Joan Bauer's Journal

Thoughts on Hope: from my speech at ALAN

    I Googled "hope" the other day.  I found a special hope formula for 70% off, a Hope TV Channel, a Hope Finance Program, Bob Hope, an official Hope website, and Wikipedia really went to town on hope, talking about the history of it, how to measure it, recognize it...
    There are millions of "hopes" to click on.
    I'm not sure what that will do for a kid who's close to the kind of despair that's a game changer; or a kid who's being abused at home or somewhere else; or a young reader who has a colossally dark secret that's crushing her; or a boy who feels close to doing something dangerous because he's got so much anger inside; or a regular kid who feels confused and wants to try to understand a little bit of what you do with a conflicted heart.
    It's so easy to toss hope around like a beach ball.  "Wheee!  Here it comes!"  And it just so happens that last week when I started working on this speech, we had a tsunami of complications hit our family.  It was, in a few of those places, quite easy to not feel too hopeful about much good coming out of these things.  In the midst of that, I sat down to work on these remarks, and as I did, I remembered an image that has so captivated me -- and I think it's a true visual of how a try to breathe hope into my characters lives.  And into my own life as well.
    In Asian pottery, there is a method called "golden seams," specially created by craftsmen to mend cracked ceramics. Instead of trying to match the color of the pot to make the crack less visible, they decided to flaunt the flaw by repairing it with lacquer mixed with powdered, flecked gold. It dries bold and shiny, the cracks fill in with gold. Brokenness made beautiful and more valuable.  
    That's what I hope to do -- use gold paint around the broken parts.  Humor certainly is a way to help life go down easier.  In my novel, Almost Home, a girl loses her home -- she's there when the sheriff comes.  How can lightness come in the midst of that?  Her mother is a southern belle wannabe who insists that her daughter always write the perfect thank you note.  And Sugar Mae Cole is a poet and she writes about wanting a home that won't go away with people who really think she's something.
    In Close to Famous, a girl who simply can't read decides to give it one more try.  In Hope Was Here, a girl wants to live with hope so much she changes her name to Hope as if to say to the world, "Call me what I want to become."  Seeds of hope planted in a story.  A touch of gold paint to illuminate the cracks and make them beautiful.
    Who are these kids we adult writers dare to create, as we limp back into our pasts and dust off the boxes we've put away?      
    Where do they hide their wounds?  
    What's their biggest strength?
    What's the thing about themselves they just can't see?
    What are the rules they live by?
    How are those rules challenged?
    How do they find their voices in this very broken world?
    What do they long to see made better?  Ah, that's the door to their hope.  Right there.  
    Now, how do they get on the road?  How do they put shoe leather to their dreams?  How do they learn to talk the talk a little, step outside their comfort zone, and go for it?  
    Here's the lovely thing about hope, it's really quite selfless, it's happy to take a back seat in lots of situations.  It partners in all kinds of moments and doesn't take the glory.
    Take courage -- you don't step out and do something brave without a hope that it could be better.
    Or truth -- you don't speak the truth without hoping someone will get it.
    And my heart goes to Hope Yancey of Hope Was Here, this courageous girl who wears her name like a flag.  Sometimes that flag crashes to the ground, but she's willing to have it be her identity -- that's how she wants to live.  
    We need to show kids what living with hope looks like, how it hides in all kinds of places -- how it's not really meant for exceedingly happy times.  Hope is built for the open sea with the sharks and the wind that's about to knock over your boat.  Let's not relegate it to a Hallmark card with kittens wearing sunhats -- let's take this thing out on the open road and see what it can do.  And if we're teaching a book, let's look for the hope and point it out, and ask kids, Where do you see it?  Where is hope in the building blocks of courage, sensitivity, and friendship?
    Hope is in the soil.  You dig in a garden in the spring and there are the earthworms dancing, they're preparing the earth.  Man, it's a good thing!  That's what hope does; it's there underneath when we don't even think about it, waiting for us to discover it, waiting to make our lives richer and better, waiting to reach out a hand to a kid who is more broken than we could ever know.  
    Years ago, I spoke in Youngstown, Ohio -- a girl came up to me; she took my hand and started to cry.  "Mrs. Bauer, I just need to tell you.. I read your book..."   She couldn't finish.  I was getting ready to speak to a group about humor in my novels, and now this girl was overcome by tears.     
    "Honey, tell me -- "
    "I think I read it 50 times.  I had leukemia, I read it every time I had chemotherapy.  Mrs. Bauer, I don't have leukemia anymore."
    Now I'm crying and the humor crowd is coming in.
    But, that was okay.  
    Hope is a glorious mess of inconsistencies.  It shows up places it has no right to be: at gravesites and horrific accidents -- how dare thing thing come?   And yet it does, sitting down on the couch with sorrow and pain and depression and lost love and terminal illness and anger and so much, so much.  We ignore it at our peril!   And here's what we tell the kids -- here's what we show them in our stories.  Hope isn't a feather,  it's an anchor.  It's not a butterfly, it's a 900 pound gorilla that's come to throw it's weight around.  It's the golden seams glistening off the paintbrush of a gifted artist outlining the cracks and the brokenness and saying, Look how it can be put back together -- more beautiful, more unique -- shining out bold and true.    
    So, we can say to trouble when it turns out the light:  "Go ahead.  Give it your best shot.  Guess what?  I glow in the dark and I am beautiful!"
    Hope is a game changer.
    May our eyes be open in new ways to the young people we teach and mentor.  And may we hold this hope out to them so they can see ahead to a better day.

**This speech was recently publihed in the ALAN Review Fall 2014

 

My Toe

A few days ago I stubbed my toe, which hardly seems like the stuff of blogging, but then it turned purple and I limped a little, and it hurt a little, but I had things to do, so I kept limping and it got better and I thought -- ah, Joan, see, you didn’t have to get an x-ray.  These things work themselves out. 

The next day I overdid it and my toe started to hurt and I started thinking of dire toe problems and rethought that x-ray, but life got complicated again, and I got to the walk-right-in-emergency-care-office after it closed.  By now I felt like my toe had swelled to the size of a zucchini.  I mentioned this to my husband who said, “It’s the size of a baby carrot, like always.”  “Maybe something profoundly grim is happening inside, “ I said.  “You know, some kind of intense clotting.”  My husband touched the purple parts of my toe, and said, “No, it’s not. Try not to think about it.” 

So I thought about an article I’d read about procrastination that suggested that people hyper focus on the small stuff when they are actually avoiding the big stuff.  And I wondered, since a toe isn’t all that big, if there was some deep, all-encompassing thing that I was avoiding?  I decided to make a list, and came up with four pieces of big unfinished business. This caused my toe and the one next to it to begin to throb.  Then the big toe on my other foot began to ache in solidarity as I was forced to look at my life.  And being a writer on deadline, it occurred to me that some day I could use this in a story. It’s just so encouraging to see where a toe can take you.

 

My Pseudonym

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm letting the world know that my next novel will be written under a pseudonym -- either J. K. Bowlings or Erasmus Breach, I haven't picked the name yet, but it's best to speak the truth now because in this news-in-a-nanosecond/Wiki leaks age, someone will find out.  Surely, we all know this.    

It's possible that Nordstrom's would find out first -- prior to this AM, I'd not thought of Nordstrom's as a key info source, but according to the NY Times front page article, Attention, Shoppers: Store is Tracking Your Cell, it appears that Nordstrom's cares so much about who walks into their stores that they were gathering cell phone data on everyone.  

I discussed this pseudonym issue with my daughter who said, "Mom, it would kill you for people not to know you wrote a book." She's right, I suppose, but there's something quite lovely about cloaking one's literary self in a cape and writing, writing as if it were your first ever book.  But growing up Lutheran as I did, I think the guilt would kill me, and the advance would not be as big, and as Abraham LIncoln said, "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."  And if I was in the presence of someone who had read the pseudonymous novel and was unfairly critiquing it -- I would have to Say Something. Silence would not be an option.   

It's too bad that you just can't slap a pen name on a novel without having to build up the ruse. I thought of spelling my name backwards as a fun party joke, and Naoj Reuab does sound like a fascinating character, but here I am.  Joan.  Writing away.  I feel so much better coming clean. 

**Here's the link to the Times piece.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?ref=todayspaper

 

Honk If You Love Stories

When I was trying to break in as a new writer, sometimes I would drag myself to my desk,  asking the wrong question —Does the world really need another story?  

Early in my career, I posed a similar question to a rowdy group of high school freshman who were not listening to much of what I had to say.  Everyone knows you're not supposed to ask a surly crowd a question, especially a surly crowd of teenagers.  But I did.

"Why are stories important?" I shouted.  A boy in the back yelled, "They're not!"  I was ready to crawl out the door and find another profession, but when you love something, you defend it.  I hollered back, "Why not?"

A girl raised her hand: "Because stories teach us about life."  I almost gave her money for that answer.  It was the first time I ever led a group of students in an exercise developing a character from thin air. Who was this person?  What kind of a family was he from?  What kind of a heart did he have?  What were his dreams, his fears?  What kept him going...and on and on...

By the end of the assembly, we'd formed a living, breathing fictional character (that is not a contradiction in terms), and a boy in the back shouted, "You're okay, lady."  I wrote that down and slept with it under my pillow.

Does the world need another story?  I don't ask that question anymore, no matter how tired I feel. I know the answer—not just for my work, but for the millions of writers (published and yet-to-be published) out there.  Absolutely, positively, and undeniably YES!  

Keeping Thanksgiving

The turkey is gone, the carcass has been made into soup, Black Friday is history, and maybe the spirit of Thanksgiving feels like it's wearing thin.  Keeping Thanksgiving is a lot like keeping a friend's place in line.  You guard it. Very deliberately... 

Each day, no kidding, no exception.  No matter what's going on, how you feel, what new hassle has come your way, stand up and announce something you're thankful for.  Write it down, put it in a box (I love boxes), and maybe even pat the box when you do it.  Find a child -- this might not be difficult if you have children.  Say to the child, "What are you thankful for?" The child might shout, "My Mega Bloks Halo Warthog." This is valid.  Write it down, put it in the box. And you now have another thing to be thankful for -- there is yet no Ultra Supreme Mega Halo Warthog that, say, glows in the dark.  If you are in a child-free zone, pull out your inner child -- you know, the one you used to be.  Ah now, you might not have had a conversation with that child in some time.  Think about what you might have said at age 6 or 9 or 12  when asked, "What are you grateful for?"  The young you shouts, "Chocolate!"   

See, some things never change.  Have some chocolate, don't put it in the box. 

Keeping is a great word, a word we all think we know, and then somebody, like a writer, looks it up.  Keep means to preserve; to maintain; to take care of.  And we need to do that with thanksgiving, not just the day, but the attitude, it needs help beyond what a Mega Bloks Halo Warthog could ever provide. It needs to be guarded and tended and preserved.  After Thanksgiving, I was interviewed on radio station KFBK, Sacramento's #1 news station.  I talked about maintaining thankfulness and the anchor Tim Lantz asked me a great question:  What do people do who just don't feel thankful?  I said, "Think about a time when you were thankful.  Try to take some steps to get back there again."  That's preserving the memory, I think.  I've continued to ponder the question in these complicated days when so many are hurting.  

What are we thankful for?  It's a great question to pose to your family (all ages) and friends.  Their answers might surprise you, inspire you.  Write them down, put them in your box. You might find that you run out of boxes.  I hope that you do.  If that's the case, just write it all on your heart and keep thanksgiving alive. 

**My new novel, Almost Home, is about holding onto thankfulness no matter what. 

 

 

How to Read a Book (based on a true story)

Among the throng of readers devouring books out there, and we writers just want to say, thank you, there is a little realized approach to reading that can bring unique fulfillment:  Imagine what the writer was going through when she or he wrote what you have in your hands. For as much drama as the book you are now reading might possess, as much wonder as it might stir within you, trust me, the drama of actually getting that thing to print is a story in itself.  

Picture the writer huddled in a chair, fighting against writers block, finally getting the inspiration and hope to push through, editing that section on the magic turtle showing up with a message for the family, realizing that magical realism doesn't quite fit in a historical novel, but now the new thoughts come like a water tap turned on, and the writer is remembering why she does this, it's for these moments when the path in the story clears and the characters are alive and real.  She can hear their voices.  She can't believe in ever stopping. The exhilaration is beyond anything that --  

"Mommy."  

No.  Not now. 

 "Half the gerbil's tail came off."

And this poor writer is swept into another human drama as she looks in the cage and yes, one gerbil has half a tail and the other one is looking guilty. 

"Mommy, did they have a fight?"

"Possibly."

"They'll make up.  They're best friends."  

Maybe not.

And now this writer must keep her brain focused between her glorious story and this drama of life and possibly death, certainly dismemberment, in the animal kingdom, and having only one cage, she takes the gerbil with half a tail, who does seem to be handling it quite well, puts that animal in a plastic bin with food and toilet paper rolls, and calls the vet whose assistant says, yes, he examines gerbils, but they're exotic animals, so we have to charge you more.  And the writer, who knows, as we all do, there is nothing exotic about a rodent, has a third part now opening up in her brain that says, I will need to use this in a story, but not my historical novel about love and loss during the black plague.  The vet can't see her for three hours, so she goes back to her story, but it's strangely not  connected anymore, she's lost that moment of creative abandon, her characters have scattered and she is trying to rope them back, she tries to remember the voices and the rhythms and the progression -- 

"Mommy..."

"What...?"

"Will she die?"  Sobbing.

The writer, of course, gets up and tends to this deep moment and comforts the child.  They have hot cocoa, they talk about the great moments in this gerbil's life, all six weeks of them, they laugh, and they cry together.

It's time to go to the vet, the gerbil seems nonplussed, and the vet confirms this.  "Looks like he's going to be fine."

"It's a girl," the child says.

"Sometimes gerbils go at each other," the vet offers.  "It's best to separate them."  He puts a little ointment on the tail and charges an exorbitant fee for this consultation, far more money than the gerbil cost, although the writer does notice that the gerbil has perked up at the thought of being an exotic animal.  The writer then goes to the pet store and buys another cage, the writer sets this up in the TV room, the child says, "Okay, you guys, make up."  The gerbils glare at each other from across the room.  It''s close to dinnertime, but the writer needs to finish this chapter, so she sits at her desk, and digs deep within until the phone rings and a snarky woman from Mastercard wants to know when she might be sending in that overdue payment.  Now the gas company decides that this is the moment to begin excavating the street and an an army of men with jackhammers appear out of nowhere, but the writer puts on her noise cancelling headphones and finishes the chapter.  It is not a great chapter, it hovers just above okay, but hope is the writer's warm blankie, for surely tomorrow there will be no interruptions, the story will pour out, and the book will be drop-dead brilliant.   

And so it goes in the backrooms of literature.  I can assure you that everything you read will have some of this human drama tucked inside the folds.  May this enhance your reading pleasure knowing the struggle writers go through to bring you our stories.

 

Words for the Storm

A bad storm like Sandy keeps coming long after it stops.  We're left with the wreckage and the clean up and the ghastly feeling, and all the while trying to hold onto hope.  I've always had a bone to pick with Emily Dickinson who said, "Hope is the thing with feathers..."  I suppose some hope can be blown away by the least little breeze, but hope, real hope, the kind you need in a storm, needs to be made of steel.

IRON ORE

COKE

FLUX

MOLTEN IRON

That's what makes steel, all of those ingredients either extracted, crushed, purified, or melted down:  Iron ore is found in mines, coke is made from crushed and washed coal, flux is a term for the minerals used to collect impurities during the making of steel and iron, molten iron is all about turning up the heat in a blast furnace. 

The strength we need is like iron ore -- we have to go into dark places to find it sometimes.  Grief is like coke, crushing us for a while and then using that crushed part in new ways.  I think hope is a lot like flux, it helps collect impurities, it helps us go through the tough process, and it aids us in growing stronger.  Tough times are like molten iron, melting us down in the heat of challenge.  But together, this process makes steel, one of the strongest compounds in the world. 

It's been said that the greatest strengths grow out of weakness, the greatest trees have weathered the biggest storms and their roots have gone deep.  To find strength in the midst of trial is a gift.  Here are words of strength given to a granddaughter by her grandfather, words he wrote after a tornado leveled his home, words she carried around with her during the worst time in her life.  This is from my newest novel, Almost Home. 

When you don't think you can keep going,

You might be right,

But just in case you're wrong,

Keep marching.

When you're flat out and don't know what to do,

It might be a while before you know,

But don't give up,

Keep marching.

If your feet are sore,

Keep going.

If you hear a roar,

Keep moving.

When the worst that can happen has come and gone

And you're still standing,

Remember that you won.

 

 

 

 

The Project Girls

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, with so much devastation, with complexity and struggle, with a supremely mean election churning toward the finish line, with people wondering whom they can trust, with money short, with credit high, with angst and discouragement and depression and anger all around, I want to tell you about an email I received recently from two girls.  The subject line read: 

HELP US!!! 

They had just read my novel Close to Famous, about a girl named Foster who is a serious baker and struggles terribly with reading. Foster has a green apron with a shooting star -- trust me, that's important (see below).  But let them tell you in their words (I've deleted their names and did get their permission to share their correspondence)...they are The Project Girls.

 HEY Joan I loved your book close to famous it was amazing i read it in a day.Well you see i am in reading competition with my friend and that is where i found your book she read it and she told me so much about it thats all she talked about for a week! A WHOLE WEEk!!! Then she said to me that i need to read the book so i read it and OMG are you an amazing WRITER and me and her are doing a project for YOUR book we decided for our class project were going to make the cupcakes in the back of the book and were doing a powerpoint about your book and I thought it would be cool to do a slide all about YOU so thats why im emailing you im sorry i dont know what to say ive never liked a book enough to contact an author your my first one i would love if you would email me back i would be so happy! just tell me all about you things nobody knows that you wont mind sharing one question id really like you to answer is why did you write this book was it something that happened in your life i would love to put you in my powerpoint Joan so PLEASE email back i would like it real soon our deadlines coming up by the way were in 8th grade!!

Yours truly...

 

It's impossible not to answer an email like this, and you must respond right away.  So I gave them some places on my website to get info and I wrote:

Hi guys -- So glad you liked the book!  How cool is that?  I'll give you one quick thing that NOBODY KNOWS.  And it just happened yesterday.  Before yesterday, my three favorite cupcakes were coconut, maple pecan, and chocolate.  I just had lunch with my daughter in Providence and we went to this insanely significant cupcake place called the Duck and Bunny and now my number one favorite cupcake is Banana Nutella, number two is Red Velvet, and number three is coconut.

Okay, use this information wisely and get a terrific grade. 

Joan Bauer

A week later, I got this...

 

It's us, the project girls!

Dear Joan, do you remember us? We sent you an email pretty fast back and told us your favorite kind of cupcakes!  We did a PowerPoint about you. We wanted to tell you about our project so far its due on the 25th now... Well the PowerPoint is done and we were making cupcakes the night before but we decided we needed Foster Aprons so we went to Walmart and got a pack of aprons coloring dye a shooting star stencil and some yellow paint for the star and also sparkling red grape wine don't worry were 13 and 14 its non alcoholic. We were following directions for the aprons and it said to fill your sink with 2 gallons of water and SALT (it smelled really bad) then to put the packet in (it was like a powder you added) well Sierra dropped it in the sink had to get the packet out of the water out and got our fingers green. (we definitely had a green thumb) well after like an hour of splashing green on ourselves we had to put it in the washing machine it was haaarrrd work we decided to drink our red grape drink and we toasted to you and our green fingers. wish us good luck cleaning up well keep you up on the status of our project.

Yours Truly...

 

I give a standing ovation to these girls for guts and initiative.  I applaud their teacher for giving this assignment.  I salute their parents for being such good eggs, and I so hope the green dye didn't destroy the sink or permanently stain hands, etc., truly I do.    

And in case you were wondering how to get someone's attention, let The Project Girls inspire you.  In my book they get an A+ and major points for extra credit.  Nobody gets better mail than those of us who write for kids.  

 

 

Made for This

It's not possible, is it?  

1.6 million kids in America are homeless.

16 - 18 million families live at or below the poverty line.

It can't be possible.  Not here.  But it is and it is growing.

I've volunteered in homeless shelters.  And what I remember most are the faces, they  are still carved across my heart.  

We can say it's not right, and then look away.  We don't mean to look away, but life is so complicated, so hard, there are too many undone things in life, there's too much pain.

I believe every person can do something to help.  And the first thing to do is talk about it.  Seriously.  

Talk about the statistics because people don't know. 

The next step is figure out something you can do, write a check -- small or large -- collect toys, volunteer, something.  

Ask your kids -- what can we do?  You might be surprised at their answers.  

Ask your school, a local business, a local organization, a church.  

What can we do?

And then picture a child's face, maybe your child, and now picture them homeless, living in a car, living on the street.

Imagine the fear and the exhaustion.

Imagine living without basic needs. 

Imagine the hole in their lives and how it could be mended.

Imagine being a parent who can't shelter your children.

We think sometimes that we don't have the means, but we do.  We're here to help people who are hurting.  

Just begin.  Then let it build.  Call your elected officials and let them know -- this has to change.

I wrote my latest novel, Almost Home, to show the story of one amazing, resilient girl who loses it all and keeps going.  There were people who helped her, some more than others, but the ones who helped a little strengthened the chain that kept her going.

It's not possible, is it?

1.6 million kids in America are homeless.

16 - 18 million families live at or below the poverty line.

It is, and ordinary people are a big part of the solution.  

We've been made for this. 

By the Way, It's Funny

With my 11th novel Almost Home hitting the stores this week, I've been thinking about the process of writing the story, which consisted of me ripping out my heart and expanding my brain and writing poetry and crazy thank you cards and wondering all the time what in the world I was doing, trying to write a story about a girl who loses her home, and has to survive, and has this adorable dog, and by the way, it's funny.  Parts of it, at least. It can't be funny, I told myself, because I'm dealing with hugely harsh things.  And I remembered when I wrote my novel, Hope Was Here, and I was researching that story at the Darien Public Library.  I was at the check out desk armed with books on cancer and abandoned children and irresponsible mothers and kids trying to find out who their real fathers are. The librarian touched my shoulder to comfort me. "I'm writing a book," I assured her.   

This is what I've learned about humor -- sometimes it takes time to grow, like a flower on a battlefield.  So in Almost Home I took my protagonist Sugar on a long journey and in the process I found her strength. 

    My whole life started as one big surprise when I got born in the back of a Chevy in the parking lot of the Sugar Shack in Baton Rouge in a rainstorm so bad, my parents couldn't make it to the hospital.  When I popped out and Reba saw the Sugar Shack sign, she felt it was a sign from God; right then I got my name.  At least God told her to stop at Sugar.  Sugar Shack Cole would have been a chore to live with.  My daddy got the thrill of helping me get born, and believe me, he hasn't done squat to help since then.

    But I was grateful.  As soon as I could write, I sent a note to the Chevrolet company in Detroit, Michigan and thanked them for making such good back seats that a baby could get born and be okay.  That company cared so much, they wrote me back and said that although many babies had been born in Chevrolets over the years, I was the first one they knew of named Sugar. Reba says part of why I'm on this earth is to bring a little sweetness into people's lives.  "And sweet doesn't mean stupid," she says.  "Sweet doesn't mean weak.  I'm not talking kittens wearing sun hats either.  I'm talking kindness.  You go out there, Sugar Mae Cole, and show 'em what it means to be sweet." 

I hope you'll get a copy of Almost Home and see for yourself. As for my novel, Hope Was Here -- it takes on the best and worst of politics, all seen through the eyes of a girl who knows what it's like to hold onto hope. It's particularly fun to read in an election year.  

***And for my friends in Fairfiled County, CT, I'll be at Follett Books in Fairfield on Saturday, September 15th at 2PM signing copies of Almost Home.  I hope you'll stop by.

www.joanbauer.com