Well and good. I believe that college students, graduate and undergraduate, should have accurate information about the careers they’re preparing for. On the other hand, “accurate” is a funny word. I majored in English. One year after graduation, my prospects were bleak. Forty-five years after graduation, I’d have to say that my college studies gave me the kind of life most people dream about. So is it a bad idea to major in English, philosophy, comparative literature, French, anthropology, etc? Is it a good idea to major in engineering, business, computer science, nursing, or other areas that lead to specific careers?

Well, that depends. To quote John Lennon, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”

My brilliant cousin Richard majored in physics at Harvard. This was in the sixties at the height of the space program. Everyone told him that he could write his own ticket as a physicist. He completed all the coursework for a doctoral program in physics. Then, just as he was beginning his dissertation, the bottom dropped out of the space program. We’d put a man on the moon. We didn’t have to impress the Soviets. The costs of the war in Vietnam war were rising astronomically. Funding for physics stopped. Physicists were a dime a dozen. Richard ended up teaching physics in a Chicago high school. (That’s not where he stayed. He later went into advertising with great success.)

I, with my  Engish degree, was also teaching. With Richard’s “practical degree” and my “worthless” one, we both ended up in the same place and we both ended up doing pretty well in life. So is it better to major in Physics or English? You tell me.

Here’s another tale.

My college friend Steve majored in Electrical Engineering. (My college, Lafayette, had a strong engineering component. Many of my friends, as well as Donald and Frank, my two roommates, were engineers.) It was an eminently practical choice. Steve’s dad owned an electrical supply business. An electrical engineering degree on top of the skills Steve learned working for his dad during summers would give him everything he needed to take over the firm when his father retired.

Ah, but the best laid schemes…

Steve and I graduated in 1967. By then, his dad’s business had failed. His parents divorced. His mother was living in a small apartment. His dad had remarried. As Steve told me a couple of years ago, “I graduated—and I had no home. There was no business for me to go into. So I thought, since I have no ties or obligations, why not have an adventure?”

Steve volunteered for the Peace Corps. Because of his electrical engineering background, he found himself assigned to West Africa, teaching young men how to repair small engines. He was the only American in a hundred miles. He loved it. He became an Peace Corps administrator and later went on to work in other development projects. Over the years he’s worked all over Africa. He feels more at home in Africa than in the US.

Was majoring in electrical engineering a good choice? Absolutely! But not in the way anyone could have predicted.

I have more of these stories. I’ll keep posting them.

I wish people could do that. We could lock ourselves in a closet with a case of Evian water and wait to get thin. That’s what Anansi did in Anansi and the Talking Melon.

We’d have the obesity epidemic licked.

The topic to elaborate is—ELABORATION!

I asked Ms. Williams to—well, elaborate!. I wanted to be sure that I understood how the teachers were using the term. Here’s how she defined the term for me: Elaboration is a creative thinking skill.  It encompasses adding details that expand, enrich, or embellish one’s thoughts, ideas, or products. A person might also demonstrate their thoughts, ideas, processes, pr products by using different forms of communication to elaborate.  Usually students do have to persist in order to elaborate, versus saying “I’m done” without reflecting on their product and thinking about enhancements.

Montgomery County and I are on the same page. What the teachers call “elaboration” is what I call “writing.” Far too many people see writing or any other creative endeavor as a sudden flash of insight. That’s a start. However, the truth is that a lot of hard work and hard thinking need to happen after the flash  in order to develop something worth reading.

I’ll use an example from one of my stories that’s being used in the Montgomery County curriculum. They have good taste. It’s The Fisherman and the Turtle, one of my favorites. Click on this LINK and you can share the story video with me. Scroll down. It’s in the middle of the page.

The story is an adaptation of the famous tale The Fisherman and his Wife from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I always liked the story. I  recently had success moving the old story of Stone Soup to Mexico and turning it into a Mexican tale. I enjoyed the challenge. Why not do it again?

However, in order to turn a story from the shores of the North Sea into a Mexican tale, I had to “elaborate.” A lot of questions had to be answered. Details of plot and character had to be worked out. I had to come up with something convincing. I couldn’t simply say, “These people live in Mexico and now I’m done.”

First of all, when does the story take place? Mexico has a rich history. I placed Stone Soup during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. After considering various options, I decided to place this story in the time of the Aztecs. (A personal note: I’ve loved everything about Aztec civilization since I was in the sixth grade.) Placing the story in this period would allow me to refer to the gods of the Aztec religion. This would work to my advantage as I developed the story.

Now I’ve established my setting. The next step is to develop my characters. There are three. The two main ones are the fisherman and his wife. Let’s start with them.

These two people are stuck. They are extremely poor, barely surviving. I don’t come out and say that. I paint a word picture. Read the beginning of the story. If the fisherman catches three fish, he’s had a good day. He’s never caught four. Why bother to speak of it.

I’m following an important rule in writing here. Show, don’t tell. I could tell the reader they’re poor, but that doesn’t do anything. Whenever possible, I want readers to figure out the details themselves. It makes the story more interesting. So I show the fisherman at work. The most this guy’s ever caught is three fish. How successful would you say he is? Not very!

At this point I’m laying the groundwork for distinguishing the fisherman from his wife. He’s stuck and beaten down. She’s stuck, but she hasn’t given up. She can still dream of a better life.

Her chance comes when the fisherman catches a…what? Here’s the third important character. In the original story from Grimm, the fisherman pulls in a flounder. I had a better idea. I once watched a TV special about how children in Mexico help the sea turtles. Sea turtles lay their eggs in deep holes on the beach. When the turtle eggs hatch—usually at night—the baby turtles have to make their way across the sand to the ocean. Predators are waiting. Children in Mexico gather the baby turtles in baskets and carry them to the water so that many more will have the chance to survive.

I liked that. I also think a sea turtle makes a more interesting character than a flounder. So the flounder became a sea turtle.

What about this turtle? He’s a creature of power, a supernatural being. I have to develop this.

The fisherman catches the turtle. The turtle begs be let go. “Spare my life. I am no ordinary turtle. I am…” Who? Here’s something else that I have to think through. How about the turtle being one of the seven (seven is a magic number in folktales) sons of…the Aztec sea god? Cool! That will work. Wait a minute! Did the Aztecs have a sea god? I don’t know.

Research time. I google “Aztec sea god” and keep my fingers crossed, hoping something usable will come up. Success! The Aztecs did have a sea god. His name was Opochtli. Great! It ends in a vowel. I can rhyme to it later on when the fisherman calls on the turtle. “Turtle living in the sea/Son of great Opochtli…”

The rest of the story follows the pattern of the original tale in Grimm. The turtle grants the fisherman a wish. But he’s so beaten down he can only think of asking for four fish. His wife can do better than that. She sends him back to sea again and again with a demand for more. First, wealth and a stone house. Then, power. She wants to be king. Finally, she wants immortality. She wants to be one of the gods.

The fisherman, meanwhile, becomes more and more terrified. He feels the power of this supernatural being. He’s frightened, but he doesn’t know what else to do. In any case, he’s more afraid of his wife. The guy, as I see him, is a total zero.

Now the story is heading towards its climax. The wife wants to be a god. Will she get it? Will that satisfy her if it does? Let’s see.

Here I leave the original story and stick in an ancient joke from Brooklyn, New York, where I grew up. An old couple runs a candy store. One day they find Aladdin’s Lamp. The genie comes out and offers to grant them a wish. What shall they wish for? They’ve never gone on a vacation. They wish for a Caribbean cruise. But who will watch the store while they’re gone? The genie will. So off they go on their vacation. The genie remains behind in the store. A customer comes in. The genie asks, “What can I do for you?” The customer says, “Make me a malted.” (A malted is a kind of soda made with malted milk and ice cream.)

The genie waves his hand. “Poof! You’re a malted!”

The moral: be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

What I’m going to do is work that old joke into the story. The wife asks to become one of the gods. The turtle grants her wish. What she realizes—too late—is that the gods of the Aztecs are worshiped as stone statues. That’s what she becomes: a statue made of stone. She never anticipated that. Now it’s too late.

I like this ending. It winds up the story without moralizing. What does it mean? I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just the storyteller. My job is to tell stories, not deliver lectures. What do you think it means?

Back to the main topic. As you can see, a lot of elaboration goes into the story after I make the initial decision to adapt a tale from Grimm. Now think of this: so far, I haven’t written anything. I’m working out the story in my head: getting to know the characters, thinking about the details of the plot, trying to come up with an effective ending.

That’s why I always say that 90% of the work that it takes to create a story is done before the author writes the first word. It all goes on in your head. Writing isn’t so much Writing as it is Thinking.

In other words, it’s all ELABORATION!!! An idea is worthless unless and until you make it work. Who are the characters? Where do they live? What do you know about them? What problem do they have to solve? How do they solve it? How does the story begin? How does it end? That’s the challenge. Take a fragment, a flash, a vague idea or notion and turn it into a story. Make it come alive. Create something that someone would want to read. Create something that’s worth reading. That’s what writing is all about.

One of my favorite stories concerns the great French artist, Henri Matisse. Matisse was barred from the Louvre Museum, the most famous art museum in the world, because he used to bring his paints and retouch his paintings that were hanging on the wall. In other words, his work hung in the Louvre among the greatest paintings in the world and he still didn’t think they were done. Looking at his paintings, he could still think of ways to make them better.

I know the feeling. As I read my books, I frequently change the wording. They’re never done. I can always find a way to make them better.

So can you.

Here’s what’s going on. I don’t want your phone number. Leave this space blank. I’ll explain why. I’ve been inundated with spam emails that have been using this page as a conduit. It was becoming a real problem, so I asked my webmaster Wess to come up with a solution.

That’s the reason for the Phone Number space. A real person will read the directions: This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged—and leave that space blank. A spammer’s computer will automatically insert a bogus phone number. My server will then know that the message comes from a spammer and will automatically trash it.

SO…keep your phone number to yourself. Leave that space blank. I want to hear from you and I don’t want your question dumped in the trash with the bogus emails from those despicable spammers.

In the meantime, I have to share this story. If you’ve been following my blog, you know about my pet snake, Pirate. My friend Noelle Zuelke took care of Pirate while I was gone. Noelle is cool with snakes. Bill, her dad, used to have a boa constrictor.

My plan was to feed Pirate his mouse before I left. Then Noelle would only have to feed him once. That was the plan. It didn’t work out. Pirate began going into a shed just before I left. Snakes won’t eat while they’re shedding. When I brought Pirate and his habitat over to Noelle’s house, I told Noelle to wait until Pirate shed his skin before trying to feed him.

Three weeks later, after we got back, I called to set a time to drive over to get Pirate. Val, Noelle’s mom, told me they were worried about my snake. He hadn’t eaten the whole time he’d been at their house. He took two weeks complete his shed. When Noelle tried to feed him—thinking he would be very hungry—he wouldn’t eat at all!

He still wouldn’t eat when I brought him home. This never happened before. Pirate always gobbled his mouse. Feeding him took five minutes at the most. And that was when he had eaten the previous week. He hadn’t eaten in nearly a month and he still wasn’t hungry.

I was concerned, to say the least. What was going on? Was he sick? He seemed okay. I watched him cruising around his habitat. He didn’t look thin, He looked fine—except he wasn’t eating and showed no interest in eating.

I got on the phone and called The Tropical Hut. That’s a pet store in Portland that specializes in reptiles. I got Pirate there four yeqrs ago. They got us off to a good start and were very supportive in answering all my beginner questions.

I called and told them my problem and concern. They wanted to know how old Pirate was, his length, and how long I’d had him. I answered the questions. They told me not to worry. The problem? It’s mating season!

Pirate is an young adult snake. His mating instincts kicked in this year for the first time. He’s looking for a female corn snake. As long as he’s feeling the urge to mate, he’s not going to eat. Don’t even bother feeding him.

How long will this go on? That’s what I wanted to know. There’s no way to predict it, I was told. Mating season is over when it’s over. I could try offering a mouse in another two weeks. Pirate would either eat it or he wouldn’t. If he ate the mouse, I could refreeze it once so I could offer it again in another two weeks. Then two weeks after that, and so on. I was advised not to worry. Pirate was fine. Snakes can survive a long, long time without food.

So it’s spring. And at our house, love is in the air.

Even for snakes.

I want to see if the reviewer understands what I’m trying to accomplish. Frequently, a reviewer gets side-tracked, making a big deal out of a minor issue. Another dead-end is when the reviewer calls me to account for not writing the book the way he or she would have written it. I can’t help that. I have to tell my story, not yours.

On the other hand, when a reviewer gets it right, I’m elated. Yes! You understand! Even if the reviewer isn’t crazy about what I’ve done, the criticism is valid and worthwhile. It helps me grow as a writer. I’m not perfect. Even though I’ve been writing for close to fifty years, I still have plenty to learn.

Just this morning I came across this review posted a month ago in Leah Biado-Luis’s blog, The Magic Hour. Leah reviewed my version of Medio Pollito, a book published last year. The original Spanish version of Medio Pollito is a brutal tale. The poor half-chick, a selfish character, is drowned, burned, and hung up on the top of the steeple forever. The story always reminded me of the way criminals were treated in the Middle Ages: hanged, burned, chopped up, and stuck on spikes on bridges and city gates as a warning to others. (I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where the story’s inspiration lay.)

When my editor, Margery Cuyler, suggested I write a version of the story, I told her it wasn’t one of my favorites. The only way I’d even attempt it was if I could do it my way. Margery is always supportive. “Go ahead!” she said. That’s why my version is less about punishment and more about overcoming disabilities. You can do anything if you take it one step at a time. It doesn’t matter if you’re a half-chick. What counts is having a whole heart. And the world is an exciting place. Why spend your life in a farmyard?

Yes! Leah gets it. She understand what I was trying to do with the story. Her kind words made my day. Here’s the review so you can read it yourself. Click HERE.

Even better, click HERE and you can order your own copy. I’ll even read you the story while you enjoy Valeria DoCampo’s illustrations. Click HERE.

Happy reading!

I just got back from Florida a few days ago. I leave for a school visit in Istanbul in less than a month. That’s why I’m clearing the decks and taking care of old business that I’ve set aside for too long.

One of the things I’ve been meaning to do is update my Square account. If you don’t know about Square, you should check it out, especially if you do school and library visits and personally sell your books. Square allows you to accept credit card payments. You don’t have to sign up for a service and there’s no monthly fee. They take a percentage out of each sale. Here’s a LINK if you want to learn more about it. My good pal Dianne de las Casas turned me on to it. Dianne is an outstanding writer-storyteller and a super-marketer. Here’s a LINK to Dianne’s website. When it comes to technology and knowing how to sell yourself, she leaves me in the dust.

After you sign up, Square sends you a device that you plug into your cell phone. You enter the data on your phone, slide the credit card through the device, and technology handles the rest. The payment is automatically deposited to the bank account you specify when you sign up.

I already had a Square account on my older Android phone. When I got my iPhone, Square didn’t port over for some reason. It was simpler to create a new account than to wonder what wasn’t clicking with the old one. I started the sign-up process from the beginning. I entered “Business Account” since I keep all income and expenses relating to writing separate from my personal accounts. (You should, too!!!) Then Square asked me what kind of business I had. It gave me a menu with several choices.

Here’s where the universe came knocking on my door and the cold shiver swept in. Writing, Books, Publishing, Literature, or anything like that is not one of your options. Veterinary Services is. Running a Food Cart is. Writing or anything related to books? Nada!

So what does that tell us? We blather at kids all day about how important books and reading are. But out in the world, they aren’t even as important as a hot dog stand.

Hang your head over. Hear the wind blow.

Brrrrrrr!!!!!

As I wrote the story chapter by chapter, I blogged about what was going through my mind. I talked about the questions I had to answer; how I had to figure out whom the characters where and what motivated them. Writing a book is a long process. You spend far more hours thinking than you do writing. A number of fans wrote to say how interesting they found my “thinking aloud.”

Of course, all of this becomes just another exercise unless the story finds its way into print. That can be hard and it might take years. It did in this case. I believe three or four years have passed since the time I first sent out the manuscript. But now I have something to report. My editor at Holiday House, Mary Cash, and I have almost finished the revisions. Mary really pushed me into considering a number of issues in the story that I had either glossed over or never noticed. That’s the value of a great editor. A good editor forces you to become a better writer. Thanks, Mary!

The manuscript is on its way to the copy editor, who checks EVERYTHING. The book is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2012.

And, wouldn’t you know, the last thing we needed to get straight was the title! I gave up and asked my Facebook friends. They gave me some really good and some really funny suggestions. When in doubt, ask your friends. Especially writer and artist friends.

Mary and I finally settled on H-i-s-s-s-s-s! I think minimalist titles work better. I still think that the marvelous cover for Twilight was responsible for the success of the book. Mary wondered if H-i-s-s-s-s-s! might be too much like a Carl Hiaasen title. Perhaps. But then maybe people will think it’s a Carl Hiaasen book? I wouldn’t mind if a little of his success rubbed off on me. Besides, I love the wonderful tropical weirdness of his novels.

I can’t wait to see what the cover looks like. Once I see the cover, then I can finally believe that the book is real.

I promise to post the cover as soon as I can. Meanwhile, mark Fall, 2012 on your calendars. I’ll let you know when the book is available.

Back in my day they sent you a letter. You didn’t even have to open it. A thick letter was good. It was stuffed with forms you needed to fill out and things you needed to know to get ready for your freshman year. A thin letter was not-so-good. It thanked you for applying and wished you luck somewhere else. I got a couple of those.

It was rather like an editor’s rejection letter. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was definitely good practice for a writing career!

Here’s what went wrong at Vassar. The Admissions Department posted a form acceptance letter to see if the system worked properly. The form letter was not removed in time. Students visited their online admissions file, read the form letter, and discovered they were in. Except they weren’t. The real letters were posted an hour later, just in time to turn tears of joy to tears of sorrow.

As Bill Clinton would say, “I feel your pain.” On the other hand, if you’re bright enough to  apply to Vassar, you’re sure to get into another school and do just as well. Maybe even better. Steve Jobs never finished college. Neither did Bill Gates. Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln never even went.

So shed the tears. Cry, yell, throw things against the wall. Write angry letters to the Admissions Department. Demand your application fee back. But at the back of your mind, remember this. It’s a motto that Trina Hyman gave me several years ago.

“In a year from now, you’ll laugh at this.”

Trust me. You will.

I did.

I had an experience like that last week. I was reading an article in the New York Times about two women who had an altercation in a McDonalds. It was a rather sleazy, forgettable story, except that something in the article caught my eye. One of the women in the fight said she had “washed” the other. The reporter had never heard the term before. She guessed that it meant “beat up” or “whipped.”

It does. But guess where it comes from! For the past two weeks I’ve been enjoying Adam Goodheart’s 1861, his history of the opening days of the Civil War. One of the first regiments recruited to fight for the Union was known as the Fire Zouaves because its soldiers belonged to New York City’s volunteer fire companies. (A zouave, by the way, was a soldier dressed in distinctive Algerian costume. The French had recently colonized Algeria. They recruited local tribesmen known as zouaves to fight for them. The exotic uniform was considered très chic.)

Goodheart gives the background of the volunteer fire companies. Essentially, they were street gangs who spent as much time fighting each other as they did fighting fires. Their “engines” were pumps on wheels. When a fire alarm came in, the firemen would run through the streets, pulling their engines. It was a matter of pride to be first on the scene. One engine would be connected to a hydrant or cistern—often after a fist fight. Then, depending on how far away the fire was, other engines would line up to bring the water to a point where a hose could be trained on the blaze. Pumping was done by hand. Think of a handcar on a railroad track. The firemen would line up by the pump handles on both sides of their engine and begin pumping up-down-up-down as fast and as hard as they could. The pumping was so fast and furious that a fireman who lost his grip on the handle might have his arm broken by the force of the action.

The idea was to pump water from one engine to the next until it got to the fire. A company’s reputation depended on how fast and furiously it could pump. If Company A pumped water into Company B’s engine faster than Company B could pump it to Company C, the water pressure would build up to a point where the seals of Company B’s engine would fail and water would start spurting out like a garden sprinkler, soaking the engine and the firemen manning the pumps. When this happened, Company A could brag that it “washed” Company B. Which it literally had!

The volunteer fire companies were a victim of the Civil War. In 1864, they were replaced by professional firefighters equipped with horse-drawn steam engines.

But some things live on. The two young women who got into a scrap at McDonald’s were using a word dating back to the New York of the early nineteenth century. Its meaning hadn’t changed. The reporter got it right. “Washing” someone still meant beating up, defeating, overcoming, and utterly humiliating your rival.

In William Faulkner’s words, “The past is never dead—it is not even past.”