Going Bald in Public: A Story about our Stories and their Audiences, by Anne Nesbet

A few years ago a friend invited me to Lake Tahoe, and while I was swimming in that cold water, I learned a lesson about kindness and audiences that I've never forgotten. Here's the story:

I went up to Tahoe to lose my hair. Really! I had just started chemo, and it was the end of the summer, and the experienced oncology nurses had pointed at a date on the calendar and said, "Hair should start coming out about then." My attitude was a mixture of horror and curiosity. I had never had all my hair fall out before! My friend Linda (who had been through this sort of thing herself) said, "Anne, come stay with us up at Tahoe. It'll be a great place to lose your hair!"

And she was right. It was healing, after all the first-round-of-chemo nausea, to be up in a place where the air felt practically newborn, it was so crisp and clear. And to be able to go walking in mountains and under lovely trees! And to have someone around whose attitude was as crisp and refreshing as the air: "Okay, Anne!" she said every morning. "Making progress? How's that hair coming along?"

And every day I took my battle-scarred, strange-looking, hair-shedding self down to the dock to swim (euphemism for "jump in, paddle about for a second, and climb back out") in the cold, bracing, wonderful water of Lake Tahoe.  It was wonderful!

And then one afternoon, I went down to the dock, and there were other people on it. Not just "other people": a group of teenagers, all boys. For a moment I froze. Perhaps you can understand: I had had a lot of surgery, not that long before. My swimsuit fit very strangely, and there were scars showing, and there was that weird lump that was the chemo port, and--and of course I was losing my hair. My head looked like it had just lost several big fights with an angry cat.

Well, I saw all those boys on the dock, and part of me was suddenly in 7th grade all over again--just wanting to take this battered body and obviously balding head of mine and hide. But I also didn't want to miss my dip into the magic water! So I forced myself to be brave--to march down that dock like I belonged there--to whip off my fleece and step onto the ladder, ignoring what I assumed were the staring, possibly mocking eyes of my audience--

and then one of those very scary people spoke out, just as I reached for the ladder (he was older than the others--it turned out I hadn't looked at them very closely). And what he said was,

"You know what, my wife did this, what you're doing now. Their mother did this. Seven years ago now." He made a funny little sound in his throat and added, "I just wanted you to know--she's doing really well now. Their mother."

And I looked up at them, finally, and saw what I had missed by not really looking before: not judgment, but kindness. Not some scary imagined other ("teenage boys"!), but human beings. (Then of course I couldn't see much at all, because of tears followed promptly by lake water!)

I learned something on that dock, and it occurs to me now that what I learned can be phrased in terms of writers and readers, books and audiences.

Let me count the ways:

1. When a book goes out into the world, it is exciting and frightening, both at once. It can feel like all your secret scars are going out on parade. It is as scary as walking out onto a crowded dock when your hair is coming out in clumps.

2. Fear makes us bad readers--in particular, bad readers of our audience. Here's a bit of irony: I misjudged these people because I was so clamped up in my own anxiety that they might be judging me. When we write, it is our solemn duty to be less afraid. We have to open up for our audiences, whoever they may turn out to be. Almost certainly they are more complicated and more human than we may think at first.

3. Our readers carry many stories in them. That is amazing and something a writer can't forget. Our stories reach out to theirs. All of these things are wonderfully plural, too: the stories people carry inside them; the stories they are ready or need or long to hear.

4. And finally, that father did what a good writer does: he told me a story that touched my heart and opened the world to me so that I saw it in a different way. A good story tells us that life may be hard, but we are not alone. It must have taken courage to speak up, in the face of all my determined shyness. But what a gift his story was! Let's all be as brave in our story-telling as that father was that day.

I think of this man and his sons (and their mother!) often. I am so grateful to them. I hope they are doing well. Some part of everything I write will always have a bit of lake-water in it, to remind me to be more open, to be ready to meet people and their stories, wherever they may be.

Under this hat, progress toward baldness was being made!

How Far Will You Go For Middle Grade? by Joy McCullough-Carranza

Recently I encountered a child named Anakin – a girl, in fact, and I mused what rabid Star Wars fans her parents must be to give their child this name. (Although, Star Wars associations aside, I actually think it’s quite a pretty name.) But then I realized that if my son had been a girl, I totally would have lobbied for the name Hermione. I really would have. I don’t think I would have won, but I would have had my arguments lined up. The name actually comes from A Winter’s Tale, which would go nicely with our other daughter, whose name is Shakespearean.

But let’s be honest—I really would have been naming her after Hermione Granger.

It got me thinking about how memorable a character must be, how strong a love for a book or a film, to name one’s progeny after this made up being. What an effect those authors or filmmakers have had, to inspire the names of actual people in the world. It made me wonder if there’s been a boom of Harrys or Percys over the last decade. If children were named Matilda or Harriet or Lucy because of a parent’s love for a book.

We’re coming up on our one year anniversary of getting our dog. I lobbied to name her

Luna, because she is white and strawberry, with these giant, unnerving blue eyes, and frankly, she’s kind of spacey. But my daughter was heavily into a Greek mythology phase at the time – we read Anne Ursu’s Cronus Chronicles, Kate O’Hearn’s Pegasus series, and the Percy Jackson books – and ended up naming the dog Athena. We agreed begrudgingly that this might be a good fit, since she is an Australian Shepherd, and they are supposed to be very smart. Emphasis on supposed to be. (Our previous dog, who I’d had for thirteen years, was named Owen, for John Irving’s adult novel A Prayer for Owen Meany.)

And also under the heading of permanent life choices inspired by books, I love this collection of tattoos inspired by children’s books. I especially love the Ramona and Matilda ones! I have two literary tattoos myself, though they are not middle grade. (I am planning a Harry Potter tattoo, though. Shh.)

So have any middle grade books or characters inspired you to make a permanent life choice? Name a child or a pet? Burn something into your skin? Choose a spouse based on a shared love of Roald Dahl?

What lengths will you go to for middle grade?

Why We Do What We Do, by Matthew MacNish

We've been having some amazing, very professional looking posts going up here at Project Mayhem lately. This is my first time back after the April A to Z Challenge, and I'm a little intimidated. I would hate to tarnish the reputation of this incredible blog with the kind of drivel I tend to post.

But then I remembered that's just insecurity talking, and it would be foolish to let such a thing make decisions for me.

Writing is hard work sometimes. Especially being an aspiring novelist, who is still unpublished after years of trying (I say especially, but of course I don't actually know. All my published friends tell me it's even harder afterward). You spend the majority of your time, slaving away at what is admittedly a labor of love, but when there's so little to show for it, sometimes you have to ask: why?

So ... I took my nephew to the Triple A Gwinnett Braves on Friday night. It's like major league baseball, only cheaper. And Brian McCann was there, playing to rehab after an injury, so it was even more like major league. For those who don't know, Brian McCann is the catcher for the Atlanta Braves, and was the MVP of the all star game a couple years ago, so he's kind of a big deal.

Anyway, my nephew, who is six, and who loves baseball like he loves nothing else in this world, had the time of his life. The stadiums in minor league ball are much smaller, and give the fans a lot more freedom. We were able to wander around, and change seats whenever we wanted, and pretty much just enjoy the game as we pleased.

Near the end, when the seventh inning ended in a strike out, we went down to the edge of the field, and the little guy held his glove out, asking for a ball, and the catcher of the opposing team tossed it right into his glove on his way to the dugout. The little boy's face lit up like the sun.

I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but it was raining by then. It didn't matter one bit. That little baseball fan was so happy he couldn't sit still. He spent the rest of the game talking and talking and talking about what he was going to do with that ball.

And that got me to thinking.

Why do we do what we do?

For ball players, I'm sure the money is nice, and I'm sure the love of the game has something to do with it, but I can't help wondering: if there were no fans, especially young ones, would there still be baseball?

It's the same with writing, I need to remind myself. Sure, telling stories is sometimes something we need to do. And I suppose at first, we write for ourselves, like Toni Morrison suggested, but I think in the long run, at least for those of us who stay with it long enough for there to be a long run, the readers are all that matter.

Especially the young ones.