Teen Writers Bloc

If you asked me today whether I would do The New School’s Writing for Children program over again, my answer would be an unequivocal yes. Thanks to the program, I’m now part of an amazing community of writers that I know I’ll be part of for the rest of my life. I’ve completed four novels, and my writing has improved immensely. Though I had already sold my first book by the time I started the program, I think that my MFA experience has greatly enhanced my lifetime career prospects.

So if you asked me whether you should do the New School MFA, I’d say yes, right? Well, not so fast. You see, the reason that my experience here has been so fantastic is my peer group — the twelve fantastic writers I’ve had the honor of working with over the last two years. Over the last two years, we’ve pushed each other and supported each other so that each of us has reached greater heights than we ever would have without the group. Though we had three talented writers for workshop instructors, it was the comments of our peers that we most trusted, and it was our peers’ writing that we most learned from. The New School provided the structure for the thirteen of us to come together. But what else did The New School provide? What would the program have been like if it were just the program, and my classmates had been different? This question has left me wondering whether the program will be as amazing for others as it was for me.

For anyone considering whether to do the MFA, this is what The New School Writing for Children program consists of: Two literature seminars taught by fantastic New York editors, three peer-driven workshop classes led by talented authors, and a thesis advisor. That sounds good, but it doesn’t exactly add up to two full years of instruction, worth two full years of tuition. The school offers three semesters during which MFA students take classes. For one of those semesters, Writing for Children students (but not Fiction or Poetry students) must take a literature seminar outside their genre. When some of us complained about the lack of a third Writing for Children seminar, the administration presented it as both an issue of lack of funding for the missing class and as a good thing for us, because Writing for Children students need exposure to other genres to become well-rounded writers. If the out-of-genre requirement had applied to all genres, I would have been okay with this and possibly even supportive, but as it was, I found it insulting. The insult was compounded by the fact that not one of the fiction seminars we ended up taking included a single YA book on the reading list. I’m guessing that everyone reading this blog agrees that YA literature is, in fact, real literature and that YA writers are, in fact, real writers. Plus, I’ve already ranted on this blog about how unhelpful I found my literature seminar to be. Suffice to say that I didn’t feel that our tuition money was wisely spent on our out-of-genre requirement.

And now we come to the fourth semester. During the fourth semester, MFA students take no classes whatsoever. We meet with peer groups and work with a thesis advisor on a creative thesis. The New School requires a “literature project,” but Writing for Children students typically use a paper that we write in David Levithan’s first semester literature seminar to fulfill that requirement. So the school demands full tuition simply for advising on the creative thesis. Don’t get me wrong, I loved working with my fabulous thesis advisor, Susan Van Metre! But I know the school isn’t paying her my full tuition. So I think the fourth semester is a rip-off.

Finally, there’s the problem of low expectations. If you wanted to, you could graduate from the program without ever having completed a novel. The thesis requirement is only fifty pages. You could literally write only fifty pages in the entire program and still graduate.

What does this mean? Basically, I think the program is a crap shoot. If you get lucky and end up with a fantastic class, then the program will be well worth it. But if you get unlucky, and you end up in a class that’s less cohesive and motivated, then the program may not be worth the money. Personally, I chose to come to the program because I wanted to make being a children’s author my lifelong career. But if I hadn’t been able to attend the program for whatever reason, I would still be writing. I would even still be celebrating the release of my first book (Wuftoom, on shelves May 8!) I suspect that many of my classmates would also still be writing and still have achieved at least some of their successes. The program enhanced our careers, but it didn’t write our books for us. Success in the program requires a fire from within, something no amount of money can buy you.

Image credit: The Fabulous Riddhi Parekh!

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I think it’s safe to say that my three favorite female authors writing today are and will probably always be Sarah Dessen, Toni Morrison, and J.K. Rowling. Many of my previous posts discuss Ms. Dessen and her amazing body of work, her ability to create realistic characters and put them seamlessly into relatable conflict during their ‘teen years.’ I’ve also posted about Ms. Morrison before. She is extremely talented and has the ability to write clean and powerful prose while weaving themes and tropes intricately into her novels without being too overbearing, but still drawing the reader into the tale she has crafted. The Bluest Eye had an enormous impact on my life, as did Beloved and Song of Solomon. They are haunting texts for sure, but as an aspiring author I often dove into them curious about how she was able to write such focused, detailed and purposeful narratives.

That said, I probably haven’t mentioned Ms. Rowling before, because most likely I figured there was no need. I think everyone can understand the enormous impact she and those following in her footsteps (Hunger Games, Matched, and other series-laden franchises, anyone?) have had on the literary world. She is probably the most successful author on the planet, except for maybe James Patterson, Stephen King and Toni Morrison, and that’s a big maybe. And the most inspiring thing about her is the fact that she believed in her creation, her characters and their story, despite the fact that few others did at the time. She persevered through tons of rejections, just like most writers do, and it ended up paying off for her many times over.

When I mention that I’m getting my MFA in Creative Writing, a lot of people that I respect are encouraging, but there are still those who say it’s foolish to pursue a writing career and that it’s a career where you don’t make any money and one that is completely impractical — as if I didn’t already know or hadn’t heard all of that before. But the longer I’m in this program, the more I realize that the most important thing is to be committed your craft, despite the naysayers (and there are many), and to go after your passion. There may never be another J.K. Rowling, such a groundbreaking phenomenon may never repeat itself, but that isn’t really the point. The point is that every author has to make a commitment to her craft, block out those who tell her no, and run towards what she wants — just to see if maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to make her ambitions a reality.

Book cover image courtesy of Vintage

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Shaw. Professor Shaw.

That’s my new title. Okay, well technically my title is Assistant Professor Shaw, but Professor sounds so much cooler. I can finally thank The New School for that master’s degree — that $40k piece of paper that hangs on my freshly painted bedroom walls. It feels good.

I’ve known for many years now that I wanted to teach. That’s half of the reason I decided to go to The New School (the other half was to improve my writing so that I could get an agent and get published. Ahem … Earth to agents. This is for you. Ahem!), so it’s nice to know that I am finally teaching.

Where: The College of New Rochelle.

What: Writing 102: Critical Research Essay

When: Why am I telling you this? So you show up and slaughter me on my way to class?

It’s a required freshman writing course geared towards showing students how to write a well-developed research paper.

Typically, the thought of writing is one that makes students want to scream. So you could imagine what writing a research paper must do to them. That’s why I’ve decided to take a mass media/pop culture spin on the proceedings.

What do Facebook, Britney Spears, Suzanne Collins, South Park, Saved by the Bell, Modern Family, People Magazine, The New York Times, Drake, Lady Gaga and Beyonce, Don Henley, Chuck Klosterman, Dove, United Colours of Benetton, and many, many more pop culture references have in common?

They’re all a part of my class.

Example: On the second day of class, we listened to a few songs about fame and media influence, like Drake’s “Headlines” and Lady Gaga’s “The Fame.” My first essay assignment had my students compare Britney Spears’s “Piece of Me” to Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” and discuss what each says about the media’s influence. I’m also having them read Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games because of what it says about our reality TV-obsessed culture. (Does anyone think Hunger Games is basically one giant commentary on Britney’s head-shaving, paparazzi-umbrella-attacking breakdown?)

Not your typical run-of-the-mill writing course, eh?

Exactly.

It’s weird being on the other side of the red pen. But it’s natural. I come alive during class time, and I live to create assignments. My goal is to foster a fun learning environment that provokes discussions that ignites my students’ creativity, hopefully gives them ideas for their writing, and helps them dive deeper into their own thoughts. Last week, I had them read a study on online gender-swapping. Then I had them use Facebook to study a member of the opposite sex and write a few paragraphs on gender construction.

I’m employing everything I’ve learned in my career as a writing student (and that of a writing tutor) to kick ass as Professor Shaw.

We’re entering the fourth week of classes, and so far I have a wonderful group of students who really seem to respond to the material. We have our first writing workshop on Monday.

Stay tuned for more stories and lessons from The Other Side of the Red Pen as they develop!

Photo Credit: The Daily News and New York Post

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A few years ago, when my sister Meena and I first started writing screenplays, we pondered this: do we make our protagonist a brown girl like us? Or a white girl like most of the members of some vague future audience for our films?

At first, it was a bit of a no-brainer. Did we want to actually sell a script? Why yes, we did. So we wrote about a white girl. Relatable. Fun. And still, deep down, a bit like us. Did she not suffer from frizzy, uncontrollable hair? Did she not have a bitchy boss from hell who made her life miserable? Did she not lust after the exact wrong guy? See?

But we weren’t satisfied with just that. So we made sure we put a brown character into the script, albeit in a small role. Then a funny thing happened when we were taking pitch meetings in big, bad Hollywood. When they inevitably asked what else we were working on (they always ask that, by the way), we told them about this little project I’d been developing for my thesis script at NYU, you know, the back pocket one that you’ll eventually have to make yourself because it’s so specific. It was about another floundering twenty-something (our specialty!) in the city who fell for the wrong guy, had the bitchy boss, and was essentially just a hot mess.

But this feisty chick — well, she was brown. Like us. There was something about her, though, that made her relatable to all those aforementioned potential white girls in that imaginary audience. And so that ended up being the script that everyone wanted to talk about, that everyone wanted to work with us on. It didn’t hurt, also, that Bend It Like Beckham was a surprise hit, and Monsoon Wedding had done well right before that. But of course, by the time we’d worked out all the kinks with our would-be producers, another flick with subcontinental flavor had TANKED, and so we lost our shot.

Writing fiction has been an interesting journey for me in this regard, especially when compared to the previously ethnically barren landscape of Hollywood. (Now, there’s a requisite brown sidekick on every hit sitcom or drama. I’m not kidding. I could make a whole slideshow full. Maybe I will, in fact.) (Anyway, I digress.) Given the healthy interest in South Asian Diaspora fiction the past decade, I didn’t feel nearly as intimidated writing an ethnic character as I had in the past. There’s room in publishing for brown folks like me, at least to a certain degree — and in a certain market. (Mostly literary fiction.) But! And you knew there was a but!

There are still some stories that I want to write that don’t really have anything at all to do with being a brown girl. Case in point? My first YA project, which is about as high concept as they come. If I made one of the two protagonists an Indian girl, it would leave readers scratching their heads. Why did the author make that choice? What does it bring to the text? In that novel, it really wouldn’t bring a whole lot to the text. But, as always, I want to represent. So I did put an Indian girl into the book — in a bit of an unexpected way. And there’s a black character in it, too, but not just to make it uber-diverse. It’s in a way that makes sense for the story and the character. The book isn’t about race, really. But the diversity adds a layer to the text. It works in the novel without overtaking the novel.

My second work-in-progress — my thesis project — is a whole ‘nother story. Ethnic identity is one of the key components in this book. It has a flavor to it, if you will. One of the biggest challenges I’m facing in working on my thesis project is that I’m writing three narrators — and they’re all brown girls, all from New Jersey, all Upper Middle class. All too easily, these three voices could meld together and sound the same, given their shared history and ethnicity, their shared community. But you see, that’s where the other components of storytelling come into play here. These are three very different characters — each has a different want, a different way of achieving it or expressing it, a different take on the world. Or at least I hope they will. The key for me in telling this story is to not just make them three brown girls. It’s the universality of the situations they face — the heart of the novel is about the implosion of a friendship, something that’s relatable to most readers. The setting and culture is specific — and therefore, I’m hoping, interesting in its own right — but the conflict is universal, graspable by a wider audience. Essentially, what I’m trying to say is that I’m not just writing a book about brown girls for brown girls, but rather a book about these girls, who happen to be brown, but they’re also very much just…girls.

That’s kind of how I view writing ethnicity. Do I always write what I know? Not exactly. But there’s usually some intrinsic part of the character that I can relate to, something that makes the character universal in some way. The angst of the character, their hovering mother, their bond with a sibling, the way they tie their shoes or hate their job or eat breakfast for dinner. My characters tend to be human, after all. (No sci-fi here.) With all my writing, it seems, I’m trying to tell an everygirl story in a specific and interesting way. Kind of like with that script that was a hot property for ten Hollywood seconds.

And that script, by the way? The story’s still in my back pocket. Maybe you’ll read it one day — in novel form.

Photo Courtesy Mirabai Films

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1. It’s 2012 now, and the Mayans say we’re going to die. So we might as well live it up while we still can. For me, “living it up” includes watching lots of Vampire Diaries, reading lots of YA books (next up on the reading queue: Lauren Myracle’s Shine), and making lots of soup in my slow cooker.
2. Writing (fiction in particular) is awesome. In what other career do you get to be creative, use your brain, and live in a total fantasy world all at once, all while sitting at home in your pajamas?
3. Just thinking about your story isn’t enough — you actually have to sit down and put the words on the page. This holiday season was a major reminder of this for me. I justified all the slacking, eating, procrastinating, and vegging to myself by saying I was thinking about my story and spending all those days/weeks letting the story build in my head. Which was true. But it’s still no substitution for actually putting in the writing hours. Brains make up stories, but fingers-on-keyboards write books.
4. Time flies. We’ve blasted through three semesters in the blink of an eye, and now we’re down to one: our class-free thesis semester. Crazy. Also proof that time flies: I just turned 30 at the end of December. How the frak did that happen? For suggestions on how to use your fleeting time wisely, see #1 above: “living it up.”
5. Biggest writing-related lesson I learned this year: people’s tastes in literature are as different as the people themselves. So write what you love, tell the story you want to tell, and there will be someone out there who loves it as much as you do. Even if you get a lot of thumbs-downs along the way.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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Happy holidays, everyone! Now that we’ve reached the end of 2011, we at Teen Writers Bloc have come together with our favorite kid lit and YA books of the year. Here they are, in alphabetical order by author:

Bronxwood by Coe Booth
Caela says: Bronxwood is a must-read for any kid who has ever had a parent in prison.  Tyrell’s struggles to love, obey, and still disagree with his father when he returns from incarceration are poignant and heart wrenching.

Crossed by Ally Condie
Jess says: Though it’s not quite as gripping as its predecessor, Matched (read the review here!), Crossed, the second book in Ally Condie’s series, is a solid “middle book,” filled with beautiful language and a compelling story — complete with a giant mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. It is also told from Ky’s, as well as Cassia’s, point of view, so those of you who didn’t get nearly enough of Ky in the first book will be super happy to be inside his head in this one.

Circle Nine by Anne Heltzel
Jane says: I went to one of David Levithan’s book readings at the NYPL and heard an excerpt read by Circle Nine’s author Anne Heltzel. Abby wakes up outside a burning building and is pulled away by Sam, a boy she doesn’t recognize but somehow feels a connection to. She has no memories of who she is or where she came from. Abby is happy to start a new life with Sam, but events and memories bring up the need to figure out who she is and what happened the night of the fire. Read the TWB interview with Anne Heltzel here!

The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
Jane says: I chose to read this one because I don’t know of a lot of YA books that have a male narrator. It’s about 16 year old Stephen who’s living in a post-apocalyptic future with his dad and grandfather. The family wanders the land, looking for a place to live and where they can avoid being found by gangs that find people to enslave them. Grandpa dies and Dad has an accident that results in a coma, so when Stephen looks for help, he finds Settlers Landing, a town that’s rebuilt by a group of people trying to regain civilization. Stephen becomes involved in a prank that puts Settlers Landing and lives in danger, and he has to figure out how to deal with the aftermath.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Jess says: The book starts off with our narrator and heroine, Mara, telling us that Mara Dyer is actually not her real name. Her lawyer insisted that if she is to tell her story to the world—the story of how she committed several murders—she must choose a nom de plume. So, right off the bat, we know this is not going to be a story for the faint of heart. Mara is going to kill people, and she is going to get caught. But how it all goes down is anything but predictable. If you are a sucker for dark, paranormal teen romances, trust me when I say you will love this book. Read the TWB review here!

Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby
Mary says:  Full of well-drawn characters and emotional pull, the story builds slowly and grows on you until you are right there in the frozen, claustrophobic fortress. Each person has their own motivations, feelings, and strengths. No one is idealized, and no one is simple. Kirby has done a masterful job of creating tension, intrigue, and action—even though the characters have limited space in which to move. Solveig especially is many-faceted and manages to be both relatable and awesome. Readers will enjoy exploring this world with her. Read the TWB review here!

Bumped by Megan McCafferty
Jess says: Bumped is one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in… maybe ever. Though it has a sort-of “popcorn” feel to it, filled to the brim with cheesy references, corny names, and teen celebrity lust, underneath all that, there is an extremely edgy, daring story. What would happen if everyone over the age of 18 became infertile and it was up to teenagers to continue the human species? In this day and age of Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant, it’s a question that, amazingly, doesn’t seem so far-fetched. This book is a fun, quick read, and yet, I guarantee it will really make you think.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Mary says: A Monster Calls is a great illustration of how fantasy can depict reality better than so-called “realism.” What, after all, is more real than our greatest fear? For younger children, that fear might be a monster under the bed or in the closet, but as we get older, we begin to realize that real life contains monsters that can’t be scared away by a bright light. The author’s writing is sparse but lyrical. With few characters and not a single gimmick, Ness brings us into a world of nightmares. Whether the nightmares will end depends on Conor. How will he face the monster that stalks him? Ness’s poignant answers make this book required reading for anyone, young or old, who appreciates the power of a story to reveal truth. Read the TWB review here!

Lisel & Po by Lauren Oliver
Dhonielle says: Liesl & Po has the best blend and balance of both magic and mystery, danger and safety. The tale reminds me of the books I used to stay up late to read as a kid — both classic and modern. Each character has layers and secrets, and Oliver’s flowery prose brings them alive. This book will stand up for multiple readings.

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
Jess says: Part Lord of the Flies, part Bumped, and part Battlestar Galactica, Glow is filled with murder, deception, and nonstop action. The characters are layered and complicated, to the point where you never entirely know who to trust. Sometimes that can be frustrating, but Ryan pulls it off quite well. Read the TWB review here!

And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky
Corey says: This is a beautiful contemporary YA about a Sylvia Plath-loving teen whose family is falling to pieces the same summer she has come down with an epic case of chicken pox. Left alone with her dysfunctional family, her confusing relationships, and her virginity to ponder, she spends a lot of time with an old typewriter and a well-loved copy of The Bell Jar. Narrator Keek is one of my favorite YA narrators of all time, and this creative, quirky, honest novel was a good reminder of why I became a writer and why I love writing for teens.

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It’s our third and final semester of taking actual classes at the New School’s MFA program in Writing for Children. I’m really going to miss seeing all the other TWBers for Tuesday workshops. Other students have told me that they’ve heard our group is a close-knit one and they’re right. Over the past year and a half, I was amazed and grateful that so many different personalities found a way to get along so well.

When I started the program, my first story was a middle grade fantasy about monsters under the bed. Then I got stuck and decided to do a YA novel about bullying. That didn’t get very far. In my second semester, I went back to the monsters, but I only got as far as having my characters run into the monsters. I didn’t know how to save them. So as of now, they’re still stuck under the bed and I don’t know when they’ll come out.

For my third semester, I began another middle grade story about a girl who’s learning how to deal with her parents’ separation. I even made up what I thought was a great outline for the story — something I didn’t do for my previous works-in-progress. I started running out of steam on this one, too, and I discovered the outline I created wasn’t exactly helping me. So I called on the help of fellow TWBer, Dhonielle Clayton. I picked her brain about her outlining methods and I got some great tips. I was ready to start on yet another new story. This one takes place in the future and involves memory and transplants. Thanks to Dhonielle, I have my story set up and ready to go.

As we head into our thesis and final semester, I’m looking forward to finishing this latest project. I know what my character wants, I have a plot, and I have a story arc. Most importantly, I have the drive to finish this one. I’m definitely going to miss our Tuesday workshop classes, but working on my thesis will definitely occupy that empty time slot.

Image courtesy of Fotolia

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The next semester is my thesis semester and I am not 100% looking forward to it. I’ve written a thesis before and the process can be so tedious that I am less than thrilled at having to do another one. The whole getting it printed on special paper thing, ugh! But I am the one who decided to go back to graduate school, so I must accept reality and get it done. Here’s the problem….

I have NO IDEA what I’m going to work on and I have to kinda have it mapped out by the end of January. During the program, I finished two complete manuscripts (one being a collaborative project with two fellow TWB members, the lovely Corey Ann Haydu and Sona Charaipotra), and 85 percent of another one. I plan to have the second manuscript finished over the winter break, so I need to start something brand new.

The blank page is frightening. I have some ideas milling about and some old projects that can be re-worked, but I am having a fear of commitment. I think part of my problem is that I’ve been tutoring too much and I can’t access the creative part of my brain right now, so I am exhausted and the thought of one more thing to do is just not exciting. So I am resolved to having no plan. And if you know me, I always have a plan.

Sigh, sounds like other areas of my life. I hope that my wonderful critique group: Alyson, Corey, and Sona, can bear with me as I try to figure out what I want to write about.

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It’s our thesis semester. It’s time to write the book I planned to write from the beginning.

When we first started TeenWritersBloc.com, all of my posts focused on how much inspiration I had drawn from my work at Chicago Jesuit Academy and the extraordinary teenagers I knew there. While working there, I began a novel called Trippin’, which became my writing portfolio for my MFA applications.

When I began at The New School’s Writing for Children’s program, I was certain I was going to take the opportunity of these two years to write that book.  But something happened. Another voice rooted in my brain — one not based on a situation I had fought and lived though. It was a lot easier to let this new voice get workshopped.  At some point during my second semester workshop, I attempted to finish Trippin’, but I went so crazy trying to improve the story and widen the possible audience that it simply became something other than what I wanted to write.

So now here we are on the brink of our last semester and Trippin’ remains in the same shape it was on my application. If I want to get it done during my time in school, I have one semester to make that work.

In the meantime, this is how I’m feeling: How is it possible that we only have one semester left? How sad that Tuesday is about to become a regular day of the week! I’ve been productive during our time as an entire class and I’ve learned so much. There is a lot I will miss about our regular semesters as we go into this last one.

But I’m excited for this upcoming thesis semester. I’m going to work with a fantastic advisor, Patricia McCormick, author of Sold, Cut, and other novels for young adults. I have a fantastic peer group who I know will provide wisdom and encouragement (and who are writing books that I’m thrilled I’ll get to finish reading). Outside of school, I’ll be working with my editor to finalize my first novel for publication, Me, Him, Them and It  (Bloomsbury 2013). And, finally, I’m really going to finish the book I’ve wanted to write from the beginning. Because if I don’t do it now, I’m afraid I never will.

Photo Credit: FlickRiver.com

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Hang on — we only have one semester of school left? How the hell did that happen? Does that mean I’m going to have to re-enter the real world soon and get a full-time job and start paying back my exorbitant student loans? Nooooooooo!!!!

Okay, now that I’m done with my little freak-out, let’s take a look at what I’ve got going on for my thesis semester. I know what I’m going to be working on — a contemporary realism YA story that I’ve already started. The tricky thing about this story is that it takes place entirely at a rather unusual/interesting/scary summer camp, so even though I’m writing about things that absolutely happen in real life, the world-creation that is required for this story is almost like fantasy in a way.

I’ve already made a plan with my thesis advisor — the incomparable Sarah Ketchersid, Executive Editor at Candlewick — and have decided that my goal for the thesis semester is to get a solid complete draft finished. It’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m excited. I’m also super-excited to be working with my awesome peer group — TWB’s Mary, Amy, Riddhi, and Caela. These ladies are not only awesome writers, they give great feedback.

The other thing that will be happening at the same time that I’m writing my thesis is that my most recent contemporary realism novel will be sent out into the publishing world by my agent. This is, as several of my classmates can attest to, both very exciting and extremely nerve-wracking. You never know what will happen when editors are given the chance to read your book. It could work out exactly the way you’ve always dreamed, or the results could be, shall we say, less-than-desirable.

It’s that thing that everyone always says but that you never really truly understand until you’re in the thick of it yourself — this is a very subjective business, and there’s a LOT of worthy competition out there, and your success relies pretty much entirely not on whether your book is the best book ever written, but whether an agent/editor/reader connects with it. Being at the mercy of other people’s whims and personal opinions is scary business indeed.

Photo credit: nenyaki.blogspot.com

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