Pithy Prose #3

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

Anton Chekhov

A much nicer way of saying, "show, don't tell."

Where have all the young girls gone?

An interesting article in Wednesday's USA Today cites a University of Southern California study on the dearth of female speaking roles in children's movies: for every speaking female character, the study says, there are three male characters.

The study finds that female roles are rare in children's movies, including Nemo, the 2003 mega-hit, and last year's Madagascar, among others. And those with balanced male-female casts are exceedingly rare, accounting for only seven of the 101 top-grossing G-rated films released from 1990 to 2004.

The article goes on to quote actress Geena Davis, founder of a group called See Jane that focuses on female roles in children's media, speaking about boys:

"To just continually see worlds where girls are sidelined or don't exist or are very peripheral to what's going on, they sort of grow up realizing that they can just discount girls and that they don't have to be interested in what girls do."

Now, the reason I find this so interesting is that, as a children's writer, I'm constantly hearing other writers spout the old line about "boys won't read books with female protagonists or written by women writers." And I'm kind of wondering, have we writers helped create the problem here? By hiding our femaleness behind initials and shying away from using strong female characters as MCs, have we unwittingly contributed to this marginalization of girls?

I don't know. Like I said, I'm just wondering.

At least it's in this decade

Heard back on one of my poetry submissions from 2005. Fun for Kidz will be publishing my poem "Moo Manners" in their May 2008 issue on "Fun on the Farm." (See what I mean about waiting? Patience, grasshopper, patience.)

Working, Working

Received some lovely encouragement yesterday on a submission that's out with Highlights. Got my fingers crossed that a contract will soon be in my mail box.

On my to-do list these days:
1. Finish up a non-fiction piece I'm working on, possibly for submission to the W.I.N. contest
2. Finish a short story for submission to Highlights
3. Finish up some poems I wrote specifically for the W.I.N. contest
4. Complete one of five picture book manuscripts I've been mulling over and get it subbed

Looks like the two middle-grade manuscripts I have going will be on the backburner for a while longer!

Pithy Prose #2

"Writing is a lonely affair. It's a cliche, but a true cliche. And the egos of most writers I know are swiss-cheesed with doubt."

from Cabbages and Kings, blog of "PJ Parrish", authors (yes, there are two of them trapped in one pseudonymous body) of the Louis Kincaid mystery series

Turn the Calendar to the Wall

Let's see...I'm waiting on an 8-week poetry submission, a 3-month fiction submission, a 9-month picture book submission...the list goes on. Wanna know what's really sad? Even if any of these do get accepted, the waiting begins all over again - just to see the darn things in print.

Prime requirement for anyone considering writing as a career: patience. In massive quantities.

And chocolate...but that's another post.