Caroline Starr Rose

award-winning picture book and middle-grade author

REST: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

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In light of shelter-in-place measures to curb COVID-19, this post reads differently to me now. Perhaps it will help you manage the extra hours you didn’t have before. Maybe it will encourage you to find a new rhythm as you take on tasks you didn’t have pre-quarantine and release some that you did. This recent article is full of similar insight — even down to Hemingway’s approach mentioned below. Overall, I hope you are able to do good work and find good rest in the midst of this fraught time.

Oh my goodness, I loved this book. Long-time readers might remember my fascination with DEEP WORK and DAILY RITUALS. This book feels like a mix of the two.

Like DEEP WORK, REST drives home the idea that short, distraction-free work sessions (what author Alex Soojung-Kim Pang calls deliberate work) are far more productive than a full day of less focused work. (Pang’s research points to 4-5 hours of deliberate work a day, broken up into several sessions). As Pang says:

When you examine the lives of history’s most creative figures, you are immediately confronted with a paradox: they organize their lives around their work, but not their days. Figures as different as Charles Dickens, Henri Poincare, and Ingmar Bergman, working in disparate fields in different times, all shared a passion for their work, a terrific ambition to succeed, and an almost superhuman capacity to focus. Yet when you look closely at their daily lives, they only spent a few hours a day doing what we could recognize at their most important work. The rest of the time, they were hiking mountains, taking naps, going on walks with friends, or just sitting and thinking. Their creativity and productivity, in other words, were not the result of endless hours of toil. Their towering creative achievements result from modest “working” hours.

Pang pairs this idea of deliberate work with time of deliberate rest — exercise, sleep, recovery (such as weekends or vacation), and deep play.

Like RITUALS, readers get glimpses of real-life people who have used the routine of deliberate work or deliberate rest to their creative benefit.

“Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote lyrics to Hamilton during long Sunday morning walks in the park with his dog, freestyling on top of beats or melodies he composed at home.”

Salvador Dali napped for brief moments, holding a key in his hand that when he dozed he would release, sending it clanging to the floor as a sort of alarm clock. Then Dali got back to work. He felt he harnessed this almost-asleep state to awaken aspects of his art he held in his subconscious.

Ernest Hemingway advised to “always stop [your work] while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.”

I love a book that examines others’ creative lives. It’s a reminder there’s no one way to create. But I also appreciate the patterns I can emulate or already see working in my own life. My walks with the dog, those occasional afternoon naps — both are actually contributing to my creative endeavors.

Soojung-Kim Pang closes by saying:

When we treat rest as work’s equal partner, recognize it as a playground for the creative mind and springboard for new ideas, and see it as an activity that we can practice and improve, we elevate rest into something that can help calm our days, organize our lives, give us more time, and help us achieve more by working less.

My take away? I want my rest to be as deliberate as my work, to the benefit of the things I create and my overall wellbeing.

Straight from the Source: Kirsten W. Larson on Writing Historical Non-Fiction

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Kirsten W. Larson used to work with rocket scientists at NASA. Now she writes books for curious kids. She’s the author of WOOD, WIRE, WINGS: EMMA LILIAN TODD INVENTS AN AIRPLANE, illustrated by Tracy Subisak (Calkins Creek, 2020), CECILIA PAYNE: MAKING OF A STAR (SCIENTIST), illustrated by Katherine Roy (Chronicle, Fall 2021), along with 25 other nonfiction books for kids. Find her at kirsten-w-larson.com or on Twitter/ Instagram @KirstenWLarson.

What typically comes first for you: a character? An era? A story idea? How do you proceed from there?

Normally I’m drawn first to characters. Typically the real people who intrigue me most are underdogs — people who achieve something no one would ever expect of them. Knowing much of the history of early aviation, I couldn’t believe a woman was designing an airplane on her own during the same period as the Wright Brothers and Glenn Curtis. Women couldn’t even vote then, yet there was Lilian Todd engaged in the biggest challenge of the age – the quest for flight. As soon as I saw the images of Lilian wearing her gilded-age gown and sitting in her airplane or hunched over her workbench, I knew I had to tell her story. I could see the illustrations in my mind.

How do you conduct your research? 

Normally I start with secondary sources. For me, I’m better able to understand primary sources when I can fit them into some kind of context. I use those secondary sources to point the way to primary sources, and I am always thankful for books filled with footnotes, indices, and bibliographies. I find primary sources most helpful for hearing my main character’s voice and for providing sensory details needed to build scenes. Primary sources aren’t always reliable for facts like dates, for example, and I always look for corroborating sources.

With that said, my process for WOOD, WIRE, WINGS was different. There really weren’t any secondary sources about Lilian Todd specifically, just a few pages in a biography about her funder, Olivia Sage, and a mention of Lilian in a history of the Aeronautic Society in New York, of which she was a member. So while I say my normal process is to start with secondary sources, with Lilian I had to start with newspaper and magazine research, which is where I found the bulk of the information about her. At the same time, I read secondary sources about the early history of flight to gain a broader understanding of the period and how Lilian’s work fit into it.

You do have a specific system for collecting data? 

For each project, I have a good-old-fashioned file box for books, drafts, critiques, and hard copies of sources. I also have a corresponding online folder in Evernote. I use Evernote’s web clipper plug-in for the Google Chrome web browser. The web clipper allows me to clip and save anything I see on my screen, including journal articles, historic newspaper PDFs, photographs, and much more. I also have the Evernote app on my phone and use it to take pictures of pages from library books, which is much faster than scanning them. All of it gets dumped into the Evernote folder, allowing me to search for the pieces of information I need.

How long do you typically research before beginning to draft?

Researching and writing is a circular process for me versus a linear path. At the outset, I research until I see the same information over and over and have internalized the timeline of significant events. Then I write what I call a “kitchen sink draft” containing every date and fact imaginable in strict linear order. That draft serves as a timeline I can refer back to as I play with the story’s structure and try new approaches. But always at every stage of the writing and revising process, I have to conduct additional research to find specific details as I build scenes. For example, in writing WOOD, WIRE, WINGS, there’s a scene where Lilian introduces her airplane at the 1909 Interborough Fair. It was a dramatic moment, and I needed the reader to experience the event as if he were there. As I started to write, I found I needed to know a lot more about what was happening at the fair. This required additional newspaper research where I learned ladies were launched from cannons and horses raced around a track. There were details illustrator Tracy Subisak was able to show in her illustrations, so I could leave them out of the draft. 

What is your favorite thing about research?

Research is really the reason I write. I write because I’m curious about just about everything, and writing is a good excuse to become an expert in a subject for a time. If I can synthesize my research in a way that allows me to write a book for young readers, then I truly understand the material myself.

What’s your least favorite thing about research?

I hate footnoting! After I write my “kitchen sink” draft, I let go of the names, dates, and places and just write, mostly from my memory of what I’ve researched and read. Then I have to go back and find each and every fact in my sources, make sure I have the information right, and document the source. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, and it takes forever. I know it would be much better to dip into sources as I write and note where I find pieces of information, but most of the time I find it takes me out the flow of the story.

What’s one of the most interesting things you’ve learned while researching?

One aspect of Lilian’s life I found fascinating was she was a STEM educator before STEM was even a “thing.”  She founded the Junior Aero Club in America because she realized children of her day would be the airplane designers of the future. The Aero Club met in her Manhattan apartment (which was also her workshop), held balloon contests and entered their airplane models into competitions.

Because life isn’t always clear cut, the motives behind our actions don’t always make sense. But stories need to follow a logical path. What sorts of decisions have you had to make about “muddy” historical figures or events in order for your book to work?

I always have to remind myself that pioneers are also products of their time period. When I learned about Lilian’s Junior Aero Club, I was disappointed when it seemed the group was comprised of boys and not girls (though the boys’ mothers were involved too). But Lilian was a product of her age. She didn’t set out to build an airplane because she wanted to break barriers for women. She felt she had to invent no matter her gender. Inventing was who she was, and she felt she’d inherited her inventive nature. With that said, Lilian did experience tremendous discrimination, which she mentions in some of her interviews. But she didn’t necessarily see herself as paving the way for all women. 

Get Out of Your Own Way: Fast Draft with Lindsay Eagar

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In 2015, I read a Nerdy Book Club post dedicated to Lindsay Eagar’s first book, Hour of the Bees. I was utterly fascinated with the story idea and Lindsay herself. In that post, she talked about writing the first draft of her book in ten days.

For real. I was enthralled.

I sought Lindsay out to write a post about Bees. Then I met her when she came through Albuquerque on book tour. Here I talk up her second novel, Race to the Bottom of the Sea. Next I asked her to write about her third novel, The Bigfoot Files. Lindsay’s writing is vivid and lovely and real. She’s one of those authors whose every book I know I’ll read. I’m a totally unabashed superfan.

So when I heard Lindsay was offering a writing course, I jumped at the chance to participate. The class was an opportunity to watch Lindsay draft a novel in ten days, from brainstorming to finished draft. It came at a perfect time for me — a few weeks ago, just as I’d reached the end of a months-long revision project. While I listened to Lindsay’s daily videos, I took pages of notes. I was reminded to be playful with my writing, to harness my subconscious, to dig deeper, and to find the joy.

Here’s what Lindsay says about fast drafting:

When I fast draft, I am aiming to blast through the story as quickly as possible—I don’t pause to fix plot holes, I don’t stop to correct misspelled words, I don’t think. Whatever is in my brain comes out onto the page—sort of a combination of stream-of-consciousness (but much more focused) and brainstorming (but, again, much more focused). I start at the beginning of the book, and I don’t stop until I get to the end. If there are holes or gaps in what I know, I skip them or write in placeholders. If there is research required, again, a placeholder goes in, and I charge forward.

I want to get the shape of the book, a rendering, an idea of where the lights and shadows fall, the rough parts, the parts where I need to pay attention to detail.

To use another metaphor—I want to shuffle through the dark forest without a flashlight, feeling my way past the tumble-down branches and fallen trees, crossing the stream, rocks underfoot—and once I get through to the other side, I can draw a map.

The result is a draft that is often unreadable by anyone but me—but it’s a draft that has not lingered on any one plot problem or snarly piece of prose. It’s a draft that moved from my brain to paper in an efficient and timely manner, and the feeling when I print out the first draft and start preparing to revise? Best feeling in the world.

Read the full article at Susan Dennard’s newsletter, Misfits and Daydreamers

Lindsay’s 80/20: the Fast Draft Method class begins April 7. Enrollment is officially open. It’s “a six-week or six-module course, depending on how fast you want to jump through it. Each week includes lectures, exercises, self-examinations, and group video Q&As with Lindsay to keep you on track. You also get a one-on-one email, phone call, or video chat with Lindsay to go over your personal journey.” This is a great opportunity to study alongside a master storyteller. Go! Check it out!


20 Years, 350 Rejections, 17.5 Manuscripts, 7 Books: My Writing Journey in Numbers

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See this? It’s a rejection from my editor Stacey, written in 2008! She didn’t buy a book from me until 2013.

I first started writing the summer of 1998. Back then, I was a teacher on break with three months stretching before me. After years of dreaming, I decided it was finally time to dig in and try to write a book.

For eleven years I wrote, submitting my four novels and six picture books almost exclusively to editors.* This was back in the snail mail querying age. Remember the anticipation you experienced as a child waiting for birthday presents to arrive in the mail? That was me for about a decade.

In spring 2009, I won a contest at a local writing conference. At the last minute, I’d decided to send in my middle-grade historical novel-in-verse. It was my best work, but I wasn’t sure how it would be received alongside pieces meant for the adult market.**  My prize included a one-on-one with an editor who specialized in fantasy, sci-fi, and women’s fiction, a world apart from my writing. She took one look at my manuscript and asked, “Why don’t you have an agent yet?”

Part of my very high-tech submission records and some artwork from my son.

That’s when I started subbing to agents in earnest, sending three to five queries at a time. By May, I’d gotten my first full request. In June I got two more. In July another two. In September, yet another two.

By October, I’d had ten agents request fulls and two ask for partials. One agent liked my story, but felt some significant changes were necessary. I thought through her suggestions but took things in another direction, coming up with an entirely new, stronger ending. In the days I spent revising, two more agents requested fulls, bringing my total to twelve. I contacted the first agent, telling her I’d made changes to the story, though not along the lines she’d suggested. If she was still interested, I told her, I’d be happy to send it, but I also wanted her to know two more agents were reading the newer version. She graciously told me she’d love to see the story if the other two agents passed. One did. One didn’t.

Writing stats from 1998 to 2010, when I signed with my first agent:

10 manuscripts (4 novels, 6 picture books)
211 rejections from editors (2 fulls and 1 partial requested)
12 contests/grants (1 win)
75 rejections from agents (12 fulls and 2 partials requested)

With my first agent I sold two books, May B. (novel #4, which subbed to eleven editors and had 3 offers. It  was orphaned when Random House closed Tricycle Press.  The book was days from its ARC printing. Six weeks later, it was picked up by another Random House imprint, Schwartz and Wade, and went through three more rounds of edits), and Over in the Wetlands (picture book #5, which sold to Schwartz and Wade with zero rejections). After reworking several manuscripts, I officially retired most of them and drafted my verse novel, Blue Birds.

In 2013, I was on the hunt again for an agent. I submitted to three agencies and got two offers. I’ve been with Tracey Adams of Adams Literary ever since.

Writing stats for the last five years:

7.5 manuscripts (1.5 novels, 6 picture books — 3 of these manuscripts have been officially retired)
5 sales (3 novels, 2 picture books…the second picture book I hope to be able announce soon-ish!)
2 anthology pieces, including an overhauled chapter from novel #2…the one Stacey rejected in 2008!
3 grants / 2 contests (with no wins)
55 rejections

Some thoughts

You could look at these numbers and get pretty discouraged. 14 years to see a book on the shelf? Regular rejection with 7 books sold? I can look at these numbers — even knowing things worked out in the end — and feel the same. I know plenty of people with a shorter apprenticeship. I’ve got lots of friends far more prolific. All sorts of authors I debuted with in 2012 have published far more than I have. Here’s the thing: Your process is yours. Your journey is yours. Each book finds its way on its own.

Two truths kept me going before I sold my first book (and aren’t bad to remember now):

  • I have something unique to say (even when I’m not sure what that is).
  • My work can only improve if I keep at it.

Rejection continues to be a part of the process. That’s just how it goes.

The writing life (and the publication process) is a long-road, long-view, long-term journey. There’s no other way to look at it.

So, my friends, if you are on this journey, too, take heart. There is no right way. There’s no quick fix. There is no easy road. There is a fair dose of frustration and disappointment. But there is joy and satisfaction, too.

Here’s to all the good work ahead. Here’s to the next twenty years.

 

*Because an agent isn’t a necessity in the children’s market (but is a REALLY GOOD IDEA), I figured submitting to an agent was an extra, unnecessary step. Perhaps not my smartest move, but it also was not detrimental, as my writing wasn’t yet ready for a sale or representation. These were my apprenticeship years.

**I also wasn’t sure if anyone would understand what I was trying to do with this verse thing. A few months before I had submitted the first ten pages to an editor at a children’s conference. She clearly was unfamiliar with the form and thought it was a rather mature picture book that was missing its ending!



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