Today I went to my 9-year-old’s grade four class to read them The Candy Conspiracy and talk about writing. For the venture, I brought along a file folder of all the edits and original storyline ideas and drafts, and read to them from the very earliest draft. The funny thing was, it was really funny, perhaps rather more darkly funny than the version that made it to the published page. The original draft included mysterious characters called Grubbers (which vanished entirely by draft 3). The kids spontaneously imagined their own versions of the characters, with hands up afterward to describe what they thought the Grubbers looked like. Shrivelled up vegetables, elves, gremlins, little green blogs or specks, tiny green worms. Everyone had a different version in his or her imagination.
And that got us talking about the magic of the imagination. Don’t get me wrong. I love illustration, and illustration paired with text can make magic too. But the simplicity of words on the page, projected into our minds, is at once personal and collective. We all hear the same words, but what we see comes from our own personal landscape of experience, textured with individual differences.
I have left myself a mere eight minutes to write and publish this post before picking the kids up from school. There is much I could write about, perhaps too much, and here is a shortlist of topics I was thinking about covering.
Playing soccer in the back yard. (OMG so fun! Even I’m getting into it and testing out my mad dekes on … okay, on my 7-year-old, whose mad dekes are way madder than mine, but hey).
Being a depressed miserable writer. (Such a great topic, right up there with my collection of belly-button fluff. I’m sure you’re all sorry not to hear more about it.)
Our continuing efforts to try to train the dogs. (Having a dog is like having a toddler FOREVER.)
Coaching soccer. (Best game ever last night, as our Mighty Green Grapes, with only 5 players on the field for a 7 v 7 matchup, held their own mightily and with an intensity that could only be admired and cheered in the off-and-on rain. The coaches were verklempt by the end.)
The weekend. (That seems like a long time ago.)
Food I haven’t had a chance to cook or bake. (Just kidding.)
Laundry. (Sorry. I do like talking about laundry.)
Running without pain! (Hurray!!! In this beautiful spring weather! This is what I worked for all winter!)
Time. (And the way I’m forever running on the edge of behind, and yet not quite falling off, like a tiny figure on a giant treadmill, arms and legs whirling. Or like a metaphor with the wheels about to fall off.)
Happy Tuesday.
xo, Carrie