What I Learned at WIFYR

Sorry I've been absent the last two weeks. I've been off island, in Utah, at the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop. In a lot of ways, it was my best experience at the workshop that I've ever had. Here's the four most important things I learned this year:

1. Online Social Networking: It's not about you.

Elissa Cruz, one of the founders of the blog, From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors, gave a great lecture about building your online platform. The main thing I took away from it was that if you are online only to promote yourself, everyone will go away. It is not about you. Instead, think of yourself as part of a team where everyone can win if we help each other. Find the good stuff and share it.

2. Embrace the Delete Key

This one comes from Cynthia Leitich Smith. Apparently she's been known to write the first draft of a novel, then DELETE THE WHOLE THING. Now this sounds insane, until I remember that the less I've revised a piece, the better response I get from my test readers. So next time maybe instead of revising, I'll re-draft and see what happens.

3. Give Stories Time

I took a morning workshop class led by author Tim Wynne-Jones. One of the most valuable things I learned from him was to give stories time. Sometimes you have to leave a story in the drawer for years before you figure out what it needs, and then one day it comes to you. So that's when you pull it out, finish it up, and send it off.

4. Do Sound Checks Before Any Vocal Performance

With the agony still fresh in my mind, I'm not going to say anything more about this one.

But I do want to say a big THANK-YOU to all the authors, the editors, and the agent who so generously gave of their time and shared their knowledge with us at WIFYR. Best. Workshop. Ever.

The Last Hukilau

There was a man who was the fisherman for the village. He wasn’t a fisherman like we think of today. Everyone in the village fished. The fisherman was THE BOSS. He had a huge net, yards and yards of panels twelve feet across. When it came time to fish, the fisherman would pile the net in canoes and take the men out to lay it all around the bay. Then he would go climb a tree and watch for the schools of fish to come in. 

A new e-mail popped up on my screen. Subject: Hukilau. I clicked on it.

Hey, lovelies!
Tomorrow, at 9:00 AM, there is going to be a hukilau at-you guessed it-Hukilau Beach. We're going to fish, and then I think cook the fish. And people have promised that we'll get at least one :)
So come!
Love y'all

The next morning I asked my children at breakfast, “Does anyone want to go to the hukilau?”

“NO!” they said. It was the first day of summer vacation, and they didn’t want to have to leave the house. At least not so early in the morning. We were going to a pot luck picnic at a different beach later in the day, and that would take them away from their computers long enough. I decided not to push it.

I went by myself.

When he saw the fish, he’d call for the villagers to come. Everyone ran down to the beach, men, women, and children.

There were other people on the sidewalk, moving toward the beach; a plump elderly couple in tourist clothes and sunhats, an athletic young woman with a blond pony tail, a red-haired man, his bare back nearly sunburned. A pick-up truck with its back end full of Polynesian kids passed me and turned into the beach parking lot.

The dirt-paved parking lot was packed with cars. A black tarp canopy, strung on aluminum poles, snapped in the wind. I hiked over the dunes and through round-leaved plants with purple flowers to reach the edge of the water. A cool wind blew spray off the ocean, mingled with spatters of rain from the gray clouds in the sky. People stood around a green rowboat, big Polynesians in t-shirts and swim trunks, stylish Japanese tourists in sun hats with shiny black cameras, children in blond curls chasing in and out of the water. Some of the men loaded fishnets made of thin nylon thread into the boat, making the boat look like it was filled with green mist.

When everything was ready, the men pushed the boat into the water. Swimmers with snorkels and fins followed, dark heads bobbing in the waves, as the man in the boat rowed out into the bay. With each pull of his oars, another length of net dropped into the water. After the net came a rope strung with long, brown leaves. The boat circled around and came back to land down the beach, where another group of people stood waiting to pull in the nets.

They would take up the ropes with leaves, lau, and pull on them, huki. Hence hukilau. Pull the leaves. The men would be out in the water, watching the net, to make sure it didn’t snag on any coral or rock.

Everyone on the beach grabbed the wet, sandy rope. People from all over the world; the woman with the blond pony-tail I’d seen on the way to the beach, next to a little Polynesian boy in a green tank-top, next to an old man with mutton-chop whiskers, next to a skinny Asian woman in a white blouse and pink shorts, next to me. We pulled, then stopped on signal for the swimmers to lift the net over the coral, then pulled again.

“Did you bring your kids?” asked one of my neighbors, the one who had sent me the e-mail.

“They didn’t want to come.”

“They only do this ever ten years. You’d think they’d want to see it.”

So the people pulled, and soon the nets would come up, flopping with fish. There would be more fish, and more, until the nets were full to bursting.

We walked the rope down the beach, pulling and winding it at the end, until the nets began to come up. Yards and yards of empty nets. I watched for the fish, wondering if we’d caught any at all. Something dark in one of the nets made my heart move a little faster, but it was only a bit of seaweed.

Slowly, panel by panel, the nets came out of the water. People lined up on either side of the nylon mesh, keeping it low to the sand, easing it along whenever the swimmers gave the signal. Out of the white surf came one small white shape. One lone fish, struggling in the net until his fins bled pink.

More and more net came up from the water, until the last panel broke from the waves. A scattering of fish twisted and shimmered as the divers stretched the net out on the sand. Children gathered close, everyone crouched around the net, working with their fingers to free the fish.

“They all babies,” said a Polynesian woman with a black-eyed toddler on her hip. She laughed. “Put them back in the water!"

When the catch was on the beach at last, everyone lined up. The children took their shirts and held them out at the bottom to make a basket. Each child got 3-4 fish, and adults would get ten or more. They would eat them raw, boil them, bake them, and dry the rest.

  

 A woman walked around with a mesh bag, collecting the fish. Children pinching silver fish about the size of an iphone ran to the water and rinsed them off, then put them in the bag. When all the fish had been collected, it wasn't enough to fill a three-gallon bucket.

"Can't schedule a hukilau, can you?" I asked one of the fishermen. "You have to wait until the fish come in."

He laughed. "This time of year the fish are still tiny. Every summer UH releases more fish out here, they have an orange tag on them, when you catch them you see it, it's really neat. But those are all gone by now. We didn't catch much today, but everyone had fun, yah?"

Special thanks to Uncle Joe Ah Quin for sharing his memories of the hukilau in old Laie Bay with the BYU Hawaii Women's Organization in October 2011. The historical details in this post were summarized from his words.

Come Thou Fount

On Saturday, my son Daniel and I had our musical duo debut at his end-of-year violin recital. He's only been playing for one year, so I'm singing the praises of the Suzuki Method for enabling my son to quickly pick up this tune that I usually do with my Irish band, South Wind.

We've got a few kinks to work out. First of all, Daniel started playing the instant I had my harp on my lap, before I was really ready, so the camera didn't catch the first few notes and my music stand isn't quite where I'd like it to be. Second, I made the mistake of putting my hair up with a chopstick. Every time I turn my head to look at the sheet music, my hair is being yanked as my chopstick catches on the top of the harp.

I made it through in spite of it all, and Daniel did a wonderful job. A big thank-you to Daniel's teacher, Amy Gold, for all she does to promote music learning in our community, and also to Dr. Suzuki! Arigato Gozaimasu!

Writers Club Wednesday: Anti-Heroes

Yesterday we had our first LIVE author visit from Steven L. Kent, journalist and author of a military sci-fi series, who shared some of his thoughts on anti-heroes. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of making the bad guy the main character. Often, in a story, the villain is more interesting than the hero. So why not make him or her the protagonist? Some stories have done it and been successful, but most people like to identify themselves with a character who makes good choices rather than bad ones. Still, writing with anti-heroes can be a lot of fun.

For more on anti-heroes, let me direct you to the writing excuses podcast on the subject: http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/12/20/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-29-antiheroes/
 
And I know I'm a day late on this, sorry Sue, but I'm still excited about the launch of the second book of the Mindjack trilogy, Closed Hearts. So in spite of play practice, creative writing homework, end-of-school-year music recitals, teenagers with last-minute Shakespeare projects, and all that jazz, here it is:

Announcing the release of Closed Hearts, the sequel to Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn.

Book Two of the Mindjack Trilogy

When you control minds, only your heart can be used against you.

Eight months ago, Kira Moore revealed to the mindreading world that mindjackers like herself were hidden in their midst. Now she wonders if telling the truth was the right choice after all. As wild rumors spread, a powerful anti-jacker politician capitalizes on mindreaders’ fears and strips jackers of their rights. While some jackers flee to Jackertown—a slum rife with jackworkers who trade mind control favors for cash—Kira and her family hide from the readers who fear her and jackers who hate her. But when a jacker Clan member makes Kira’s boyfriend Raf collapse in her arms, Kira is forced to save the people she loves by facing the thing she fears most: FBI agent Kestrel and his experimental torture chamber for jackers. Now available! $2.99 Ebook at Amazon (and Amazon UK) and Barnes and Noble Request a Kindlegraph Paper copies available at Amazon or get signed copies from the author

Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling YA novel Open Minds,  Book One of the Mindjack Trilogy, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. Susan's business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist," but she mostly plays on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Can't Wait for WIFYR!

My daughter said to me today, "I can't believe I'm finally going to Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers! I've been wanting to go for five years now!"

Five years? Has it really been that long since the first time I went?

I guess so. My first experience at WIFYR was attending Brandon Sanderson's class in 2008. He told us that in five years we could be supporting our families as a writer.

I decided that I could do better. In in five years, I wanted to be the one teaching the class.

It's been five years. I'm a bit behind on some of my goals.

But although this process has taken longer than I expected, I know this year's WIFYR will give me renewed enthusiasm to forge onward, and lots of shiny new writing tools for my toolbox.

Can't wait for June!

Writers Club Wednesday: Fan Fiction

One of our club members began e-mailing us episodes of an Avengers fan fic this past week, much to everyone's delight. It got me thinking about the benefits and uses of writing in someone else's imaginary universe.

When you write fan fiction, the world and the characters are already there. No need to spend a lot of time developing back-story, building scenery, hammering out a magic system or inventing new technology, anything like that. You can focus on other aspects of the writing process, like pacing, dialog, and character interactions. Get right to the high-level stuff.

And fan fiction is fun! It is fun to write, and your friends will probably have fun reading it since they know and love the characters you're working with.

You may have so much fun writing fan fiction that you never get around to doing your own stuff.

Don't do that.

You can't publish fan fiction. It's illegal, unless you get hired by the owners of the intellectual property to write it. Some people make good money writing novelizations of popular movies, but they've been asked to do it, or else they asked permission to do it by submitting a book proposal and having it approved. If you really want to know more about the process, I know some authors you can talk to.

For most people, writing fan fiction as a career is not an option. I wouldn't even post fan fiction on the internet as a hobby. Some intellectual property owners are cool with it, but others are not. And besides, you don't want to be known as a writer of fan fiction.

You want people to write fan fiction about the characters and worlds YOU create.

Writing fan fiction is GREAT practice. In fact, most artists begin by copying other artists that they admire. The goal is to keep writing and reading and writing and reading until you develop your own style, something unique, something that others will admire and want to emulate.

Today, the fan. Tomorrow, the challenger.

TARGET: TOMATOES

In Hawaii, we import 80% of our food. It comes in every day on planes and boats. They say we have only a week's supply of food on the island at any given time. Scary. Apples cost $3 a pound since they have to come over on a boat. Milk has to come by plane. $5 a gallon. Even bananas are more expensive here. Go figure!

A few of us have banded together to fight back. We're the Faculty Townhouses Tomato Co-op.

Last Wednesday, my secret mission was to pick up the tomatoes from the local farmer who GROWS HIS OWN. Right here on the island. What a concept! I donned my trench coat, hat, and dark sunglasses, and slipped into my sporty spy-car. Okay, its only a mini-van. Twelve years old. With a dented side door. Perfect cover.

I drove through miles of trackless jungle:

Up into the hills until I reached the pick-up location:

I crept into the creepy old warehouse:

Tomatoes everywhere! But which ones were meant for me?

There they are! The box on the counter, just like my top-secret mission instructions had said. I left the check and took the goods back to my get-away car.

Safe at home again, I divided up the tomatoes into shares, then delivered them to the other members of the co-op. Mission accomplished.