Katherine Quimby Johnson

"Ey'm so heppy"

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:50:33 GMT

Grading is done! Grades have been filed. It is now officially the holiday season at my house. This year that means laundry and packing because in 3 days we'll be in E-burgh and we'll see BD!

Yep.

It's official.

Wheee!

the call of the plot bunny

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:06:43 GMT

Holidays, grading, editing, not to mention the minor detail of traveling for the holiday.

So what happens?

3 AM

Plot bunny: This is how you should revise SPIDER FINGERS.

Me: Noooo! No. It's done. I need to move on. Agents have seen it and said good things before they passed.

Plot bunny: But they passed. Look, if you take this other idea that you had a few years ago for something you wanted to work with sometime, all you would need to do is.... And then you could....

Me: But I want to move on. I have all these other ideas. The one I was going to dedicate the first two months of the new year to drafting.

Plot bunny: You can still do that. But you also have to do this. Now. See, if you start like this.... Insert this bit there....

Me: Please go away. I need to go back to sleep.

I did, eventually.

Plot bunnies, though, are as persistent as they are perverse.

This one recurred the night before last, and I found myself thinking about it after I finished my editing task for the day. So, last night, while HH was out at a holiday dinner after work, I pulled out a pad of paper (yes, paper, because this needed to happen the old-fashioned way) and got to work.

When HH arrived home, I was on page 2. "What are you doing?" "Writing." "What?" "Well, I had this idea for a way to revise SPIDER FINGERS." "I thought that was done." "Me, too. But I had this idea...." Scribble, scribble, scribble.

So now it will happen. Somehow. While I travel, and when I return and begin drafting the project that I will do during January and February, along with teaching and editing. Because, when the plot bunny calls, no matter how perverse, the writer listens.

Fa la la la la

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:13:00 GMT

Because I'm about to go into last minute work/exam/correcting/calculating grades mode, this seemed the day to wish all my LJ friends the happiest of holidays.

(Because we're going to be on another continent for the holidays, this is the extent of our decorating.)

May you enjoy the spirit of the season (and, where appropriate, the spirits of the season as well).

on the wild side

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:41:39 GMT

Yesterday morning, during a break from cookie baking, I looked out the kitchen window to see

About 18 wild turkeys were after the last of the crabapples, scratching through the leaves and generally leaving things quite turned over. They didn't seem to intimidate the chickadees, who fluttered above their heads, picking the perfect seed from the feeder.

Eventually the turkeys wandered on.

Life is interesting at the edge of the woods.

Why We Write - Proof

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:09:38 GMT

This afternoon as I stepped through the door of the Christmas tree place where I sometimes buy our wreath, I was greeted with "--You're Kathy Johnson!"

"Yes..." (Kathy Johnson is a relatively anonymous name and I was a town over from where I live.)

"We recognized you from the paper."

The two sisters who run the place had seen the articles I wrote in the local paper about The Great Sorting, the ones that were the basis for some of my summer LJ posts, especially this one. They started telling me about their experience sorting their mother's house (think safety pins and plastic shopping bags, and plastic shopping bags filled with other plastic shopping bags, and a few safety pins).

As I carried my fragrant spruce wreath through the snow to my car, I carried too a wonderful sense of connection. For all the differences in detail, I understood what they had gone through and they understood what I had gone through. At the time it may have felt like we were in it alone, but after those few minutes, we knew we were in good company.

I drove home in an Andy Warhol glow, confirmed once more that the non-YA, non-children's project I'm working on is one I need to do.

Still, still, still

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:09:45 GMT

After sunrise this morning

the first snow of the season was visible.

Flakes are still drifting down, not like they mean serious business, but definitely like they are here to stay for a bit.

One of the things I continue to love about this stage of winter is the quiet. This snow simply floats down, there is no wind, and it is as if the whole of creation is taking a deep breath.

Ahhh.

Because What's Saturday without Queen?

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:38:37 GMT

Smile on!

Squee--Novel Writing Retreat!

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:21:56 GMT

I've committed to another March Novel Writing Retreat at Vermont College--because these are the best! (for me, anyway). cfaughnan and saraharonson have done this for six years and they've hit on a great formula:

Two novelists, usually 1 MG, 1 YA - This year Uma Krishnaswami and Emily Lockhart
One editor - This year Nancy Mercado (the link is to her cynsations interview)

For the past several years Sara and Cindy have created two tracks, one that lets you share your work with a critique group, one that lets you write. Either way you soak up three craft sessions by the guest presenters, participate in Q & A's and, if you choose, an open mike session. (You should always choose.)

I'll be doing the writing track and I've got a "Soup-R-Sekrit" project (a concept I adopted/adapted from kellyrfineman ) that gives me a writing goal from the time I get back from Ireland on Jan 5 until the retreat. And that's all I'm saying about the Soup-R-Sekrit project until after the Novel Writing Retreat.

Now, back to Saturday.

Friday Five

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:48:14 GMT

1. Four out of 12 students showed up for class today. I was expecting 10 (two had sent early excuses). Three of the absentees overslept, as they told me later. Must be that time in the semester. Luckily for me, I had built in a catch up day next week, so we'll cover the material I went over in class with these four (who now have an excused free day, because that's the kind of person I am).

2. It's been 50 degrees in northern Vermont for the past two days. No wonder I can't seem to get into the holiday spirit. I need an inch or two of fluffy white stuff to put me in the right mood.

3. BD reports that she has submitted the last of the essays that will be her finals at her college in Ireland. In 2.5 weeks, we'll be seeing her!

4. Has anyone out there done an index using InDesign's index feature? Is it useful? (I'm hoping it is, but won't get to try it until Monday.)

5. The League of Vermont Writer's newsletter, League Lines, is off to the printer. If anyone around the North Country is interested, our January meeting is in Burlington, at the DoubleTree. The speakers will be Tim Brookes (aka, my current boss), David Dobbs (if you haven't, you should read his article on "Orchid Children" in the latest Atlantic Monthly , and Ron Powers, whose voice takes me back to the days when we watched CBS Sunday Morning, and the author of some terrific non-fiction. Registration will be up at www.leaguevtwriters.org soon (as soon as I can post it).

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Future of Books 3.5

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:51:45 GMT

Last weekend's "On the Media" took a look at books. The first part, "Book It" was an interesting look at the state of the industry, but the second part, "Books 2.0" is what really caught my attention.

By now you all know that I firmly believe the ink-on-paper book will have a place (just as the letter press book continues to have a place). When it comes to format, we human readers do not seem to completely move from one to another. There are, after all, still some few people around creating illuminated manuscripts (and here's a website to prove it).

Things certainly are changing. For one, there are so many, many books out there, no matter what format they are in. As a reader, it's difficult to find what appeals to you. As a writer, it's difficult to find your readers. And then, add in the element of collaboration that Bob Stein discusses and well, why would anyone become a professional, that is to say, someone who earns a living or part of a living from writing?
It's enough to drive one to drink.

On the other hand, in a way, if readers contribute to a work, then, in a way, the deconstructionists are right, and the author, as a single entity, is dead. However, if there are so many creators, then the other is not dead, but rabbit-ly multiplying. Schroedinger's writer anyone?

Now, time to go back to my quiet desk and my quiet notebook and plot.

Writing, writing, writing

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:11:48 GMT

It may not be Thursday, but I'm still thankful. I spent three hours drafting a new section of a project (non-fiction, adult-market). Yesterday, after two poets talked to my copyediting class about editing poetry, I drafted a poem. Tomorrow I should have time to work more on the non-fiction, but there's class prep and other projects to take care of.

Wednesday wish: more days like today, even if I was feeling a bit under the weather.

Friday Five

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:08:18 GMT

1. Thanksgiving may not be a moveable feast, but it is a fluid concept. When I was a child, Grammy Field's table included turkey, sage stuffing and dressing (we distinguish between what's cooked in the bird and what's baked alongside it), riced potatoes, gravy, squash, big boiled onions (not on my plate, though), mixed sweet pickles (loved those pickled onions and the pickled cauliflower), a gelatin salad that often featured raspberries and walnuts, coleslaw, celery sticks, rolls, and, for dessert, a variety of pies. My mother and her four sisters all contributed. Grammy was WCTU, so the men went out for a nip in the barn.

Now, at my parents' house, we have turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, green beans for my brother-in-law, canned pearl onions in Campbell's cream of mushroom soup for my husband (on my plate, too), cranberry jelly, a gelatin salad that includes cottage cheese and horseradish and is much tastier than it sounds, coleslaw, black olives, rolls, and apple and pumpkin pie. HH and I brought wine. Because my mother, sister and I are the only three cooks, the menu is more a matter of who likes what and who can eat what than it is of who brings what. But it's still Thanksgiving.

2. What jeannineatkins described as "a day between" is working out well. No shopping for me, but a quiet house and a chance to work with deliberation. Also, to do a bit of pure pleasure reading (remember what that was?).

3. I've been giving a lot of thought to my writing life lately, perhaps because it has felt like there wasn't much of one. Over the next few weeks, I'll be making some changes. Stay tuned.

4. Registration opens soon for the next Novel Writing Retreat at Vermont College of Fine Arts. This is Sarah Aronson and Cindy Faughnan's sixth such event and they are The Best! This year, E. Lockhart and Uma Krishnaswami are the featured novelists and Nancy Mercado of Roaring Brook is the featured editor. This is a terrific opportunity to meet other writers, hear from professionals, and spend some time working on your own. The date is March 19-21. For more information you can email sarah.n.aronson at gmail dot com.

5. Snow is in the forecast. I'm no downhill skier, but I welcome it all the same. As the dark days descend, I am reminded of the Native American tradition of telling stories in the dark of winter. It's time for me to do the same.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:10:19 GMT

If you think this image is a bit retro, you're right.

For many years, HH has fondly recalled the Pilgrims and the turkey his mother used to decorate the table at Thanksgiving. Toward the end of The Great Sorting I was clearing a cupboard full of vases and decorative planters. One container was a heavy leaded crystal oval bowl with deep, deeply ribbed like an acorn squash. Because it was heavy, I didn't want to lift it down until I knew it was empty. Tentatively--because you never knew what you might touch--I reached my hand over the side. Whatever it contained was hard--to my great relief--and I picked pulled it out. It was the boy. Remembering my husband's recollections, I reached again. The girl. Was the set going to be completed--not something I could count on in the house of 3, 5, and 7 glasses. I reached again. The turkey! All were in good shape.

I took them out to the garage, where I could hear HH.
"Look what I found."

"I remember those!"

"Shall we keep them?"

They will join my mother-in-law's creamed onions (canned onions, cream of mushroom soup--I know, not local, not slow, but HH's favorite) in our family Thanksgiving tradition, along with my mother's homemade stuffing (cooked inside the bird! thank you very much), and the story of the Thanksgiving we had pre-fried chicken instead of turkey (the grocery store apologized nicely with a standing rib roast on Friday, but lack of turkey made for a lackluster holiday far from family).

When it comes to being thankful, this year, being done with The Great Sorting tops my list.

However you feast tomorrow, may it be filled with family, friends, and your own treasured traditions!

Future of the Book Redux

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:54:59 GMT

This clip about a new iPhone app that provides picture books is interesting:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5670175n

What struck me most were the contrasting poses. When the preschooler is engaged with the iPhone app, he's upright and in an "I'm playing" posture. At the very end, when he's with the book in a parent's lap, he's leaning back, relaxed.

There are two very different things going on here. Which is fine.

I would be most concerned if the second ever goes away. Because I think that lap time, that relaxed pose, is important. And I wonder how much of preschooler's love of books has to do with hearing the parent's voice and feeling the vibrations that voice makes, both in the parent's body and in the child's own--and if the parent is their mother, if there isn't some connection between the voice of the reading parent and what the child experienced in utero. Whatever it is, it's the physical closeness of reading a book with a real person that, IMHO, helps young children fall in love with reading.

Also, as someone posted on the New England SCBWI listserv--what happens when the preschooler wants to share the story with Goldie Fish in the family acquarium?

vacation

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:38:55 GMT

There's such a difference between a regular Saturday and a vacation Saturday, even when the vacation will be spent at home. I'm starting to feel like I might actually someday be caught up at home.

I made seven pints of applesauce with the last of the drops. That's almost the end of the preserving for the year. I have some blackberries in the freezer, thanks to Sis. Sometime in the next three days, they will become jelly. Then I'll be able to clean the freezer and order a quarter of beef to fill it.

I also baked a mince pie--HH and I are the only ones in the family who enjoy it, so it's our pre-Thanksgiving treat. For mincemeat lovers who lives in northern Vermont or adjoining New York, Claire's Country Garden makes the best homemade green tomato mincemeat. Seriously. It's tangy and sweet and spicey all at the same time.

The recovery from The Great Sorting continues. I boxed photos today, ones that will be turned into Christmas cards this year, as well as some that we will use for general birthday and greeting cards for years to come. All gleaned from the dozen or so flats of photos HH sorted:

(Seeing is believing.)

I also looked through a First Lieutenant's field bag, circa 1944-1945. There's something eerie about reading "SNAFU" when it was a new coinage, not to mention seeing "Secret" maps of the Dutch-German border.

As much as there truly was an overwhelming amount of stuff to sort, there are some things I am so glad weren't tossed out decades ago.

Finally, in the interest of moving one box out of my house, I scanned some photos for a non-profit I'm serve in, so they'll be available for the website. Now the originals, in their box, can go to the designated archives--about a year after I had hoped to have them there.

Exchange students

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:56:25 GMT

How does Shaun Tan do it?!

Here's his story of Eric, the foreign exchange student, as posted in The Guardian. It made me want to email some of the Rotary Exchange host families I know. But it's Friday and I'm beat. So I'm posting it here instead. This sort of consciousness-altering experience has to be shared.

condiment day

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:59:48 GMT

Because calling it catch up day would be too ordinary.

Tests corrected. Group project for class finally, finally, finally printed to pdf (about a month later than I had expected). Lunch. Mail. I've been LJ-surfing while I wait for an editor (magazine-type) to call. But, time to stop procrastinating and --dare I say it--tackle one of my own projects.

Mondegreen of the day

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:23:33 GMT

In an excuse from a student: "I wasn't in class today because my roommate may have swine flu. She's sick and one of her co-workers was diagnosed with swine flu. So I'm staying away from public places until I know whether I need to see a doctor and nip it in the butt."

I like it. Don't you?

The Future of the Book II

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:10:36 GMT

I am so impressed with the thoughtfulness of the comments to my previous post on The Future of the Book that I had to continue the conversation further.

lurban's point that books will exist as objects for children, as they do now, underscores the importance of real (as opposed to virtual) play for young children. Children need hands-on experience with the physical world, which is one of the reasons elementary school teachers use "manipulatives" to teach math concepts. Books also stimulate the imagination in a way that, for reasons I have yet to figure out, screens do not. patty1943's "non-reader grandson" confirms for me that this is not an either-or situation ( I'm not really sure he can be called a non-reader if he loves that book, maybe just not an avid reader).

All the comments have one thing in common--the book will continue. I have to agree. That is what happens. One form doesn't fully replace another, as jongibbs noted. If you think about it, the broadsheets that were common in the 17th Century (and earlier?) are still with us--as posters. Even though the college where I teach is fully networked and classes must all have some sort of on-line presence (minimally, the syllabus must be posted), the bathrooms are still plastered with posters and announcements, most of them put up by student groups.

Although I don't have one, I can see where e-readers would be useful, especially if you travel a great deal or are able (as I am not) to take public transportation to work. Like audio books, they have their place. I can even see myself owning one someday. All the same, I'm not going to get rid of my personal library, because my library is not the collection of books I have read. Instead, it is the collection of books I have read and decided I would want to read and re-read and dog-ear and underline and otherwise make part of my life. These are the books I pull off the shelf and flip open at the very page I want (or really close to it). These physical books have associations--the Wallace Stevens I bought for class in graduate school, the novels of Barbara Kingsolver that blew me away the first time I read them, the Pride and Prejudice that I have read so often the binding is now breaking, which reminds me of the year I spent in Vienna as well as the many times I have moved it. The novels of Georgette Heyer, doyenne of Regency romance writers, that I turn to when I'm sick or need comfort--this one almost a replacement collection for the ones I sold when I thought I needed more shelf space and could spare them (I obviously couldn't).

So, I'd break it down like this--for books as commodities, consumables in the sense of one-read and basta, e-readers make perfect sense. But for books as objects, repositories, re-usable resources of the mind, physical books will continue on.

What do you all think? Do you own e-readers? What do you use them for? Do you still buy books? If so, what kind and why?
Inquiring minds want to know.

The future of the book

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:59:46 GMT

Last night, at a writing-related meeting, the topic of the future of the book came up.

I have seen the future and there are no ink-and-paper books in it, said one person. And no book stores.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm really happy to have all kinds of information, especially factual, available in electronic form, but I think and believe that there will continue to be a place for physical books. Moreover, I think it is essential for children's development that they experience physical books. Books offer tactile, sensual experience. They offer babies control they don't have in very many parts of their life--the baby decides when to turn the page, to turn back the page, to chew the book, to stare and touch, and wear it as a hat or step on it. To drop the book and go back to it later for immediate return to wherever. A real object in a real world, in other words.

What do you think? Are e-books going to replace ink-and-paper children's books completely?

And the walls come tumbling down

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:57:05 GMT

Twenty years ago this evening I was a relatively new mother, walking my colicky baby around the livingroom until it was late enough in the day for a warm bath to take effect.

Tears streamed down my cheeks.

They weren't because I was tired, or wished the colicky period would pass.

They were tears of joy, because the Germans had broken through the Berlin Wall.

I had seen the Wall. I had been on both sides of it. I had seen the ruins that remained in the East. Important reminders about not repeating the past, they also spoke of a lack of resources.

I had been under the Wall, riding the subway from West to West by passing underneath the East, where armed guards stood in the shadows of closed subway stops, stops marked with their original signs--Alexanderplatz, Unter den Linden, Potsdamer Platz.

I had gone through Checkpoint Charlie. I had seen the border guard pause as he compared my companion's passport photo with her face, the tension only broken when she explained the difference in hairstyle as a Dauerwelle (permanent), and then his quick flash of smile, as much for the ease of her German (not English) as anything else, I suspect.

The Wall, and the government that erected it, have left their scars, as did the war--even if the ruins have all finally been cleared.

Today, though, as I did 20 years ago, I find myself with tears on my cheeks, because of the power of people, when they work for good, and because, at least in one part of the world, a whole generation has grown up not knowing what it means to live in a divided country.

There's more to say, but I won't. Instead, I'll quote Robert Frost: "Something there is that doesn't like a wall."

All Hallows E'en

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:01:16 GMT

I've got candy, but that's it for this house this Halloween. No cornstalks, no jack o'lanterns, no bats, no shrieks in the night. (We're still playing catch up after The Great Sorting.)

But I'm feeling a bit nostalgic.

You see, my parents got married on Halloween (long story), and so, many years, we'd be enjoying a candlelit steak dinner at home while the trick-or-treaters knocked on the door. As Oldest Daughter, I was the one who answered, and the looks on their faces, as they peeped past me into the dining room were always priceless. You would have thought we were the Adams Family. (BD, imagine Grandma and Grampa as Gomez and Morticia.

Ok. Now. That's enough laughing.)

And, with BD in Galway, I'm also remembering the first Halloween costume she chose for herself, in preschool, when she came home in late September and announced, "I'm going to be a sunflower for Halloween." Thank goodness for tissue paper and fabric scraps, and a month of planning time.

--Not the best scan, but it gives you the idea.

Now, time to can applesauce.

Clickety, clickety. Clickety tap.

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:42:57 GMT

Even if I wrote science fiction, I still wouldn't be Douglas Adams--for any number of reasons, but today best of all for the way I am unable to say, "I love deadlines. I love the sound they make as they go whizzing by."

I'm more of a "deadlines concentrate the mind" sort of person. Today's results: A draft of a completed draft of a 1200 word feature I began yesterday for a magazine (due Friday), 500 words on a local German dinner fundraiser, and 775 words on the local American Legion post for an upcoming newspaper with a focus on Veteran's day, both due tomorrow.

That's a lot of words for me, an amount I am never able to accomplish for fiction. I wonder why that is. Someday maybe I'll figure the secret out.

In case you're wondering why I'm ahead of deadlines--I've got another big one next week and I need to do some research for that one, but can only keep so many stories in my mind at one time. (Almost wrote in the air, there, definitely a sign I should stop for supper.)

But while I'm off enjoying leftover chicken a la king, tell me what deadlines do to you. Do you panic, do you ignore them, do you find a way to fake them out? Share your secrets.

I'll never--oh, come on, of course I'll tell. That's what LJ's all about, finding people who share your fears and dreams and neuroses.

If I ruled the world...

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:51:07 GMT

Thanks to jongibbsfor starting this train of thought:

If I ruled the world:

1) Everyone would "walk on the left, drive on the right," as they were intended to from the beginning.

2) Cyclists would obey traffic signals like the vehicles they are, and, when traveling in a group, they'd also ride single file, not two or three abreast in the driving lane, even when they're on a country road.

3) People would once again bring only homebaked goods to a bake sale. Store-bought fools no one.

4) We'd have a national spring cleaning day--say the 2nd Saturday in April--when we'd all clear out our closets and cupboards. That would mean there would be no Great Sorting, but I'd be willing to live with that.

5) Weeks would be 8 days long, so we could have a day to get caught up after the work week and still have a two-day weekend.

6) Toilet seats would automatically lower after a five-minute interval. You know what I'm talking about!

7) Every village would have a cafe with wi-fi.

8) No one would talk-and-block in the grocery store--talking on their cell phone while pushing their cart and otherwise being generally oblivious to those around them.

9) Grocery stores (or supermarkets, which are no longer so super) would not block what were once aisles wide enough for two carts to pass with special bump-out displays, thereby rendering the aisles not wide enough for two carts to pass.

10) Refrigerators, pantries and cupboards would magically restock themselves once a week. Or. Grocery lists would magically write themselves and take themselves to the store to shop.

That's all I've got. How about you?

cheese?

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:28:00 GMT

So here's the question of the week.

When did cheesy become the adjective du jour?

I ask because it seems to be reasonably popular among my college students, who are juniors and seniors. It seems to be disparaging, although sometimes mildly so, as in "That's cheesy, but it's ok."

I'm wondering if it's rhyming slang, as in "rhymes with sleazy,"--[edited to add] although the students don't seem to use it the way I would--cheap and easy/sleazy. With them, it's more that someone or something is predictable, cliche, possibly non-ironic? It's the migration in meaning that has me puzzled.