Yah!

Thanks to all who sent in their submissions for our Take Me Away writing contest! And holy cow there were a lot of you! I've got 3 gigantic bins full of student writing on my desk right now. As soon as I'm done making a way cool fort out of them, I swear, we're going to read each and every one. Who knows? Yours could be the winner! It could be the one a quarter of the way down stack #2 just waiting to be chosen! How exciting! Check out the April/May issue of Writing to see if your poem or story was the best!

Psst... don't tell anyone, but I'm rooting for you.

Keep it under your hat.

The deadline for the Take Me Away writing contest has passed. Please do not send anymore entries--they will not be accepted. Seriously now. Stop sending. There's nothing I can do, I'm sorry. Rules are rules, chief. Isn't that what they say? Yes, but they also say that rules were made to be broken. Well not in this case they weren't. No sirree, Bob. However, you can always send your writing to word@weeklyreader.com for possible publication on this site! Our blog shall never die.

Long live WORD!

Complete Transcript of Literary Editor Bryon Cahill's interview with
Stephen King
(As promised in the October 2006 issue of Writing Magazine)

"I'm Halloween's answer to Santa Claus."
     -Stephen King

Friday, April 22, 2005

What are your writing habits? Where do you write? When? Do you have any set rituals like drinking a glass of orange juice before you sit down to write?
I write in the mornings... well... it's never set, I don't know how it is with you... I have a time when I like to write. And that's usually from 8 until noon. That's when I feel the best. I get up in the morning and there's no grunge in my head. That time is usually dedicated time. I really don't have anything to do. Once breakfast is out of the way I can just go and sit until noon. That's on an ordinary day when the world doesn't intrude. But the world doesn't stop for me. It doesn't stop for any writer. And if I just have one project, that's the time that I do it. Generally speaking, if I have two things I have a column that I do for Entertainment Weekly, and I have a book that I'm working on so every third Monday I'll just not work on the book and I'll spend that day and work on that column. I have another book that I'm working on because these things sometimes don't wait, they just declare themselves. So I'm working a little bit at night, too. I don't like to do that and it doesn't always feel as good but the stories don't seem to feel any different when they're done. I work a little bit at night, too, but mostly I like to work days.

When you sit down to write a book, do you plot it out beforehand or do you just let the fingers go where they may?
No, I never plot out beforehand. But it's never a case of exactly letting the fingers go where they may. It's somewhere in-between those two things. I have a general story idea--a situation. That's where I like to start. Then I let it play out. And that always works as long as you're honest about what characters would do in a given situation. If you start to lie then things wander off-course. That is, if you start to make characters do things because it would be more convenient for you.

And you can tell the difference?
Oh yeah. You can tell the difference. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm working on a story right now where I really didn't want this lady to call the cops. Because it would be inconvenient for me. I would have to write about police procedure and bring people into the story that I didn't want there. But in the situation she was in, any sane person would call the police. So I let her call the police. And it was fine.

What role do you think a person's heritage, upbringing, and surroundings play in their writing?
Well first of all, it's a case of what you get from your parents for genes. My father wrote. I didn't know him. He left home when I was very little. But my mother told me that he wrote lots of stories, and he sent them off to magazines, and he got letters back saying "please send us more." He just was kind of lazy about it and never really did very much. But she said his stories were really good.

In your book On Writing you wrote some great stories about your mom encouraging you and giving you a quarter every time you wrote a story.
It's great to have people around you that care. You know what? They don't even have to care exactly. All they have to do is say "this is what you like to do. And that's OK." As long as they don't stomp on you and say "that's a stupid thing to do, go hoe the garden." It's OK to say "go hoe the garden" as long as you can still find an hour to go do what you want because somebody recognizes that's important to you. And it's the same way whether it's the guitar, trumpet, chess, whatever. And most parents do. Most peers do as well. So it's usually OK but you've got to get some kind of a background in it. And that always manifests itself because you have an interest in it.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and every time I go into a store, my eyes feast on shelves stacked with heaps of my favorite fall treats--pumpkin and apple pies, stuffing mixes, fresh baked bread, and egg nog. Yes, food is on my mind. Maybe that's why Sam Stern caught my eye when I was putting together the November/December issue of Writing.

   Although he’s only 14, Sam Stern may be well on his way to becoming the next Iron Chef! The British teenager is the author of Cooking Up a Storm: The Teen Survival Cookbook .   

   "I wrote this book for kids like me who enjoy cooking or who want to learn to cook. It’s full of simple tasty recipes—the kinds of things that my friends and I like to eat,” writes Sam in the introduction to the book. It features well-written recipes that range from blueberry and apricot muffins and chocolate mousse to sweet potato fries, party pizza slices, and chili con carne.

With chapters such as “When Friends Stop By,” “Impress a Crowd,” and “Exam Survival,” this book is sure to please the eye, the mind, and the stomach!

Read an interview with Sam Stern and then, click here to download his favorite guacamole recipe (courtesy of Candlewick Press). Maybe you can whip up this guacamole for your family this holiday season.

Then, post your favorite recipe in the comments section below. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

When I was in high school, my relatives bought a new house not far from ours. As they were moving in, my uncle commented on the house's previous owners. "They didn't have books. There wasn't a book in the house," he said to me. "Can you imagine a house without books?" He was aghast. He was a professor at a top university and he had written quite a few books himself.

But I was taken aback. "Maybe they used the library," I said in defense of the unknown previous owners. "We don't have any books in our house," I pointed out. My parents were not readers. At our house, we got the daily newspaper and the Reader's Digest. That was it. But my mother had diligently taken me to the library from the moment I could read. For me, a trip to the library was as wonderful as a trip to the toy store. More so, really. At the toy store, I would gaze longingly at the glittering displays but usually leave with only one small token. At the library, I knew I would go home with my arms full of treasure.

My uncle mumbled something like, "Oh, well, yes, the library..."

I was confused. I had never thought of books as being things to own. Why would you want to buy books when you could read them for free from the library? I figured my uncle was being a snob. After all, he was wealthier than my parents were. My dad was a cop. He didn't read books, but he always said he was going to write one about all the nutty people he'd encountered during his career. (He never did write that book, and he's gone now. But that's another story. I'll tell it another time.)

Over the years, I began visiting bookstores and buying books when I could afford to. I began to understand the concept of books as beloved objects. I loved the heft of them in my hands, the covers, the bindings, the stories. Today, I own shelves and piles of books. In the attic of our house, I have boxes of them, including boxes of my children's books from when they were little. Some books, I pick up time and again. Others just sit there gathering dust. Honestly, I don't need all these books. And yes, I do still love the library.

But I can't imagine a house without books. To me, they make a house a home as much as pots and pans, family photos, pillows, and teapots do. Well, I must be off. I'm going to the bookstore. I need another book.

The following story is an interpretation of the 1,000 Words image in the October, 2006 issue of Writing Magazine.

A Forest Under The Floor
Story by Veronica Brown, Grade 6 

      "Come on Sara!"  Yelled Alli. "If you don't hurry up and come, I will go to the park without you! ... Sara!" Alli ran into the living room only to find her sister's favorite fantasy book, her sister's journal, grape juice, a shovel, and a hole in the floor surrounded by broken floorboards. Alli peered in the hole. She saw a forest. It was about 5 feet tall and looked as if it went on forever. "Sara! Sara!" Alli called. Alli ran to the garage and grabbed a long piece of rope and hurried back to the living room. She tied one end of the rope to a chair and the other end to her waist. After taking a deep breath Alli jumped into the forest. Alli searched the greenery for Sara. "Sara!" Alli's voice quivered even though she was the older sister. 
       "Alli!" The whisper came out of nowhere.
       "Sara? Is that you?" whispered Alli. 
       "Shh! Come look at this!" Sara shined the flashlight at a glimmer of bronze in what appeared to be an enormous web. "It's a dragon!" mouthed Sara. Alli scoffed but upon further inspection, she realized it looked exactly like a dragon. "We have to save it, Alli! We have to bring him home!"
       "Yeah, we'll bring home a dragon and walk him around on a leash!" scoffed Alli.
       "Please!" Sara begged. Alli realized she had clearly lost this argument. 
       "Fine! Just hurry up! When you grab him grab onto me so I can reel us up." Sara leaned into the web and grabbed the dragon and then Alli. As Alli began to walk towards the hole a 3 foot long and 2 foot tall spider began running towards them.
       "AAAAAHHH" both girls yelled. They ran and ran and finally climbed out of the hole. They quickly boarded it up. Sara promptly made a bed for the dragon in her room. Sara and the dragon nodded off to sleep.
       Alli couldn't sleep. Something in the forest was moaning. After listening to the moans for several hours, Alli got out of bed and tip-toed into the living room. Alli yanked up the floorboards and peeked into the forest. There sat a dragon. It looked identical to the one Sara had saved except larger.
       "Hello." whispered Alli. The dragon sniffed and looked up. "Was that your baby we saved?"  The dragon gave Alli a meaningful look that Alli interpreted as a yes. "Hold on." Alli said. She ran into Sara's bedroom, being careful not to wake her. She rushed back to the hole and lowered in the dragon. "Good luck" said Alli. Alli carefully sealed up the floor and walked back to her room. She would need rest if she was going to explain to Sara what happened tomorrow morning.

We just received a poem from a student in Texas. The poem reads:

In the October issue of Writing, we invited you to submit questions for Jack Gantos, author of the young-adult memoir Hole in My Life and the recently published Love Curse of the Rumbaughs. Congratulations to the students at Sacred Heart School in Dearborn, Michigan. We selected three of their questions to pass on to Jack Gantos. Here are his answers!

Katrina Greathouse, grade 7: What are some things you do while getting ready for writing a book?

Jack Gantos: When I get ready to write a book I try to find about 10 books to read that I think will be helpful—perhaps they are full of characters I find inspiring, or a setting I find engaging, or themes or problems that I find fascinating and will help me think through my story.
    Then I make sure to get a new notebook.
    I usually find a new ink color I like for my favorite fountain pen.
    I set writing goals--so I can feel some progress on the project.
    I make sure I do a lot of physical exercise so I feel prepared to sit all day long.
    And then I allow nothing to stop me--especially my own excuses to do something other than write.

Danielle Barum, grade 7: I'm trying to write a story. But every time I make a character, it's one that is already made. How do you make a character? 

Jack Gantos: How do I make a character? Generally I just start writing without any goal in mind and allow the character to generate from the accumulated words that gather on the page. Or, I draw loosely and conjure up a character from the drawing. Or, I pay close attention to people I find interesting as I walk down the city streets, or in libraries, or at the mall, or in grocery stores. I find restaurants are a very good place to find characters because people are very honestly themselves when they are hungry.

Kayla Roszkowski, grade 8: How do you come up with ideas for your books? Do you base them off your everyday life experiences?
Jack Gantos: A lot of my books are based on personal experiences. Since I keep a journal and write in it every day--even a sentence or two will do per day--I manage to discover something interesting that takes place each day. I'm sure it will for you, too. But the secret is to keep a daily journal and always ask yourself, "What is the most interesting thing I saw or did today?" Then write the answer down.

It was more than a week since Halloween, and my jack-o-lantern had not rotted away as had the poor, neglected carved pumpkins of years gone by. Indeed, no. This year I cryogenically froze my pumpkin using a sophisticated process that can only be described as "putting it in my freezer."

For every night of the last week I had taken it out of the freezer and lit a candle inside the frozen shell. At first, the results were incredible. Its cheerful face continued to bathe the living room with a festive autumnal glow long after the last trick or treater had ravaged the bowl of snickers.

During these first few nights I felt as though I had conquered the very laws of nature. I knew how Dr. Frankenstein must have felt as he reanimated the monster. Fortunately there was very little chance that the frozen pumpkin would go on a rampage and kill my wife.

It's been four days since we last posted something here on WORD. (Well, I'm counting today as a day to enforce the exaggeration.) In the great and massive world of blogging (the "Blogosphere", if you will), four days can be a lifetime. I just wanted to say that WORD is not being neglected. We have lots of original ideas for posts and tons of great student writing! But we also have our magazines to attend to.

So, if you are a frequent visitor to our humble bloggy, please take note: we're still here, we're just swamped.

While you're waiting, you should go here to read this.

Essay by Tasha Fisher, Grade 11

I can remember as a child tossing and turning in bed for hours and hours praying to God I would fall asleep. "Please God, let me fall asleep, I have a big day at school tomorrow, and I need some sleep. I promise I'll be a good girl for mommy." Every minute I would check the clock and hope I would fall asleep that minute. Minutes turned into hours, hours turned into morning, and then it was time to get up.

In my family falling asleep was not an issue. My dad could fall asleep instantly; in a movie, in church, in a graduation ceremony, you name it, he's snored up a storm there. My mom well she's just exhausted by the end of the day. Once her head hits that off white temperpedic pillow she's asleep. Then my sister, she doesn't have any problem sleeping either. In fact in pre-school she would fall asleep on that uncomfortable hard as rock no support, pokey "carpet" during story time. Me, on the other hand, sleep has and will be a problem I battle my entire life.

If you happen to be anywhere near San Francisco this weekend, watch out! There's a lot of dummies in town! 150 dummies to be exact. And they're holding a conference!

They're the authors of the "For Dummies" books. You know the ones. If you haven't read one, you've definitely seen them in book stores. The series has sold more than 1,000,000 books around the world! 

Algebra For Dummies, Classical Music For Dummies, Soduku For Dummies, SAT I For Dummies (I used this one back in High School when I was freaking out about the SATs. It's extraordinary.), Knitting For Dummies, Piano For Dummies, even English Grammar For Dummies (I'm thinking of picking this one up for myself, for a refresher) are just a few titles in the Dummies series. I don't know how many books there are, but there's a lot. And they're a great tool to use for whatever specific hobby, trade, language, or life skill you're interested in! These books explain to you, in the simplest of terms, exactly how to get involved and/or be great at everything from football to freemasonry!

OK, enough about the books, Bry... what's up with the conference?!?

Well, the Dummies authors will be attending panels and lectures, learning how to better write and market their books. Imagine it, if you will: each author is an expert in his/her field. This weekend there will be a diabetes expert talking to a nutrition expert while, right next to that conversation there will be a puppies authority rubbing elbows with a equine virtuoso! Oh to be a fly on that wall.

The conference is being held at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel on O'Farrell Street between now and Sunday. Several sessions are open to the public and there will be author signings. Be sure to check it out if you're in the area, and let me know how it was!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

For those of you who have sent in your submissions for the Take Me Away Writing contest, thank you! They look great!

For those of you who are still working on your submissions for the Take Me Away Writing contest, keep on pluggin' along! But remember, the deadline is coming up soon. When? All entries must be postmarked by WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22. That's soon, my friend. That's super soon.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about. Click here to learn more about the specifics of the contest and to download the official submission form.

Best of luck to you all! ... Not that you need it though. You know you've got what it takes. You know there's an ace of a writer inside you. Of course, you also know that in order to win, you have to start writing something. SO WRITE SOMETHING!!! Come on! Wow me with your poetry or prose! And most importantly...

TAKE ME AWAYYYYYYYYY......