The following blog entry was written by Debbie Nevins, Executive Editor of www.weeklyreader.com.

Sometimes we can get a poor innocent word all wrong.

Being a writer, it goes without saying that I love words. But I’ll say it anyway: I love words. That doesn’t mean I loved vocabulary quizzes when I was a kid—anymore than you probably do. Memorizing words for a vocab test commits that knowledge to your short-term memory. Once the test is over, you quickly forget it. All those excellent words just fall right out of your brain, dribble out your ears, and then vanish into thin air. You can’t blame your teacher for trying though. A good vocabulary is a great thing. The way to really remember words is to use them—say them, write them, read them.

But here’s the funny thing. Sometimes you can inadvertently attach the wrong meaning to a word and it settles all comfy into your long-term memory. You go through life using the poor word incorrectly. For most of my life I thought the word puce described a nasty, mustard yellow-green, vomit color. I was wrong. Puce is a color, but it’s a brownish purple. Or a dark grayish-purple. Or a dark red—even dictionaries don’t agree on what puce is, so I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad.

But still, how could I make such a mistake? Probably I was subconsciously associating puce with puke and putrid and pus.

On a related note, as long as we’re in the P-U section of the dictionary, I always thought the word pulchritude meant … well, I wasn’t sure what it meant. Something like … disgustingness. If pulchritude (that’s PUHL-kreh-tude) was on a multiple-choice vocab test and the answers were A. hideousness, B. stupidity, and C. physical beauty, I would have a hard time deciding whether to choose A. or B. Of course, the answer is C. Pulchritude means physical beauty. Go figure.

All of which begs the question: what is the name of that nasty, mustard yellow-green, vomit color? If it’s not puce, what is it?

Pssst: Come back tomorrow for a special Halloween edition of word misidentification…

READ: HOLE IN MY LIFE is an exploration of your troubled adolescence. Since then, you have written children’s books with a much lighter tone. What led you to children’s writing?

Jack Gantos: I’ve always been a rangy reader so it is no mystery that I would also be a rangy writer with publications from picture books, to upper elementary stories and novels, to middle grade novels and young adult novels and the HOLE IN MY LIFE memoir.
     As a beginning reader, I of course started with picture books. As an adult writer I never forgot those early books and the humor within them. So when I went to college for Creative Writing I not only was writing poetry and fiction, but I was also writing children’s books. I was also fortunate me meet Nicole Rubel (the illustrator of the ROTTEN RALPH books) at a party. She was in art school and we teamed up and began our publication career writing. Picture books contain great characters, really loopy plots and great humor so it is a very attractive art form.

READ: How did you find meaning—and writing material—in everyday experiences? How can young readers write about their own experiences?

Gantos: As a boy I kept journals. My sister had one and I was a bit of a copy cat so I got one too. Keep in mind our family moved a lot—I went to ten schools in twelve grades—so I got around and the journal was a way for me to keep track of not only the rapidly changing world outside of me (the physical world), but also the rapidly changing world inside of me (the emotional, intellectual, imaginative world). I would set the journals up in a specific way. First, I would start with drawing maps: I’d work up a detailed drawing of my house and all the rooms and the yard and then I would draw where everything happened: where I threw up on the wall—where my dog was eaten by an alligator in my back yard—where I broke my brother’s arm—where my dad ran my bike over with his car, and on and on. No detail was too small. Then I would use the drawings for jumping off points for writing. I had the confidence to write because with the map in hand I could see that I had really good material to write about. I kept this up all through my life. My maps now are much the same as when I was a kid. I have a house map. A neighborhood map. A city map. And I can draw little pictures where things happen, or where I made certain curious observations and then I can use this raw material for the beginning of a story. If you pay attention to the world around you every day, and to the world within you every day then you will have plenty to write about.

READ: How did your family react to HOLE IN MY LIFE? Was it difficult writing about such personal experiences?

Gantos: My family never really responded to that book. I think they lived the experience in their own painful way and had no interest in reliving their pain, anger and discomfort through the book.
     It was difficult to write for several reasons. The first being that it is a memoir which means it has to be honest. Now, I’m a fiction writer, so I know I could juice up that story and make it better in spots by adding material that did not happen. But, I stuck to the facts so the challenge in the writing was to work with just the truth and shape and construct the truth so it was captivating. This required me to really dig deep into each scene and write it—carve it in language—so that it was honest, engaging, and advanced the book. I had to do this with both the physical aspects of the story, and especially with the emotional, internal portions of the story. On the emotional side of the book it was difficult simply because I had to experience all the pain and fear all over again, then distill it down and add it to the essential core of each and every scene. When you read HOLE IN MY LIFE you see how much of the book is actually inside the character. I felt every one of those words and a good number of them made me shame and guilt and pain, but also pride and confidence because I did pull myself out of a mess and build a solid life despite my worst qualities.

READ: Can you go into a little bit of detail as to how prison life changed you for the better?

Gantos: Once you end up in prison you eventually give up believing that it was everyone else’s fault that got you there. You come clean with yourself and evaluate what you have done wrong, and what you would like to do that is true to you, and fulfilling. You take a look at your personal goals. In my case I wanted to write books and live a life around and with books. So there I was in prison for smuggling drugs which, believe me, was not my dream come true. So I had to shake off some of my bad habits of the past and begin to describe to myself who I wanted to be. And then I had to walk the walk. So in prison I did read every day. And I wrote every day. And I tried my best to stay away from all the drugs in prison (there are plenty), and all the guys who are not there to be kind to you. My goal in prison was not to be a bad guy and hang out with a bunch of other drug smugglers and plan my next crime. My goal was to mind my own business, make friends with good people who I could trust, do my prison job and read and write—and then to get out of there as soon as possible so I could move on with the life I wanted to build. For me, being a prisoner is not a career goal.

READ: What are your favorite types of books? Authors?

Gantos: I am still a rangy reader so I will read anything from picture books to short stories, novels and non fiction. Right now I just read two volumes on the destruction and loss of ancient books. I’m also reading about Eleanor Roosevelt as I’m writing about the town I grew up in as a boy which is named after her: Norvelt, PA. My daughter is in middle school so I read what she reads, too. Keep in mind that I go to the library almost every day. Oh—and I’m reading a great book on how to write obituaries. And I was with Avi and Kevin Henkes last night and so I got up this morning and was reading through their books too.

READ: How did you come up with your fictional characters for your other books? Do you have a funny story about any of them?

Gantos: The “Jack Henry” books are all about me and my life so “Jack” and his family and friends were easy to come up with. “Joey Pigza” is a combination of a lot of kids I knew as a kid—he is kind of the classic kid who has a full time desk in the hall way because he is so disruptive in class. And his family—which is pretty dysfunctional—was based on a number of families I know. “Rotten Ralph” was based on a used cat I got out of the Boston Globe. Nicole Rubel and I were writing and illustrating some pretty awful books and so there was this rule of writing called “write about what you know about.” Well, I knew about cats from growing up with them but at the time did not have one so I opened the newspaper and went to the used pet section and there was a cat that was listed as “sweet, nice and loving.” The cat lived at Harvard University so we went and got the cat. It was instantly a menace. Psychotic, really. There was nothing nice or loving about that animal except for about once a month it would purr for ten minutes. So that cat became the template for “Rotten Ralph” who is rotten most of the time except for when he feels contrite for ten minutes toward the end of each book.

READ: Can you recommend an exercise for young writers?

Gantos: Yes. Get a journal and a decent pen. The draw a map of your room, of your house, of your neighborhood and school and other important locations. Then start drawing down everything important that happened, and where you had very strong emotions, too. Like once I was in the kitchen crying and my sister came in and asked, “What is the matter with you?” And very honestly I replied, “I can’t make friends at this new school.” Tears were flowing down my cheeks and my sister snapped back, “well, look at your. You are pathetic. Who would want to be your friend?” Now, there was no great physical action to that scene. Two people standing in a kitchen. But the real action was the emotional action. So when you are drawing your maps sometimes the physical action is easy to find and you have to look a little deeper for the emotional material—but I assure you it is there and it is essential to writing. Then, set up good writing habits. Ten or fifteen minutes each day. You take out the journal, look at your map and start writing a wild first draft of some story you know. Once you get that first draft you can type it up and begin to give it shape and work through it. You bring structure to the work and make certain the character is changed by the events. You need to consider that about half a story is physical and half is emotional. If you write a little each day you just simply improve your skills and you build confidence and your talent can shine through. Good luck!