about our characters difficult life situation, mental health challenge, and flaw. My main character Fern’s difficult life situation is that her mom dies from cancer (that’s only the first one… there’s more!). Her mental health challenge is struggling with anxiety, and her flaw is that she has trouble trusting people (especially adults). I think this is another useful tool for developing characters.
I did a group critique on my picture book about River, which I was nervous about, but all of the author/illustrators in the critique were really helpful and kind. Their biggest feedback on my River book is that it doesn’t have a story arc, which I knew when I wrote it, but my goal was to just show a snapshot of River’s life as a two-year-old rather than to really have a story. My workshop partners gave me the idea to make the story more about River’s struggle to communicate, so I played around with that and now have two versions of the book. I’m not sure which version I like better, as the original text could be a concept and character driven picture book (new terms that I learned in the conference!). Regardless, I’m still making progress on the book dummy and pretty soon I plan to switch over from using Canva to put it together to trying out Artstudio Pro, which is a drawing and photo software that I just learned about as well. Canva seems to have some limitations that are not working for me with the book dummy (unless I just don’t know how to use it properly - which is probably the case).
The sketch I’ve been working on this week for the book dummy.
A really nice and unexpected bonus to the conference was that someone created a spreadsheet for writers and illustrators looking for a critique group, and I’ve connected with a bunch of writers via email and will probably be joining some critique groups. I also met one of the people involved in Albuquerque’s SCBWI chapter, and so I hope to get more involved locally, too!
In other news, I’ve decided to switch out of the Phd program that I was in at California Institute of Integral Studies and into their MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing. Why and how I came to make that decision is a longer story, but the short version is that I really want to focus on my artist self and career and this feels like a way that I can do that, while learning lots more about writing, art, and publishing, and being involved with a community of people. I also think that one of my strengths lies in how interdisciplinary I am in my creative pursuits, and this program will really allow me to explore that. So many MFA’s seem to silo the different art forms without allowing any overlap at all, (I’ve done tons of research - I get a bit obsessive). Already in the MFA classes I took last year at CIIS I was able to explore how to overlap all of the creative projects that I’m passionate about. I want to continue to explore ways of doing that.
I can’t wait for classes to start again in September! In the meantime, I’ll keep plugging away at my novel (46 thousand words in now… which means it’s getting too long to be upper middle grade but my character isn’t old enough for YA. Ack! A problem for another day). And, of course, working on my book about River (which REALLY needs a title)!
The Great Big Bad Terrible Audition
While I tried to figure out the rest of my outline for the novel I’m writing, I started to refine a series of children’s books that I’ve written about a little girl’s dreams of being a dancer and performer. I loved the series Ballet Shoes and Theater Shoes by Noel Streatfeild when I was a kid, and I had the idea to write a children’s book that was similar, but modernized, with some elements of ancestral magic.
I have written three books so far about this little girl named Ella. In the first book, she wants to be a dancer and tries a dance class, but feels intimidated by the other girls and almost gives up on her dream. (This was inspired by my real-life experience of checking out books about ballet from the library and trying to teach myself the positions when I was little). Her mom tells her about how she gave up on drawing when she was a little girl and they make a pact that Ella will keep dancing if her mom starts drawing again. In the second book, Ella auditions for a musical and it goes terribly. She stops singing after that until she has a dream about her ancestor, who encourages her to keep singing. In the third book, she is in her first musical performance and gets sick right before the dress rehearsal. She has to deal with self-doubt about whether they even need her in the show but ends up being able to perform. (I experienced this an adult with my first major role in a musical a few years ago).
When I wrote the first book in January, I wasn’t sure that it offered anything new to the children’s book world and didn’t think that I would do anything with it. But my mentor at the time read it and felt that the voice was compelling and that a series could be well received. I am going to start looking into querying agents and children’s book publishers soon. It’s taking me so long to illustrate River’s book that I don’t think I will be able to illustrate every book that I write - and I’m okay with that!
Excerpt from book one (title TBD):
Ella had always wanted to be a dancer. When she was little, she begged her mom to send her to ballet classes. Her parents didn’t make enough money to send her to classes, so she checked out books from the library about ballet and taught herself the steps in her room. She practiced plies and pirouettes in front of her mirror, imagining that she was wearing a tutu and ballet slippers and performing on a giant stage.
One day at school, her teacher told her, “You know there’s a free after school dance program down the street? It’s for girls a little older than you, but maybe when you’re old enough you can join.”
She went home and begged and begged her moms to call the after-school program and see if they would let her in. “They don’t start girls there until they’re ten,” mama Caroline told her after she got off the phone.
“How can I possibly wait two more years?!” Ella wailed.
“But,” her mom smiled, “they said you could come watch a class and if you still want to try, then they’ll let you try.”
“Are you serious?!” Ella tackled mama Caroline with a hug. “When can I start?”
That night, as Ella was practicing her ballet moves in front of her bedroom mirror, she heard her parents talking. “She has no dance experience,” mama Caroline sounded worried. “What if she can’t dance at all? What if the other girls laugh at her?” For the first time, Ella felt a little scared. What if her mom was right?
A public domain dancer that I might use in a collage someday. Maybe I’ll still illustrate the cover??
Excerpt from The Great Big Bad Terrible Audition (book 2):
That night, Ella dreamt that she was floating on a lake in a boat made of glass. Suddenly the boat came to the edge of a waterfall, and she started to fall, tumbling head over feet through the rushing water. She landed inside a cave that was full of pink crystals. It was hard to see, but she could make out a little glimmer of light coming from the entrance. She walked towards it and found herself in a dark meadow surrounded by trees.
“Where am I?” she said. All around her suddenly she saw glowing lights. As they came closer, she could make out that they were tiny fairies, glittering in the dark. They started to land on her arms and head and all over her, and their little beating wings made buzzing sounds like hummingbirds. Her feet started to float off of the ground and she realized that they were lifting her up. They brought her up to a door in a tree, and she reached out and opened the door, stepping into the tree. The fairies all flew off in a bunch, laughing and whispering to each other. Ella found herself on the other side of the tree, in a sunny, grassy meadow, full of wildflowers and moss. There was a stone cottage tucked just into the trees, and she knew that was where she was supposed to go.
The cottage door was cracked open, and Ella stepped through. “Hello?” she said cautiously. A woman with beautiful long red hair was waiting for her.
“Ella!” she said, “you’ve arrived! Come, everyone is waiting for us.”
“Where are we going?” Ella asked. She followed the woman out of the cottage and over a hill. On the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea, a fire was lit, and several more women sat around it. They jumped up when Ella and the woman arrived and all of them hugged her. Then they led her to the fire and looked at her expectantly. Ella started to feel nervous.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she said. “Am I supposed to do something?”
“Ella,” the woman from the cottage put her hand on her arm gently. “You have to sing.”
Ella’s stomach dropped. “I can’t!” she said. “I’m no good at singing.”
“It doesn’t matter what it sounds like, it matters how it makes you feel. You have singing in your bones. You can’t push that away.”
Ella opened her mouth, but nothing came out, just like at the great big bad terrible audition. A tear rolled down her cheek. The woman pressed something into her hand. It was one of the crystals from the cave, and it glowed slightly pink in the dark.
“This will give you courage,” she said.
Ella took a deep breath. Then she started to sing. At first her voice was shaky, and she winced, but she kept going and reminded herself that it didn’t matter how it sounded. She felt joy bubbling up from her toes all the way into her fingers.
When the song finally ended, the woman from the cottage gave her a hug. “You are a queen,” she whispered in her ear, “you can do anything you want. But never stop singing.”
Maine Memories
I skipped blogging last week because my best friend was in town, and I’m also considering posting every other week, as every week seems a little ambitious with the other projects I’m working on. I’m also wondering about switching to Substack or Patreon instead of a blog, so that posts would get sent directly to my readers inbox’s. Blogging has always been a bit challenging for me, as I feel like I’m just sending words into a void without the knowledge whether anyone is reading them. But how does one establish an email list without any readers? (except for my dedicated parents, of course). This is the predicament I find myself in.
It has been fun finding illustrators and writers to follow on IG and getting the occasional follow back! I know this is a slow journey, and I will have to practice a lot of patience to build my business with intention.
I am currently preparing to go to Maine to visit my parents with my husband and two year old, so I thought that I would share another excerpt of writing today. One of the projects I have on the back burner currently is a memoir about my childhood, written in the same style as the creative non-fiction piece I wrote about in my last post. One short section I’ve written for the memoir is about my journey to writing and also features Maine, so I thought I would share it below.
I’m continuing to work on my fantasy early YA novel and I’m about halfway through, about to hit a block because I need to do MUCH more research into Celtic and Irish myths about the Otherworld to form the rest of the story. I’m also slowly working away at my picture book about River, and currently reading The City Beyond the Sea (Greenwild 2) by Pari Thomson (excellent middle grade fantasy), and listening on audio book to Blood at the Roots by LaDarrion Williams (YA fantasy, entertaining but not incredible in my opinion).
Those are my updates for today! Without further ado, here is my excerpt:
The weeks before the summer camp I daydreamed about classrooms full of desks, studious other elementary age children hunkered down over their writing, inspiration dripping down the walls, ready to be absorbed by my eager young mind. I excitedly told our neighbor that what I imagined was that it would be “like school!” And our neighbor looked at me with such horror - why would I possibly want to go to something “like school” in the summer? But having never experienced the drudgery of school, there couldn't have been anything more tantalizing to my mind.
The first year, we camped on the outskirts of The University of Maine at Orono, our huge tent made for seven people surrounded by thick woods, swatting mosquitos and dousing ourselves in bug spray, sitting under the tarp my dad rigged up every year in case of the not infrequent Maine summer rain. We cooked spaghetti on the camp stove, played card games and listened to the light Christian rock we were allowed to.
The writing camp exceeded my expectations. Not only desks and studious heads scribbling away furiously but also, field trips, ice cream, and stories dreamed up in my eight-year-old head of a gorilla and deer who were best friends. (At first, they were in love, but then I decided that was too awkward - anatomically speaking). The gorilla and deer went on adventures together and my first story composed at writing camp developed into a series, and I was forever changed. I hadn’t known that I loved writing stories, or that I was good at it, until those long summer days, notebooks full of scribbles and dreams.
Another year only my younger sister Erin, my dad, and me went, and this was special in a whole new way, for we stayed in the dorms that they provided because my father was teaching workshops there. My sister and I bounced from one small twin bed to the other, delighted in the mediocre furnishings, the sticky hallways and bathrooms that had seen a few too many college students.
I remember condensed milk that my dad bought thinking we could eat it with our cereal, although it was too sickly sweet and I couldn't stomach it. Another day breakfast at a coffee shop or Diner - a treat, since we never ate out, not even when we were on vacation. And one night after a long day of writing, my dad couldn’t muster the energy to cook, and he had an enormous affinity for ice cream which he could eat to his hearts content without the eyes of my mother looking on, (he loved to put peanuts on his ice cream). And so that night my sister and I just ate ice cream for dinner, the next day excitedly telling my friend for the week that we had only had ice cream for dinner and her astonished reply “Nothing else? Not even spaghetti?!”
Eventually my dad stopped teaching at those summer camps and started holding versions of his own at our house in the summer, full of our church friends' kids who needed something to do, and the last year he did it I read the story I had written over the week, which I was proud of, although no memory of it exists now, except that it made my mother cry, in a good way. And my mother never cried.
Love Potion
I wanted to share a little of my writing this week, since I’ve focused mostly on illustration so far. I am currently in the midst of writing an upper middle grade fantasy novel, but it’s far too messy to share any of that yet. I am excited that I’m over 25,000 words in though, as that makes it the longest piece of writing I’ve worked on since I was 16! I will share more about that project in the future when I have the plot developed enough to at least provide a synopsis.
For now, my favorite thing that I wrote last year was a creative nonfiction essay about vicarious trauma (definition coming, if you’re not familiar with the term). For the last ten years or so, creative nonfiction has been my total jam, and I’ve experimented with lyric essays. I’ve come up with a way to write essays where I first write poems on a certain theme, then restructure them into prose, to make an essay that is broken into short sections. I find writing the poems really organic and can sometimes crank one out in five or ten minutes, so with my busy schedule during the school year, this is a great way for me to sneak in some writing.
I wrote the essay, titled Love Potion, for an assignment for my creative inquiry in interdisciplinary arts class fall semester at California Institute of Integral Studies. I then created a mixed media illustration for it, and made a handmade book to hold the essay as well as the illustration. This project helped me process so much of what I was experiencing at work as a mental health therapist at the time, and also helped me begin to recognize my desire to truly develop my skills as an artist and writer and dedicate more time to that part of myself.
I won’t be able to share the whole essay here because I do hope to get it published in a journal or literary magazine, but I’ll include a few of the sections for anyone reading, as well as pictures of the book. I do have to include a trigger warning here for the parts of the essay that I’ll share below: it contains mention of suicide as well as gun violence.
The cover of the book is made out of moss, which captured the idea throughout the essay and art piece of buried feelings, memories and trauma. The beads are a charm that I made and blessed following the steps of old Italian magic, due to my Italian heritage.
1.
Vicarious trauma: The emotional impact of being exposed to the experiences of others who have experienced trauma. The emotional impact of hearing that someone wants to kill themselves, over and over and over again. The emotional impact of picturing the sexual assault in your head that wasn’t yours, but now is yours to carry. You've taken a little of the load, and now you carry it.
My sister and I were sitting outside at a brewery one sunny day in Colorado, and there was a ladder attached to the wall, blocked off in some way so no one could access it, and we looked at it, odd, and wondered why. “Oh, it must be so that people can’t jump off,” my sister said, a trauma therapist, like me. And I looked at her and raised my eyebrows, skepticism and concern all in one. “It’s not even high enough for someone to break their leg,” I said, “let alone kill themselves.” She blinked, realizing the dark place where her thoughts lived. And years later here I am, staring at the hook in my sister's garage, for bikes, or equipment, or something benign, and all I can think about is the 14-year-old boy who wants to hang himself. And I tell my sister I can’t sit in her garage anymore, that 14-year-old boy haunting the edges of my dreams:
The emotional impact of being
exposed
To the experiences
of
Others (us)
(all)
The mixed media collage I created that took me over 20 hours to complete.
4.
She follows me - in the eyes of the girl sitting across from me, in the stories the therapist I supervise tells me, of her client who fights with her mom every morning, of her client who sees her mom drink every day, and she asks me, “when will the other shoe drop?” And I say, “maybe it won’t.” Some teenagers have such an incredible resilience, in the face of abuse and neglect their whole lives. They go to school, put on a smile, do their work, plan their lives. Cry frustration into their pillows at night at the things they can’t control. And they find a way out.
She follows me - In the words I once told her, “You’re so much tougher than most of these kids.” In the way she softly smiled and held her head high. And grief surprises me in these moments, noticing the echo of her once existence in the girl sitting across from me, in the stories I hear. Her death will never make sense. It can’t make sense. And I’ve pictured what it looked like, the horror of the teens in that house, the silence after the shot, the screams of her best friend, who saw the whole thing, who rocked her body as she slipped from this world into the next. And I know this grief will follow me, as I keep hearing stories that mirror hers, as I keep seeing that resilience in the moments between. Pain and joy and human life.
She follows me.
7.
Love Potion
A spell to heal that which we avoid
You will need:
Love
The most painful moment
Community
A song for weeping, sleeping, and laughing
A dance
Your ancestor's medicine
Your first medicine
Method:
Take your most painful moment and stare it in the eyes. Don't blink. Let it enter you, seep through your skin. Take your ancestors medicine and say a prayer for strength, for healing, for the ability to face the darkness instead of run from it. Then take your first medicine, the thing you did as a child that brought the most joy, the most calm. (For me, it is writing, for you, maybe dance, maybe song). Combine the painful moment, the ancestor's medicine and the first medicine. Stir slowly three times. Then paint yourself with the love. Listen to the songs of weeping, sleeping, and laughing. Wrap yourself in the community, and dance.
Please forgive the not great photos but I wanted to show what the whole book looks like in its accordion fold. This is the front spread.
This is the back spread.
This project is one of the art pieces I’ve made using both my writing and visual arts skills, and it really developed me as an interdisciplinary artist. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the excerpts (well, maybe enjoyed isn’t the right word - I know it’s pretty heavy material!).
Till next week, keep creating!
Experiments in Illustration
My goal is to write a blog post once a week, so I thought I would start by sharing my process with the book I am writing about my daughter, River. One day several months ago I sat down at my computer and started writing from the perspective of my two year old, chuckling at myself as I put my experience of her as a parent into words. The book starts like this.
“I am River. These are the faces I like to make: (picture here of faces). In the summer, I walk around the yard and pick up apples that have fallen from the trees. I take one bite - crunch! and put it in my pocket.”
The book goes on like this, describing River’s difficulty talking (although she finds other creative ways to express herself), and her special hobbies and interests (beetles, throwing oracle cards behind the bed, etc.).
This was the first illustration I made for the book:
I had the idea in my head that I would try watercolor illustrations, so that’s what I did here. Since I’ve never attempted to illustrate a book before, I figured that I would just use this project as a way to practice and experiment with what my style is, while also creating something special for my kid. Last semester in school (I’m getting my PhD in East-West Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies), I got to do a mentorship with a published author and illustrator, Ajuan Mance. The mentorship was one of my favorite things that I’ve done in my program so far. I showed Ajuan this illustration as well as another one in colored pencil that I did for a class. She thought the watercolor was a little busy (so did I), and liked the composition of the colored pencil better.
This was the first colored pencil drawing I did for the book.
I had really only done the second illustration in colored pencil because I was on a time crunch for the assignment for my class, and I thought colored pencil would be faster than watercolor. I was surprised that I was actually pretty happy with how it turned out, especially because I’ve never thought that I could really draw. Ajuan was extremely supportive with changing that myth in my mind and encouraged me to keep exploring styles and see what worked best for me.
Because I enjoyed the colored pencil drawing so much, I made a few more like that, adding some mixed media collage elements into the pieces. (You can see all of the drawings for this book in my Illustration gallery on the Work page of my website). I really wanted to figure out a way to make my mixed media style work as illustration, and that’s something I’m still working on. For this book I have landed on colored pencil with some few collage elements thrown in, and I’ll keep exploring other styles with different projects. One thing that I never thought about before with my mixed media collage work was copyright issues with using other peoples photos and artwork within my art. I started researching that when I became interested in illustration, so for the second version of the apple drawing the collage elements I used were all public domain images. I found several resources online where you can access tons of public domain images, such as rawpixel and Old Book Illustrations.
Here is the second version of the apple drawing and the one that I will actually use for the book, since it matches the style of the rest of the art. I also changed the composition to make River a little more of the focus, since I thought she got a bit lost in the first version. I love the vibrancy of the watercolor and I think it really accurately represents our actual backyard, but for overall style I think the second one works better for the book.
I plan on continuing to work on this book throughout the summer and submit it to some agents/publishers kind of just for fun (if you consider that fun). If I don’t get any bites, I will probably do a kickstarter campaign and self-publish it. I had originally only intended to make a few copies for River and family, but Ajuan really encouraged me to do more with it. It’s amazing what a difference it can make in your creative endeavors to have another professional give you guidance and support, and I’m so grateful for that.
Next week I think I’ll share more about some of the writing projects that I’ve currently got cooking.
Until then, keep creating!
On Imagination
On Sunday I attended a painting workshop with Shiloh Sophia, who I didn’t know anything about, but who led us through her intuitive painting process. I don’t usually do abstract painting, because anytime that I’ve tried, I’ve just gotten frustrated and felt like a failure. I need some kind of structure or image to work off of, especially since I always tell a story through my art. The process that Shiloh led us through yesterday was quite abstract, and I found myself facing the familiar inner critics voice criticizing my piece. I felt SO relieved when she invited us to add an object or figure to the painting and I could go back to familiar territory. But what I also learned through the process was to let go a little, and just play with the paint. Shiloh invited us to think about our “codes,” the part of us that we are born with, that are just inherently our own gifts that we have to offer to the world, and what I came to as I dreamed and painted was Imagination.
I’m pretty sure that one of the gifts I have to offer the world is finding ways to access imagination, because it’s something that I’ve always been able to do, although there have been times in my life as a teen and an adult where I’ve lost touch with that part of myself. Over the past year in my work in my PhD program as well as in my personal therapy, I’ve come back to that child-like part of myself that loves magic and stories. As an art therapist, I’ve seen that some of my most resilient clients have gotten through terrible things because of their access to their imaginations.
I’ve really struggled this year with my career choices, becoming an art therapist instead of pursuing art or writing more professionally. My intention with creating this website is to give the artist and writer part of myself permission to take charge. I’ve identified as a therapist first for the last seven years, and now I want to be a writer and artist first, therapist second. I’m pondering whether therapist still fits into the equation at all a lot lately, but maybe there’s a way it can all work for the time being if I can find ways to guide people back to their imagination, their inherent creativity, through writing, art, and therapy.
My goal with this blog is to share bits of my journey in exploring writing and illustration professionally. I’ll share short pieces of my writing, write process blogs about my illustrations and how I create them, and share information that I’m learning about self-publishing versus traditional publishing and all the ins and outs of the publishing world. I’ll consider making a newsletter, so if you would like these posts to get sent directly to your inbox, sign up with your email below and I’ll see what I can do.
There are parts of me trying to tell me that this is already a wasted dream, I shouldn’t be spending money on this website, etc. etc. In fact, I nearly gave up before I completed the website because computer stuff just doesn’t come that easily to me and I was sick of looking at templates I didn’t like. But I’m choosing to invest in my creativity, in my imagination, because I know what reading and art can do for a soul. And it doesn’t hurt that this website is the color of the yellow house I’ve always dreamed of having.