It’s the 5th anniversary of my picture book about Shavuos, A Dozen Daisies for Raizy, and I’d like to learn from teachers and librarians what activities they’ve used with the book and how their kids have responded to it. If you have pix of art projects or the like, that’s even better!
You can respond to me in the comments below or privately at beccaklempner@gmail.com.
If your day includes some of these, it’s time to find a pitcher, some water and sugar.
About 9 months ago, I went on vacation. Vacations are unusual for the Klempner family, and I really enjoyed the break from normal surroundings and routines.
Unfortunately, my husband checked his email on the third day of our vacation and informed me that my email account had been hijacked. When I investigated further, I discovered that all my contacts had been deleted, as well.
This scenario might sound familiar–it’s happened to enough of my friends.
Well, when I got back home a few days later and sat back down at my desk to write, the story that flew out of my fingertips was a reimagination of my email hacking.
That story, “It Wasn’t Me,” appears in this week’s Inyan, inside HaModia.
Have any of you out there turned some something annoying, frustrating, or inconvenient into a piece of art?
Tick-tock…Quick, that deadline’s approaching!
Foolish me.
So, as I mentioned last week, I committed to produce a story just three days after Passover was over. I did prewrite before the holiday, and even had started a first draft in longhand (I often do). It was this surprisingly dark piece, written in second-person. A concerned family member was talking to “you,” and “you” (it becomes clear) are suffering from a clinical depression.
When I picked these materials back up after Passover had wrapped up, the first thing I thought was: ugh.
I felt like hyperventilating. Was I back to square one? With only three days to go?
AHHH!
I’ve been thinking a little bit more about my theme of a couple posts ago, “how to be funny.”
A good jester will find humor in any situation, not just those that are obviously funny.
One of the steps to writing funny is seeing funny all around you. You can look at almost any situation and find something funny in it if you relax and try to experience it through calm, judgment-free observation.
A few months ago, someone (it might have been Erika Dreifus) pointed out this opinion piece by Silas House in the N.Y. Times:
We are a people who are forever moving, who do not have enough hours in the day, but while we are trying our best to be parents and partners, employees and caregivers, we must also remain writers.
There is no way to learn how to do this except by simply doing it. We must use every moment we can to think about the piece of writing at hand, to see the world through the point of view of our characters, to learn everything we can that serves the writing. We must notice details around us, while also blocking diversions and keeping our thought processes focused on our current poem, essay or book.
This way of being must be something that we have to turn off instead of actively turn on. It must be the way we live our lives.
Some people take this kind of remote observation a bit far. Silas House argues that the majority of a writer’s mind should be working on literary pursuits at any given time. I’d disagree. I try to turn this part of my brain off on Shabbat, during conversations with loved ones, and on date night, too. The key is not to remove yourself entirely from life around you, but to be able to see it calmly with a portion of your mind at will.
But that doesn’t mean that when on a stroll with my kids and I’m admiring your garden that I’m not noting which flowers are in bloom at this season so I can work them into the setting of my work in progress.
There’s a story Continue reading
If you play your cards right, you’ll have them laughing like hyenas!
It’s been a week and a half since Purim, so I’ve gotten lots of feedback about this year’s Klempner family Purim Spiel. My husband and sister (fellow contributors) agreed with me that this year’s was less funny than last year’s, but we seem to be in a minority. As I mentioned last year, since I began writing professionally, my little hobby now feels like work, and I avoided cranking out a complete rough draft until the week before Purim.
And then, I deleted several stories at almost the last minute. They just weren’t funny enough. So, I prayed–yes, that’s what this professional writer with a Master’s Degree and a generally pragmatic outlook on life did–I prayed for new ideas. And G-d sent some!
Besides relying on Heavenly Intervention, there are other ways to be funny. Without further ado:
5 Ways To Be Funny Continue reading
Be careful! If this guy throws down the gauntlet, it’ll probably hurt.
So yesterday I read this post by the Rubber Ducky Copywriter. In it, she posts about her first rejection letter after going out on a limb and submitting a short story. Despite her success as a copywriter, fiction is a new endeavor for her, and rejection hurt.
First of all, I’d like to cheer her on. Despite the rejection letter (and my readers will know I’m no stranger to them), the Rubber Ducky Copywriter did something a lot of us writers don’t do: try something new.
A lot of us avoid writing new things, especially after we find success (especially financial) in a particular niche. I know that it took me a long time to start writing for adults after I’d succeeded with kids’ lit. Other changes were also scary, because they carry risk. What if you invest time and emotions and no one ever publishes it?
But the pay-off can be big.
For years, I focused on my fiction. When I ventured on occasion to write a personal essay, it would inevitably face a quick rejection. Out of frustration, I gave up writing personal essays for a long time.
But, when I came back to it, I did better. My years of practicing fiction helped me hone my storytelling abilities. The first personal essay I’ve had published shows this and found a much wider audience than my fiction thus far has.
So here’s my creative writing challenge:
Continue reading
Rebecca Klempner 