I started my Friday = dyslexia day feature about a month ago. And I'm running out of fabulous old blog posts to plug in. So I decided to write something new, and a bit more personal.
I am a writer. I have an agent. I am currently on submission to my first round of publishers. I am nervous and excited and really really really want to become a real life author. Oh, and did I forget to mention I can't read? I guess that makes me kind of a freak, doesn’t it?
The part of the brain that enables people to sound things out and the part of the brain that compels people to make up stories are two different parts of the brain. I’m not good at the reading thing, but I’ve never had a problem in the imagination department. I love making up stories. I always have. The actively writing down the stories I dream up part is frustrating sometimes, but the making them up part isn’t even an option for me. It’s just something I do.
Technically, I can read now. I was diagnosed with dyslexia two and a half decades ago, and I’ve been actively reading whole books for more than ten years. Yes, you read that right. I knew I was dyslexic for almost fifteen years before I got to the point where I could pick up a book and read it. My case is what specialists like to call severe.
Being severely dyslexic should probably give me a microscopic self-esteem or something, but it never really did. Even as a little kid, I knew I was smart. There are lots of things I’m good at, besides just making up stories and inventing new spellings for two letter words. I’m good at math, and science, and lots of other brainy type activities that don’t require reading.
Growing up, I always took honors and AP everything, except for English, I was in remedial English. The whole not knowing the alphabet thing got me every time. I might have acted like an uber-nerd, but there was a part of me that always felt disabled too. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, always, but I was never an English major.
I LOVE stories. Not only the stories I make up, but the ones other people make up too. I listen to a LOT of audiobooks, and always have. When I was in elementary school, I found the audiobook section of my public library and systematically listened to every audiobook available in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. I couldn’t read the dust jackets to know what the books were about, and wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything good.
When I got to college and took my first non-remedial English class, I was shocked at how fun it was, and how good I was at it. I was a very well read kid, even if I didn’t actually know how to read. And oh man, I wanted to major in English so bad. I didn’t do it though. I’m sure the school would have let me. They knew I had a severe learning disability and that I listened to all my textbooks in audio version and they also knew I understood everything I was listening to. Nobody ever told me I couldn’t major in English. I told that to myself. Of course I couldn’t major in English, I didn’t know how to read, and English majors are literate.
Eventually I finished school, and then finished even more school, and went on to get a real life job. I’m an engineer. I do lots of math and science and other non-reading type things. I’m good at my job. Numbers have always made more sense to me than letters, there aren’t sounds associated with them only meaning, so I never have to try and sound out calculus. I just do it.
My ten year college reunion is this weekend. Some of my friends were English majors. I still wonder what my life would be like if I’d let myself take classes with those lucky ducks. It doesn’t matter though. I now have an agent, and a book out on submission, and someday I am going to be a real life author, even if I was forced to take sucky classes like AP Physics and remedial English back in the day.
Being an illiterate author isn’t a normal thing. But I’ve never really been all that normal. And right now, I don’t feel even a little bit disabled. My life’s pretty darn great. Who cares if I still listen to four audiobooks for every one book I read on paper? I’m going to let myself be happy, and I’m going to keep on writing.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Banning vs Labeling
It’s banned books week, which means I’ve been reading lots of interesting discussions about what books are banned, why they are banned, and why banning books is a horrible horrible thing. I’m a fan of free speech and have a natural gut reaction that the entire idea of banning books is evil. But I also often wonder why books don’t have some kind of rating or labeling system the way games and movies do.
I don’t think kids should be carded before checking a book out from the library. But how horrible would it be if all books had a label somewhere on their cover or spine that said “E for Everyone” or “YA-14” or “Adult Content” or whatever other rating the author/publisher wanted to give it. Parents could know their children were reading age appropriate books, and children could know they were reading books written for them.
The YA market comes in all shades of edgy. Some books are really graphic with very explicit sex scenes, or pulsing with violence, while other books are nothing but sweet and happy and could easily earn a G rating. As a reader, I often want to know what I’m going to get before I pick up a book, and I would appreciate a rating system. Also as a writer, I want people who are mature enough to handle my writing to be the ones reading it.
When I was about eleven, I accidently checked out a book from the library that contained a lot of sex. I still remember feeling mortified when I tried to read it. I didn’t want to read about THAT. I was way too young and immature. And to make matters even worse, I had to explain to my mom exactly why we needed to go back to the library and exchange my book for something else. It turned out the book had been shelved in the wrong section, and both my mom and the librarian did a good job of helping me find something I could feel more comfortable reading.
If that book had been labeled “for adult audiences” I never would have checked it out. Or maybe I would have, I just would have been mentally prepared for it before I started reading. My parents definitely let me watch R rated movies when I was younger than seventeen. I’m sure they would have encouraged me to read R rated books. But they would have known to talk to me about them.
Books are powerful tools that can expose people to new ideas. I have learned many wonderful things while reading fiction. I have also read many things I wouldn’t want my own eleven year old daughter (who isn’t born yet) to stumble upon unprepared. Banning books isn’t the answer, but what harm could come out of rating books and labeling them accordingly? I’ve always wondered why games and movies have rating and regulations while books don’t.
I don’t think kids should be carded before checking a book out from the library. But how horrible would it be if all books had a label somewhere on their cover or spine that said “E for Everyone” or “YA-14” or “Adult Content” or whatever other rating the author/publisher wanted to give it. Parents could know their children were reading age appropriate books, and children could know they were reading books written for them.
The YA market comes in all shades of edgy. Some books are really graphic with very explicit sex scenes, or pulsing with violence, while other books are nothing but sweet and happy and could easily earn a G rating. As a reader, I often want to know what I’m going to get before I pick up a book, and I would appreciate a rating system. Also as a writer, I want people who are mature enough to handle my writing to be the ones reading it.
When I was about eleven, I accidently checked out a book from the library that contained a lot of sex. I still remember feeling mortified when I tried to read it. I didn’t want to read about THAT. I was way too young and immature. And to make matters even worse, I had to explain to my mom exactly why we needed to go back to the library and exchange my book for something else. It turned out the book had been shelved in the wrong section, and both my mom and the librarian did a good job of helping me find something I could feel more comfortable reading.
If that book had been labeled “for adult audiences” I never would have checked it out. Or maybe I would have, I just would have been mentally prepared for it before I started reading. My parents definitely let me watch R rated movies when I was younger than seventeen. I’m sure they would have encouraged me to read R rated books. But they would have known to talk to me about them.
Books are powerful tools that can expose people to new ideas. I have learned many wonderful things while reading fiction. I have also read many things I wouldn’t want my own eleven year old daughter (who isn’t born yet) to stumble upon unprepared. Banning books isn’t the answer, but what harm could come out of rating books and labeling them accordingly? I’ve always wondered why games and movies have rating and regulations while books don’t.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
September Reads
For this week’s Road Trip Wednesday, the good people over at YA Highway are asking the question
What’s the best book you read in September?
September was a very light reading month for me. I went on vacation this month. I know a lot of people read like crazy while on vacation. I tend to have very ADHD type vacations where I run around like crazy and am so tired by the time I get home that I need a vacation. So there wasn’t much free time available for reading.
I did manage to squeeze in four books this month though.
Divergent by Veronica Roth, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, Spell Hunter by R.J. Anderson, and Awkward by Marni Bates
What’s the best book you read in September?
September was a very light reading month for me. I went on vacation this month. I know a lot of people read like crazy while on vacation. I tend to have very ADHD type vacations where I run around like crazy and am so tired by the time I get home that I need a vacation. So there wasn’t much free time available for reading.
I did manage to squeeze in four books this month though.
Divergent by Veronica Roth, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch, Spell Hunter by R.J. Anderson, and Awkward by Marni Bates
I really loved Divergent, and talked about it here. But I think my favorite for the month has got to be Awkward.
Awkward isn’t out yet, I read the ARC. It comes out in January of 2012. So mark your calendars. I’ve been friends with Marni for years and was really excited to read her ARC mainly because I was just excited that she finally has an ARC. But once I started reading, I totally loved her book. She actually has a four book deal right now, and I’m dying to read what comes next. She’s currently finishing edits on the second book in the series. I’m trying to convince her to let me beta read it for her, but I may have to wait until that ARC comes out.
Anyway, yeah, AWKWARD by Marni Bates. It’s awesome. It’s about a spastic girl who does something awkward and generally embarrassing. She thinks, hopes, expects it to blow over. But then someone posts footage of the scene on YouTube, the video goes viral and before she knows it Justin Timberlake is making fun of her on twitter. The book is hilarious. So mark your calendars, January 2012.
Awkward isn’t out yet, I read the ARC. It comes out in January of 2012. So mark your calendars. I’ve been friends with Marni for years and was really excited to read her ARC mainly because I was just excited that she finally has an ARC. But once I started reading, I totally loved her book. She actually has a four book deal right now, and I’m dying to read what comes next. She’s currently finishing edits on the second book in the series. I’m trying to convince her to let me beta read it for her, but I may have to wait until that ARC comes out.
Anyway, yeah, AWKWARD by Marni Bates. It’s awesome. It’s about a spastic girl who does something awkward and generally embarrassing. She thinks, hopes, expects it to blow over. But then someone posts footage of the scene on YouTube, the video goes viral and before she knows it Justin Timberlake is making fun of her on twitter. The book is hilarious. So mark your calendars, January 2012.
What about you? What's the best book you read this month?
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
It’s banned books week, so I figured my Tuesday book recommendation should be for something banned. I read a lot, which means not everything I read is at the top of the best seller list. But still most of what I read is pretty main stream, and I didn’t think I’d read all that many “banned books” recently. So I was shocked to see that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie was the second most challenged or banned book in 2010. What? It’s an AMAZING book. It won the national book award back in 2007. Everyone knows it’s an AMAZING book. Who would want to challenge it? And why?I can understand why some books that contain violence, or sexual content, or offensive language might be banned. I’m not saying I agree with banning any books. But if I was the parent of a young reader, I might not be thrilled about them reading erotica all the time. But why are people banning the Part-Time Indian? Serious, I have no idea what could possibly be considered offensive about this book.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is about a Native American boy who wants a better education and decides to leave his reservation school to attend public school in a neighboring town. He continues to live on the reservation and finds himself living in two worlds but belonging to neither. He is still a Native American living on a reservation and has a hard time relating to his classmates. But he is also a smart self-motivated boy who is doing everything he can to rise out of the poverty he comes from and thus has a hard time relating to the other people on the reservation.
The Part-Time Indian is one of my favorite books of all time. I read about 150 books per year, and yet this book easily stays in my top five. The point of my Tuesday reading recommendations it to suggest great books for people to read. I really have no clue why this book has ever been banned. But it doesn’t matter. It’s still my recommendation. It is my recommendation for banned books week, and it is my recommendation for every other week of the year too. If you haven’t read The Part-Time Indian yet, what are you waiting for?
This book deserved to win the national book award four years ago! It does not deserve to be banned! It absolutely needs to be read! I know that was a lot of exclamation points, but trust me Sherman Alexie’s writing deserves them.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Writing Fast
I’m not talking about typing like a fiend, although I do sometimes get a little OCD when drafting. I’m talking about writing fast paced stories. Some stories just read fast, it doesn’t matter how many pages they are the story just flies. Right now, I’m reading a really slow book. I like it a lot, and don’t want to give up on it. But OMG, this book has been taking me forever. Seriously, I have been reading it for like 3 days now, and I’m only a quarter of the way done. That might not sound too horrible to you, but trust me. If I don’t finish a book before bed, 90% of the time I start a new book the next morning. There are lots of books that keep me up until 2am, but very few that can hold my interest for multiple days.
This morning as I was laboring through another chapter, I started wondering why it was dragging so much. And I came up with a conclusion. There is WAY too much description. I actually counted paragraphs. In a random two page sample, there were four paragraphs of action, six paragraphs of dialog, and nine paragraphs of description. Half of a book should not be the setting! This book is set in another world, so description is more important than it would be in contemporary, but still. Nine out of nineteen chapters is too much. It almost makes me want to give up on this book and start something new. Except I like this book and I do want to finish it. I can just never get myself to read more than two or three chapters at a time before I reach setting overload and need a break.
Out of curiosity, I decided to look at two random pages of my own writing. The two pages in question from the slow book I’m currently reading were from the beginning of chapter seventeen. So I just looked at the first two pages of chapter seventeen from COUNTING TO D. There is one paragraph of description followed by twenty-one paragraphs of dialog. There is some action too, but it’s all weaved in with the dialog. I hate doing the whole he said, and then she said type line identifiers and try to use action (or occasionally description) to give context to the dialog. So the twenty-one paragraphs of dialog did also include four sentences of description and ten sentences of action.
I’m not going to claim that my writing is better than anything that has already been published. Maybe I have too much dialog and need more setting. But one comment I’ve gotten from pretty much all my beta readers is that my story reads fast. I know I have never put more than two paragraphs of description back to back in a story, and I doubt I ever will. That’s just the way I write.
What do you think? How description heavy is your writing? What about your favorite books? Are you a fast writer? Do you even care how fast a book reads?
This morning as I was laboring through another chapter, I started wondering why it was dragging so much. And I came up with a conclusion. There is WAY too much description. I actually counted paragraphs. In a random two page sample, there were four paragraphs of action, six paragraphs of dialog, and nine paragraphs of description. Half of a book should not be the setting! This book is set in another world, so description is more important than it would be in contemporary, but still. Nine out of nineteen chapters is too much. It almost makes me want to give up on this book and start something new. Except I like this book and I do want to finish it. I can just never get myself to read more than two or three chapters at a time before I reach setting overload and need a break.
Out of curiosity, I decided to look at two random pages of my own writing. The two pages in question from the slow book I’m currently reading were from the beginning of chapter seventeen. So I just looked at the first two pages of chapter seventeen from COUNTING TO D. There is one paragraph of description followed by twenty-one paragraphs of dialog. There is some action too, but it’s all weaved in with the dialog. I hate doing the whole he said, and then she said type line identifiers and try to use action (or occasionally description) to give context to the dialog. So the twenty-one paragraphs of dialog did also include four sentences of description and ten sentences of action.
I’m not going to claim that my writing is better than anything that has already been published. Maybe I have too much dialog and need more setting. But one comment I’ve gotten from pretty much all my beta readers is that my story reads fast. I know I have never put more than two paragraphs of description back to back in a story, and I doubt I ever will. That’s just the way I write.
What do you think? How description heavy is your writing? What about your favorite books? Are you a fast writer? Do you even care how fast a book reads?
Friday, September 23, 2011
There is Nothing Wrong with my Vision
I have started a new feature on this blog. Since I recently wrote a book with a dyslexic MC, Friday's are now dyslexia day. Every Friday, I am re-posting a dyslexia related blog post (copied from an old, no longer active, dyslexia related blog that I'm planning to take down once I've reposted all the good stuff). Today's post was originally written on 10/16/2009.
Well that isn’t entirely true. I am near sighted. But besides things being blurry when they are far away, I see exactly the same as you. I don’t see things upside down, or backwards, or anything crazy like that. As far as I know, no dyslexics see things upside down or backwards. I’m not sure who started this nasty – dyslexics see things backwards rumor, but it has blown way out of proportion.
I remember in the early 90’s there were people trying to get dyslexics to wear multi-colored glasses in order to fix their non-existent vision problem. Who came up with this crap? And why did people waist their money on it? Most of the official research on dyslexia in the last decade or two has been grounded on actual facts and not a made up vision problem, but this seeing things backwards rumor doesn’t want to die. Why are people so willing to believe this myths?
The most logical reason for this misconception is that sometimes dyslexics mess up their letters and accidentally write one backwards. In case you haven’t noticed this, almost all preschool and kindergarten children make the exact same mistakes. Writing letters backwards isn’t the result of a vision problem, it is the result of being an early reader that doesn’t fully know the alphabet yet. Dyslexics are just more apt to stay at this level for years as opposed to weeks.
The thing that I find the saddest about this massive misconception is that it is leading to misdiagnosis. Recently I was talking to a friend and it came up that I am dyslexic. She then went on to say that she thought she was probably dyslexic too. As she elaborated on her academic problems and her continued inability to read above a third grade reading level (even though she is now in her late 30’s) it became overwhelmingly clear to me that this woman had dyslexia. Then she went on to say, “But I don’t see things backwards or anything, so maybe I’m not dyslexic, I’m just slow.” Granted this woman was in school at the peak of the seeing things backwards hoax, but I certainly hope that modern children aren’t falling into this same trap.
If your kid has normal eyes, but is unable to comprehend the symbolic representation of sound, guess what – they are dyslexic. If they do see things backwards, they have some freaky vision problem and should probably see an optometrist. So in conclusion, let me say one final time. Dyslexics do not see things backwards. Dyslexia is not a vision problem, it is a comprehension of the symbolic representation of sound problem. Not the same thing.
Well that isn’t entirely true. I am near sighted. But besides things being blurry when they are far away, I see exactly the same as you. I don’t see things upside down, or backwards, or anything crazy like that. As far as I know, no dyslexics see things upside down or backwards. I’m not sure who started this nasty – dyslexics see things backwards rumor, but it has blown way out of proportion.
I remember in the early 90’s there were people trying to get dyslexics to wear multi-colored glasses in order to fix their non-existent vision problem. Who came up with this crap? And why did people waist their money on it? Most of the official research on dyslexia in the last decade or two has been grounded on actual facts and not a made up vision problem, but this seeing things backwards rumor doesn’t want to die. Why are people so willing to believe this myths?
The most logical reason for this misconception is that sometimes dyslexics mess up their letters and accidentally write one backwards. In case you haven’t noticed this, almost all preschool and kindergarten children make the exact same mistakes. Writing letters backwards isn’t the result of a vision problem, it is the result of being an early reader that doesn’t fully know the alphabet yet. Dyslexics are just more apt to stay at this level for years as opposed to weeks.
The thing that I find the saddest about this massive misconception is that it is leading to misdiagnosis. Recently I was talking to a friend and it came up that I am dyslexic. She then went on to say that she thought she was probably dyslexic too. As she elaborated on her academic problems and her continued inability to read above a third grade reading level (even though she is now in her late 30’s) it became overwhelmingly clear to me that this woman had dyslexia. Then she went on to say, “But I don’t see things backwards or anything, so maybe I’m not dyslexic, I’m just slow.” Granted this woman was in school at the peak of the seeing things backwards hoax, but I certainly hope that modern children aren’t falling into this same trap.
If your kid has normal eyes, but is unable to comprehend the symbolic representation of sound, guess what – they are dyslexic. If they do see things backwards, they have some freaky vision problem and should probably see an optometrist. So in conclusion, let me say one final time. Dyslexics do not see things backwards. Dyslexia is not a vision problem, it is a comprehension of the symbolic representation of sound problem. Not the same thing.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Hanging with my Peeps
Portland is a regular stop on the standard book tour, and there are typically about a dozen book readings/signings in town each week. I don’t have the time or energy to make it to them all. But I do make an effort to attend as many of the YA book readings/signings as I can. Last night, I went to a reading at Powell’s with authors Blake Charlton and Kate Elliott. Charlton and Elliott both write old adult fantasy, which isn’t a genre I regularly read, but I had to pop in on their event anyway. Because even if we write in different genres, Blake and Kate really are my peeps.
Blake Charlton is a fellow dyslexic author. He writes OA fantasy about a dyslexic living in a world where words have great meaning and spells have to actually be spelled. I loved his first book SPELLWRITE and can’t wait to read his sophomore novel SPELLBOUND. I met Blake a little over a year ago, when he came through Portland promoting SPELLWRITE. I talked about our first encounter here. When I talked to Blake last night, he not only remembered who I was but admitted to occasionally reading this blog. So Blake, if you’re lurking, hi.
Dyslexic authors are relatively few and far between, so it’s important for us to stick together. Blake was excited to hear that I’d signed with an agent and made me promised to keep him posted as things moved forward. I like reading Blake’s books a lot, and I like hearing him speak at these author events. The farther I move forward in my career as an author, the more I find myself liking the other author’s I’ve met along the way.
I like meeting other authors so much, I was even happy to talk to Kate Elliott last night. See, my last name is actually Elliott. I was going to use Kate Elliott as my pen name, but couldn’t because some OA fantasy writer up and stole it. Last night, when I told Kate that she’d hijacked my name, she apologized profusely. She even admitted that Kate Elliott is a pen name for her. I don’t know what her real name is, but I like her anyway. Hopefully the name Kate Scott will continue to treat me well, and I’ll let her continue publishing in my name. I feel like it’s a good omen. Kate Elliott has been a successful author for many years. She’s currently on tour promoting something like her 20th book. That many great works of fiction floating around the universe with my name on them has to be good luck. And since she writes fantasy, who knows, maybe they’ll even bring me a bit of magic.
Blake Charlton is a fellow dyslexic author. He writes OA fantasy about a dyslexic living in a world where words have great meaning and spells have to actually be spelled. I loved his first book SPELLWRITE and can’t wait to read his sophomore novel SPELLBOUND. I met Blake a little over a year ago, when he came through Portland promoting SPELLWRITE. I talked about our first encounter here. When I talked to Blake last night, he not only remembered who I was but admitted to occasionally reading this blog. So Blake, if you’re lurking, hi.
Dyslexic authors are relatively few and far between, so it’s important for us to stick together. Blake was excited to hear that I’d signed with an agent and made me promised to keep him posted as things moved forward. I like reading Blake’s books a lot, and I like hearing him speak at these author events. The farther I move forward in my career as an author, the more I find myself liking the other author’s I’ve met along the way.
I like meeting other authors so much, I was even happy to talk to Kate Elliott last night. See, my last name is actually Elliott. I was going to use Kate Elliott as my pen name, but couldn’t because some OA fantasy writer up and stole it. Last night, when I told Kate that she’d hijacked my name, she apologized profusely. She even admitted that Kate Elliott is a pen name for her. I don’t know what her real name is, but I like her anyway. Hopefully the name Kate Scott will continue to treat me well, and I’ll let her continue publishing in my name. I feel like it’s a good omen. Kate Elliott has been a successful author for many years. She’s currently on tour promoting something like her 20th book. That many great works of fiction floating around the universe with my name on them has to be good luck. And since she writes fantasy, who knows, maybe they’ll even bring me a bit of magic.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Divergent
So I’m implementing a new feature on this blog. It’s not super new, I have posted plenty of book recommendations in the past. But I’m going to start being more official about it. From now on, every Tuesday I’m going to tell you all about a great book I just read. I’m calling this feature a book recommendation, not a book review. I read a lot of books, and I’m not going to review the “bad ones”. What makes a bad book anyway? Everyone has different taste, and I know that my own taste can change drastically depending upon what kind of mood I’m in. There are days when I love light hearted comedies, and there are other days when I want to read something more serious. So I won’t be giving out any stars or anything. I’ll just tell you about something I enjoyed reading each Tuesday. You can then decide for yourself if you want to take my recommendation.
Today’s recommended read is Divergent by Veronica Roth. Dystopia is really hot right now, and there are a lot of really great books out in this genre. The large number of titles leads to a lot of books coming across as very similar. Telling you all the ways this books stands alone would require me to unload a bunch of spoilers on you. But trust me, this book goes in new directions. More than that, it’s just a fun read. Dystopia can be really depressing. This book isn’t depressing, it’s just gripping. Even before the story reaches its climax, there is a lot of action and a lot of great characters. There are even a handful of pretty spectacular villains.
Today’s recommended read is Divergent by Veronica Roth. Dystopia is really hot right now, and there are a lot of really great books out in this genre. The large number of titles leads to a lot of books coming across as very similar. Telling you all the ways this books stands alone would require me to unload a bunch of spoilers on you. But trust me, this book goes in new directions. More than that, it’s just a fun read. Dystopia can be really depressing. This book isn’t depressing, it’s just gripping. Even before the story reaches its climax, there is a lot of action and a lot of great characters. There are even a handful of pretty spectacular villains. If you are a fan of the Dystopian YA genre, you’ve probably already heard of Divergent. If you aren’t a fan of this hot genre, yet, Divergent is a good place to start. I definitely recommend reading it.
What about you? Have you read any great books lately?
Monday, September 19, 2011
My Muse Just Beat Me Up
My best writing always seems to come out of nowhere. I’ll be busy minding my own business and then BAM, book idea. No not just idea, book. Characters living in my head, totally uninvited, and screaming so fricken loud I have no choice but to write their stories.
It’s not like I don’t have book ideas. I have lots of ideas. Many of them are very good. I can sit down and think about future books that I want to write and say, “Yeah, I like that story, I think I’ll write it.” Then I can force myself to put in the painstaking hours of drafting my ideas and agonizing over pros. Sometimes the stuff that I write in this manner is okay, but none of it has ever been exceptional. It’s just been words on paper, simple stories that I made up and thus always feel contrived.
COUNTING TO D didn’t come out that way. I was pretending to work on another story, on a good idea that I knew with enough work I could turn into a book. I wasn’t writing much on that other project though. It always felt like work. Until this new voice started babbling in the back of my head. As soon as I stopped to listen to it, CAPOW. I wrote the rough draft of COUNTING TO D in six weeks, and it never once felt like work. It was just a story that I HAD to write. And amazingly, when I was done, it was good.
Yes, I did pliantly of revising after words. But the idea that never felt entirely like my own is the thing that makes this story great. The characters in that book introduced themselves to me and then totally invaded my brain. I never asked for them, I never looked for them, they just showed up and said WRITE ME.
Now that COUNTING TO D is out on submission, I feel like I should be writing my next book. I thought about what to write next a lot. I came up with dozens of different book ideas and settled on one that I liked. I do like the idea I told myself I was going to start writing. I think it could be a good book if somebody ever decided to write it. But me writing that book, ugh, talk about a lot of work.
I went on vacation last week. It was an all over the place kind of vacation visiting multiple relatives in multiple states, so I spent like half the trip in the car. I did a lot of daydreaming. I knew I was supposed to be thinking about my next book. I was supposed to be inventing a new set of characters and building a world for them to live in. Yeah, that didn’t exactly happen. At least, I didn’t spend any time thinking about the characters in the book I started shortly before leaving on vacation.
I spent my entire vacation thinking about a totally random other world, a world that could never exist in any book written by me. And the people in that world were, I don’t know, not the kind of people I write about. They were all dark and depressing and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know them, except that I couldn’t look away. I was on vacation, so I divulged myself and invited in these dark thoughts. When I got back home, I’d crack down and get back to writing my normal happy stories.
So now I’m back home, and I writing again. But here is the thing, I’m not writing that nice little store that I brainstormed and outlined and never particularly cared about. I’m writing a complex dystopian adventure story, set in the other world that I made up while on vacation. And this new project, it has me seriously hooked. I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop writing. I don’t write dystopian. I read it, sure, but I’m a chick with a PG personality, I write about nice people. Well, at least I used to. Now I’m writing this, and I’ve got to tell you, having my muse launch a full scale assault really isn’t such a bad thing.
Okay, enough about this. I must go write for real now.
It’s not like I don’t have book ideas. I have lots of ideas. Many of them are very good. I can sit down and think about future books that I want to write and say, “Yeah, I like that story, I think I’ll write it.” Then I can force myself to put in the painstaking hours of drafting my ideas and agonizing over pros. Sometimes the stuff that I write in this manner is okay, but none of it has ever been exceptional. It’s just been words on paper, simple stories that I made up and thus always feel contrived.
COUNTING TO D didn’t come out that way. I was pretending to work on another story, on a good idea that I knew with enough work I could turn into a book. I wasn’t writing much on that other project though. It always felt like work. Until this new voice started babbling in the back of my head. As soon as I stopped to listen to it, CAPOW. I wrote the rough draft of COUNTING TO D in six weeks, and it never once felt like work. It was just a story that I HAD to write. And amazingly, when I was done, it was good.
Yes, I did pliantly of revising after words. But the idea that never felt entirely like my own is the thing that makes this story great. The characters in that book introduced themselves to me and then totally invaded my brain. I never asked for them, I never looked for them, they just showed up and said WRITE ME.
Now that COUNTING TO D is out on submission, I feel like I should be writing my next book. I thought about what to write next a lot. I came up with dozens of different book ideas and settled on one that I liked. I do like the idea I told myself I was going to start writing. I think it could be a good book if somebody ever decided to write it. But me writing that book, ugh, talk about a lot of work.
I went on vacation last week. It was an all over the place kind of vacation visiting multiple relatives in multiple states, so I spent like half the trip in the car. I did a lot of daydreaming. I knew I was supposed to be thinking about my next book. I was supposed to be inventing a new set of characters and building a world for them to live in. Yeah, that didn’t exactly happen. At least, I didn’t spend any time thinking about the characters in the book I started shortly before leaving on vacation.
I spent my entire vacation thinking about a totally random other world, a world that could never exist in any book written by me. And the people in that world were, I don’t know, not the kind of people I write about. They were all dark and depressing and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know them, except that I couldn’t look away. I was on vacation, so I divulged myself and invited in these dark thoughts. When I got back home, I’d crack down and get back to writing my normal happy stories.
So now I’m back home, and I writing again. But here is the thing, I’m not writing that nice little store that I brainstormed and outlined and never particularly cared about. I’m writing a complex dystopian adventure story, set in the other world that I made up while on vacation. And this new project, it has me seriously hooked. I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop writing. I don’t write dystopian. I read it, sure, but I’m a chick with a PG personality, I write about nice people. Well, at least I used to. Now I’m writing this, and I’ve got to tell you, having my muse launch a full scale assault really isn’t such a bad thing.
Okay, enough about this. I must go write for real now.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Rules of Survival
I have started a new feature on this blog. Since I recently wrote a book with a dyslexic MC, Friday's are now dyslexia day. Every Friday, I am re-posting a dyslexia related blog post (copied from an old, no longer active, dyslexia related blog that I'm planning to take down once I've reposted all the good stuff). Today's post was originally written on 10/9/2009.
A fellow dyslexic blogger over at Teh Dyslexic Storytellers Blog had a post today about the rules of faking it. Basically what a dyslexic child has to do to pass as literate. I am a big fan of coping skills, but have employed different tactics and thus feel the need to add my own list.
1. Listen carefully - If you don't have an autographic memory, practice your listening skills as much as you can and do everything possible to commit everything you hear to memory. Listening is the most powerful tool a non-reader has, never forget that.
2. Memorize lots of books - Once you have mastered your listening skills, start memorizing every book that is ever read aloud to you. Any dyslexic child should be able to recite a minimum of 100 books, turning the pages at the right time. This skill will be invaluable when forced to do book reports or read aloud in class.
3. Find something else you are good at - For me it was math. It is a lot easier to do metal math that mental spelling, so I forced myself to excel in math as a child. If you are performing above grade level in one subject it is easier for people to overlook the fact that you are underperforming in another subject.
4. Embrace the audio book - I still listen to lots of audio books and don't see any reason why any dyslexic shouldn't be listening to audio books. Public libraries have lots of audio books available. Audio bookworm is a netflix for books on CD type service that is great. And RFB&D (recordings for the blind and dyslexic) is just playing fabulous. If you don't know how to read, you probably aren't reading this blog, but you should belong to RFB&D - because text books on tape is a gift sent straight from heaven.
5. Problem solve - When given a situation that seems impossible, find a new solution. If your keyboarding teacher expects you to type faster than you can read, don't read while you are typing. If you are required to write an in class essay study spelling words related to the topic instead of the facts associated with it. You are the one who knows what problems you're facing, and you are the one who can find the solution. Never expect it to be the solution that your teacher gives you. Just accept that you know yourself better than anyone else and only you can determine what it will take for you to survive.
6. Stay confident - Many dyslexic people have gone on to achieve greatness, and there is no reason why you can't be one of them. If your dream in life is to be a secretary - you will never achieve your goals. So just be the boss instead, and hire a secretary to correct your spelling for you. If you can't be average - be exceptional instead.
7. Learn how to read - If you are severely dyslexic, this is quite possibly the hardest thing you will ever do in your life. But do it anyway. Get help for any source you can, and find a way to crack the code that is your own mind. If you can do this one impossible thing, then you truly can do anything. Don't let yourself stand between you and the rest of your dreams.
A fellow dyslexic blogger over at Teh Dyslexic Storytellers Blog had a post today about the rules of faking it. Basically what a dyslexic child has to do to pass as literate. I am a big fan of coping skills, but have employed different tactics and thus feel the need to add my own list.
1. Listen carefully - If you don't have an autographic memory, practice your listening skills as much as you can and do everything possible to commit everything you hear to memory. Listening is the most powerful tool a non-reader has, never forget that.
2. Memorize lots of books - Once you have mastered your listening skills, start memorizing every book that is ever read aloud to you. Any dyslexic child should be able to recite a minimum of 100 books, turning the pages at the right time. This skill will be invaluable when forced to do book reports or read aloud in class.
3. Find something else you are good at - For me it was math. It is a lot easier to do metal math that mental spelling, so I forced myself to excel in math as a child. If you are performing above grade level in one subject it is easier for people to overlook the fact that you are underperforming in another subject.
4. Embrace the audio book - I still listen to lots of audio books and don't see any reason why any dyslexic shouldn't be listening to audio books. Public libraries have lots of audio books available. Audio bookworm is a netflix for books on CD type service that is great. And RFB&D (recordings for the blind and dyslexic) is just playing fabulous. If you don't know how to read, you probably aren't reading this blog, but you should belong to RFB&D - because text books on tape is a gift sent straight from heaven.
5. Problem solve - When given a situation that seems impossible, find a new solution. If your keyboarding teacher expects you to type faster than you can read, don't read while you are typing. If you are required to write an in class essay study spelling words related to the topic instead of the facts associated with it. You are the one who knows what problems you're facing, and you are the one who can find the solution. Never expect it to be the solution that your teacher gives you. Just accept that you know yourself better than anyone else and only you can determine what it will take for you to survive.
6. Stay confident - Many dyslexic people have gone on to achieve greatness, and there is no reason why you can't be one of them. If your dream in life is to be a secretary - you will never achieve your goals. So just be the boss instead, and hire a secretary to correct your spelling for you. If you can't be average - be exceptional instead.
7. Learn how to read - If you are severely dyslexic, this is quite possibly the hardest thing you will ever do in your life. But do it anyway. Get help for any source you can, and find a way to crack the code that is your own mind. If you can do this one impossible thing, then you truly can do anything. Don't let yourself stand between you and the rest of your dreams.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
I Remember Part 2
On September 11th, 2011 I posted my memory of September 11th, 2001. If you didn’t read that post, I’ll give you the one sentence highlight. I was on an airplane.
So now it’s September 14th, 2011, and I’m going to post my memories of what happened on September 14th, 2001. Because that is the day the FAA decided I was allowed to get back on an airplane.
At 9:45 am EST on September 11th the FAA officially shut the American sky. All civilian aircraft were forced to land at the nearest airport. The sky remained closed until 12:00 pm EST on September 14th. I spent the three days stuck in Cincinnati, Ohio. A very nice Midwestern family invited me into their home for the three days.
I felt quite fortunate that my flight on September 11th had been domestic. Since the entire United States was a no-fly-zone, all Trans-Atlantic flights that were too far across the Atlantic to return to Europe, were forced to land in Nova Scotia. The Red Cross set up a refugee style tent village for tens of thousands of stranded travelers who were forced to spend the three days in Nova Scotia. I wasn’t one of them though. So all I can tell you about is what happened in Cincinnati on September 14th.
Since all of the airplanes were forced to land at the nearest airport, all the planes and pilots and flight attendants were in the wrong place. So before the airlines could even think about returning to a normal schedule, they had to move all of their planes and personnel to where they needed to be. Fortunately, the airlines were generous enough to move stranded passengers at the same time.
There wasn’t any kind of a schedule on September 14th. Or at least there wasn’t a schedule that I or any of the other passengers could figure out. Instead, flights were either canceled, or they were “On Schedule”. If a flight was on schedule, it meant that it was on the schedule. There wasn’t a time associated with it, just a promise that a plane would at some point in time be taking off.
I was trying to fly from Cincinnati, Ohio to Portland, Oregon and was fortunate that there was one Cincinnati to Portland flight “on schedule”. The FAA opened the air at noon on September 14th, so the airport began checking in stranded passengers at 10:00 am. Flights weren’t given conventional numbers. Instead, all passengers wanting to travel to a given city were just assigned a gate. This was rarely the gate that the plane actually took off from though, so every few minutes you'd hear announcements over the loud speaker saying things like "Anyone wanting to fly to Denver please report to gate C4. I repeat, there will be a flight heading to Denver leaving out of gate C4."
I headed over to the Portland gate and settled in to wait. Normally, people at airports are pretty isolated. Everyone’s off in their own little world. But only people who had been grounded on September 11th were allowed into the airport on September 14th, so it was a much more talkative group. Everyone had a story. My favorite was from this super Jewish lady who had spent the three days camping out in the basement of a Baptist church. She was really funny, and helped lighten all of our moods.
The movement of flight crews and the movement of planes were two different matters. The flight I wanted to take had a plane, but not a pilot, so we had to wait for our pilot to fly in from whatever city he was stranded in before we could take off. The wait ended up being about ten hours. I took off at just before 10:00 pm.
During the time that I was waiting there was a steady trickle of planes taking off and others landing. Not tons, definitely not normal busy airport levels. But every fifteen minutes or so you’d hear an eruption of cheers and spot a mob of people running up the corridors and you’d know. A plane just landed. These people are home. And everyone else would start cheering too, cause we were all in it together.
On September 15th, 2001 all the airlines returned to their normal schedules. When I eventually flew back to North Carolina, again with a layover in Cincinnati, a week later it was really different. People were back to being their normal isolated selves. It wasn’t the most efficient day of travel, and there was a fair amount of fear and sorrow tossed into the mix. But still, I think September 14th, 2001 was and always will be my best airport experience. At no other time have I felt that connected to the strangers I was traveling with.
So now it’s September 14th, 2011, and I’m going to post my memories of what happened on September 14th, 2001. Because that is the day the FAA decided I was allowed to get back on an airplane.
At 9:45 am EST on September 11th the FAA officially shut the American sky. All civilian aircraft were forced to land at the nearest airport. The sky remained closed until 12:00 pm EST on September 14th. I spent the three days stuck in Cincinnati, Ohio. A very nice Midwestern family invited me into their home for the three days.
I felt quite fortunate that my flight on September 11th had been domestic. Since the entire United States was a no-fly-zone, all Trans-Atlantic flights that were too far across the Atlantic to return to Europe, were forced to land in Nova Scotia. The Red Cross set up a refugee style tent village for tens of thousands of stranded travelers who were forced to spend the three days in Nova Scotia. I wasn’t one of them though. So all I can tell you about is what happened in Cincinnati on September 14th.
Since all of the airplanes were forced to land at the nearest airport, all the planes and pilots and flight attendants were in the wrong place. So before the airlines could even think about returning to a normal schedule, they had to move all of their planes and personnel to where they needed to be. Fortunately, the airlines were generous enough to move stranded passengers at the same time.
There wasn’t any kind of a schedule on September 14th. Or at least there wasn’t a schedule that I or any of the other passengers could figure out. Instead, flights were either canceled, or they were “On Schedule”. If a flight was on schedule, it meant that it was on the schedule. There wasn’t a time associated with it, just a promise that a plane would at some point in time be taking off.
I was trying to fly from Cincinnati, Ohio to Portland, Oregon and was fortunate that there was one Cincinnati to Portland flight “on schedule”. The FAA opened the air at noon on September 14th, so the airport began checking in stranded passengers at 10:00 am. Flights weren’t given conventional numbers. Instead, all passengers wanting to travel to a given city were just assigned a gate. This was rarely the gate that the plane actually took off from though, so every few minutes you'd hear announcements over the loud speaker saying things like "Anyone wanting to fly to Denver please report to gate C4. I repeat, there will be a flight heading to Denver leaving out of gate C4."
I headed over to the Portland gate and settled in to wait. Normally, people at airports are pretty isolated. Everyone’s off in their own little world. But only people who had been grounded on September 11th were allowed into the airport on September 14th, so it was a much more talkative group. Everyone had a story. My favorite was from this super Jewish lady who had spent the three days camping out in the basement of a Baptist church. She was really funny, and helped lighten all of our moods.
The movement of flight crews and the movement of planes were two different matters. The flight I wanted to take had a plane, but not a pilot, so we had to wait for our pilot to fly in from whatever city he was stranded in before we could take off. The wait ended up being about ten hours. I took off at just before 10:00 pm.
During the time that I was waiting there was a steady trickle of planes taking off and others landing. Not tons, definitely not normal busy airport levels. But every fifteen minutes or so you’d hear an eruption of cheers and spot a mob of people running up the corridors and you’d know. A plane just landed. These people are home. And everyone else would start cheering too, cause we were all in it together.
On September 15th, 2001 all the airlines returned to their normal schedules. When I eventually flew back to North Carolina, again with a layover in Cincinnati, a week later it was really different. People were back to being their normal isolated selves. It wasn’t the most efficient day of travel, and there was a fair amount of fear and sorrow tossed into the mix. But still, I think September 14th, 2001 was and always will be my best airport experience. At no other time have I felt that connected to the strangers I was traveling with.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
I Remember
People in my parent’s generation all know exactly where they were when they heard that President Kennedy was shot. It’s an event that defined an entire generation. I, of course, wasn’t born yet. But I do remember where I was when America was attacked by terrorists. I was on an airplane. I’m not a New Yorker, and don’t have any ground zero memories. But I do remember hearing the pilot’s voice announce that the FAA had closed the sky because America was at under attack. This is my September 11th story.
I was attempting to fly from North Carolina to Oregon on the morning of September 11, 2001. I got up early that morning and flew from North Carolina to Cincinnati, Ohio before rushing to my connecting flight on to Oregon. My first flight went smoothly, and I made it to my connecting gate on time. My flight was scheduled to leave shortly after 9:00 EST, which means it boarded less than a minute after Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
As I was boarding the plane, I noticed a man standing nearby yapping on a cell phone. Back in 2001, cell phones were pretty rare. I thought that only drug dealers had cell phones. But this guy was wearing a designer suit and talking in a New York accent, so maybe stock brokers had cell phones too. The guy was really upset about something. I remember that it kind of pissed me off. Like he somehow thought he was better than everyone else, that his problems were more important than anyone else’s.
I sat down in my seat and noticed the suit with the cell phone take a seat two rows in front of me. The person next to me was a very chatty hair dresser. Have you ever noticed how hair dressers are basically professional small talkers? They’re worse than bar tenders. She started babbling about something, and I prepared myself for a very long flight from Cincinnati to Portland. The flight crew went through their normal safety spiel, and the pilot taxied out toward the runway. Then we just sat there, and sat there, and sat there.
After a few minutes of sitting in line for the runway, and not taking off, the suit with the cell phone started asking questions. Cell phones aren’t allowed on planes, but since we weren’t actually flying, we were just sitting there, he wanted to know if he could use his phone. I thought he was a jerk, but the flight attendant said yes.
The suit was sitting two seats in front of me, so I heard his conversation. It wasn’t with anyone on his phone. It was with the person in the seat next to him. He didn’t just have a phone, he had a black berry, and he used it to log onto some news website. “A bomb went off in the World Trade Center,” he told the guy next to him. I immediately stopped feeling superior.
I actually remember thinking about the WTO riots that happened in 1999 back in Seattle. I went to college in Washington State, and actually had some friends who went to Seattle during the WTO convention to protest, aka riot. Civil disobedience is one thing, but the mob mentality that comes out of rioting is something totally different. I figured the attack on the world trade center was more of the same. Somebody was tired of America controlling so much of the world economy, and they decided to set off a bomb in the lobby of the icon of American capitalism.
Then the suit announced that it wasn’t a bomb, it was a plane. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center? I was sitting on a plane. Next to a bubbly hair dresser, two rows behind some pretentious stock broker. And a plane full of people had just died, because they crashed into the world’s tallest building. It didn’t make any sense.
I only had a few minutes to process this news, before the next news update came over the guy’s phone. Of course the entire plane was dead silent by now. We were all listening to what he had to say. I think even the flight attendants had positioned themselves close enough to hear what the guy had to say. “A second plane just crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center.”
This wasn’t a bunch of misguided college kids protesting in Seattle. This was an act of war. And the weapon of choice was an airplane full of people. And did I remind you that I was still sitting on an airplane, full of passengers and jet fuel, waiting for clearance to fly more than half way across the United States.
There was more than a half hour of shock and silence and updates about the events happening in New York before we heard, “A third plane just crashed into the Pentagon.”
A plane crashed into the Pentagon? A plane crashed into the Pentagon. We didn’t have minutes or hours to process that bit of news. A few seconds later, the pilot finally came onto the intercom. “The United States is currently under attack. The FAA has grounded all air traffic until further notice. We will be returning to the gate.”
Nobody had to ask why. We knew why. Planes weren’t just efficient modes of transportation any more. They were weapons. I staggered off the plane in a daze. It was 9:40 EST. I found a pay phone and called my parents, who I was trying to fly home to visit. It was only 6:40 in Portland, my parents were still asleep. “Did you miss your plane?” My dad asked in a groggy voice.
“No, I’m just calling to let you know that I’m alive. Turn on the news, we’re at war.”
I didn’t know what to do. The guy with the cell phone wasn’t sitting two seats in front of me anymore. So I took off in search of a TV. You know how every TV in every airport in America plays CNN. Yeah, it turns out that’s some kind of closed loop system, it isn’t the real CNN. So they weren’t covering the news that every single person in an airport in America needed to know, they were dishing out pre-recorded weather information. Eventually I found a sports bar with a big screen TV. It showed live footage of people jumping out of windows in the World Trade Center, choosing to fall hundreds of feet to their death instead of being burned alive.
I felt sick, and numb. Eventually, an FAA security guard showed up and told us all we had to leave. Not only were the skies closed. The airports were closed too. We were all herded towards baggage claim. Giving all the luggage on all the planes scheduled to depart from the airport back to their passengers would have been a big enough task to start with. But on top of that, the FAA decided they had to x-ray every single bag before it could be returned. So it was noon by the time I had my oversized duffle bag filled with nothing but dirty laundry back in my hands. Hey, I was a 22 year old kid going to visit my mother; did you really expect me to pack clean clothes?
By the time I could have left the airport, all the rental cars and nearby hotel rooms had been taken. Even if I could have gotten a rental car, where would I drive? I was working in North Carolina, my parents lived in Oregon, and I was stuck in Ohio. That’s when I met the Mansfield’s. They were a nice Midwestern family that was home watching the news and wishing they could do something to help. Of course, they couldn’t go to New York or Washington, so they went to the airport instead. They picked up me and an elderly couple from Buffalo who were trying to fly to Texas to visit their grandkids.
The offer was simple. I could sleep in their son’s room. The couple from Buffalo could sleep in their daughter’s room. The kids could sleep on the floor in their parent’s room. We’d all get a home cooked meal for dinner and a drive back to the airport the next morning. The next morning ended up turning into three days later, but fortunately, the Mansfield’s didn’t kick me out.
I spent a lot of that three days just sitting around watching the news. It was really depressing. Seeing clip after clip after clip of the twin towers falling. Hearing the ever rising death toll as rescue workers sifted through the rubble. But I was watching that news story in the living room of total strangers. The Mansfield’s didn’t know me. I wasn’t their friend, or neighbor, or relative. I was just a kid from Oregon trying to get home.
That is the thing that impacted me the most. The kindness of strangers. When the FAA did reopen the air, I learned that I wasn’t alone. Everyone attempting to fly on September 14th had a story. And everyone’s story involved someone helping them out. Yes, people hijacked those planes and turned them into weapons. People are capable of doing lots of truly terrible things. But people are also capable of doing wonderful things. And small simple things like letting a kid from Oregon borrow their washer/dryer ‘cause she didn’t pack any clean clothes.
Osama Ben Laden was given the blame for September 11th. Now, ten years later, he’s dead. But for me, the real face of September 11th is Ben Mansfield's. He was a sweet 8 year old kid from Ohio, who not only lent me his bed for three nights, he also kicked my but at Frogger every afternoon when he got home from school. Ben’s 18 now. I haven’t seen him in ten years. I’ve exchanged a few Christmas cards with his parents, but that’s it.
But, Ben, I remember you. I’m lucky. I boarded a plane in Cincinnati that morning, not one in Boston. I don’t know anyone who died ten years ago. All I know is that when a few people chose to do very horrible things, the rest of us remembered to stay human. Ben Mansfield lent me his bed. And now Ben Mansfield is a young man of 18. And I think this country of ours is going to be okay.
I was attempting to fly from North Carolina to Oregon on the morning of September 11, 2001. I got up early that morning and flew from North Carolina to Cincinnati, Ohio before rushing to my connecting flight on to Oregon. My first flight went smoothly, and I made it to my connecting gate on time. My flight was scheduled to leave shortly after 9:00 EST, which means it boarded less than a minute after Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
As I was boarding the plane, I noticed a man standing nearby yapping on a cell phone. Back in 2001, cell phones were pretty rare. I thought that only drug dealers had cell phones. But this guy was wearing a designer suit and talking in a New York accent, so maybe stock brokers had cell phones too. The guy was really upset about something. I remember that it kind of pissed me off. Like he somehow thought he was better than everyone else, that his problems were more important than anyone else’s.
I sat down in my seat and noticed the suit with the cell phone take a seat two rows in front of me. The person next to me was a very chatty hair dresser. Have you ever noticed how hair dressers are basically professional small talkers? They’re worse than bar tenders. She started babbling about something, and I prepared myself for a very long flight from Cincinnati to Portland. The flight crew went through their normal safety spiel, and the pilot taxied out toward the runway. Then we just sat there, and sat there, and sat there.
After a few minutes of sitting in line for the runway, and not taking off, the suit with the cell phone started asking questions. Cell phones aren’t allowed on planes, but since we weren’t actually flying, we were just sitting there, he wanted to know if he could use his phone. I thought he was a jerk, but the flight attendant said yes.
The suit was sitting two seats in front of me, so I heard his conversation. It wasn’t with anyone on his phone. It was with the person in the seat next to him. He didn’t just have a phone, he had a black berry, and he used it to log onto some news website. “A bomb went off in the World Trade Center,” he told the guy next to him. I immediately stopped feeling superior.
I actually remember thinking about the WTO riots that happened in 1999 back in Seattle. I went to college in Washington State, and actually had some friends who went to Seattle during the WTO convention to protest, aka riot. Civil disobedience is one thing, but the mob mentality that comes out of rioting is something totally different. I figured the attack on the world trade center was more of the same. Somebody was tired of America controlling so much of the world economy, and they decided to set off a bomb in the lobby of the icon of American capitalism.
Then the suit announced that it wasn’t a bomb, it was a plane. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center? I was sitting on a plane. Next to a bubbly hair dresser, two rows behind some pretentious stock broker. And a plane full of people had just died, because they crashed into the world’s tallest building. It didn’t make any sense.
I only had a few minutes to process this news, before the next news update came over the guy’s phone. Of course the entire plane was dead silent by now. We were all listening to what he had to say. I think even the flight attendants had positioned themselves close enough to hear what the guy had to say. “A second plane just crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center.”
This wasn’t a bunch of misguided college kids protesting in Seattle. This was an act of war. And the weapon of choice was an airplane full of people. And did I remind you that I was still sitting on an airplane, full of passengers and jet fuel, waiting for clearance to fly more than half way across the United States.
There was more than a half hour of shock and silence and updates about the events happening in New York before we heard, “A third plane just crashed into the Pentagon.”
A plane crashed into the Pentagon? A plane crashed into the Pentagon. We didn’t have minutes or hours to process that bit of news. A few seconds later, the pilot finally came onto the intercom. “The United States is currently under attack. The FAA has grounded all air traffic until further notice. We will be returning to the gate.”
Nobody had to ask why. We knew why. Planes weren’t just efficient modes of transportation any more. They were weapons. I staggered off the plane in a daze. It was 9:40 EST. I found a pay phone and called my parents, who I was trying to fly home to visit. It was only 6:40 in Portland, my parents were still asleep. “Did you miss your plane?” My dad asked in a groggy voice.
“No, I’m just calling to let you know that I’m alive. Turn on the news, we’re at war.”
I didn’t know what to do. The guy with the cell phone wasn’t sitting two seats in front of me anymore. So I took off in search of a TV. You know how every TV in every airport in America plays CNN. Yeah, it turns out that’s some kind of closed loop system, it isn’t the real CNN. So they weren’t covering the news that every single person in an airport in America needed to know, they were dishing out pre-recorded weather information. Eventually I found a sports bar with a big screen TV. It showed live footage of people jumping out of windows in the World Trade Center, choosing to fall hundreds of feet to their death instead of being burned alive.
I felt sick, and numb. Eventually, an FAA security guard showed up and told us all we had to leave. Not only were the skies closed. The airports were closed too. We were all herded towards baggage claim. Giving all the luggage on all the planes scheduled to depart from the airport back to their passengers would have been a big enough task to start with. But on top of that, the FAA decided they had to x-ray every single bag before it could be returned. So it was noon by the time I had my oversized duffle bag filled with nothing but dirty laundry back in my hands. Hey, I was a 22 year old kid going to visit my mother; did you really expect me to pack clean clothes?
By the time I could have left the airport, all the rental cars and nearby hotel rooms had been taken. Even if I could have gotten a rental car, where would I drive? I was working in North Carolina, my parents lived in Oregon, and I was stuck in Ohio. That’s when I met the Mansfield’s. They were a nice Midwestern family that was home watching the news and wishing they could do something to help. Of course, they couldn’t go to New York or Washington, so they went to the airport instead. They picked up me and an elderly couple from Buffalo who were trying to fly to Texas to visit their grandkids.
The offer was simple. I could sleep in their son’s room. The couple from Buffalo could sleep in their daughter’s room. The kids could sleep on the floor in their parent’s room. We’d all get a home cooked meal for dinner and a drive back to the airport the next morning. The next morning ended up turning into three days later, but fortunately, the Mansfield’s didn’t kick me out.
I spent a lot of that three days just sitting around watching the news. It was really depressing. Seeing clip after clip after clip of the twin towers falling. Hearing the ever rising death toll as rescue workers sifted through the rubble. But I was watching that news story in the living room of total strangers. The Mansfield’s didn’t know me. I wasn’t their friend, or neighbor, or relative. I was just a kid from Oregon trying to get home.
That is the thing that impacted me the most. The kindness of strangers. When the FAA did reopen the air, I learned that I wasn’t alone. Everyone attempting to fly on September 14th had a story. And everyone’s story involved someone helping them out. Yes, people hijacked those planes and turned them into weapons. People are capable of doing lots of truly terrible things. But people are also capable of doing wonderful things. And small simple things like letting a kid from Oregon borrow their washer/dryer ‘cause she didn’t pack any clean clothes.
Osama Ben Laden was given the blame for September 11th. Now, ten years later, he’s dead. But for me, the real face of September 11th is Ben Mansfield's. He was a sweet 8 year old kid from Ohio, who not only lent me his bed for three nights, he also kicked my but at Frogger every afternoon when he got home from school. Ben’s 18 now. I haven’t seen him in ten years. I’ve exchanged a few Christmas cards with his parents, but that’s it.
But, Ben, I remember you. I’m lucky. I boarded a plane in Cincinnati that morning, not one in Boston. I don’t know anyone who died ten years ago. All I know is that when a few people chose to do very horrible things, the rest of us remembered to stay human. Ben Mansfield lent me his bed. And now Ben Mansfield is a young man of 18. And I think this country of ours is going to be okay.
Friday, September 9, 2011
What is Dyslexia?
I have started a new feture on this blog. Since I recently wrote a book with a dyslexic MC, Friday's are now dyslexia day. Every Friday, I am re-posting a dyslexia related blog post (copied from an old, no longer active, dyslexia related blog that I'm planning to take down once I've reposted all the good stuff). Today's post was originally written on 8/13/2009.
A friend of mine recently asked me “What is Dyslexia?" That is actually a very difficult question to answer. Webster defines dyslexia as a disturbance in the ability to read. Sounds pretty simple right? Oddly, it never feels simple.
Samuel Torrey Orton, a neuropsychiatries and pathologist at Columbia University did a great deal of early research on dyslexia in the early 1900’s. By the 1920’s he had a fairly good understanding of how the dyslexic mind did/or didn’t work. In the 1930’s he teamed up with educator Anna Gillingham and developed the Orton-Gillingham Method of Multisensory education. In the 1980’s when I was diagnosed with dyslexia, I was taught using this method.
Orton determined that while dyslexics are able to see and hear, they are not able to comprehend symbolic representation of sound. So while a dyslexic child can see the letter c on a page, and can hear the sound ka, they can’t make the connection that the letter and the sound are the same thing. In order to teach dyslexic children to read, the brain has to be tricked into making the connection through another sense.
So when I was a kid, I got to write the letter c in a tray of rice hundreds upon hundreds of times while simultaneously saying “c, ka, ka, cat”. The idea was that if I saw the letter and felt the letter at the same time as I heard the sound and felt the sound, eventually my mind would figure out that I was seeing a sound.
In recent decades other methods of teaching dyslexic children have been developed. But I believe Samuel Orton had a pretty good idea of what he was dealing with back in the 1920’s and 30’s. Simply claiming that dyslexia is an inability to comprehend symbolic representation of sound is probably a very good definition.
Many neurological researchers are now attempting to learn more about the dyslexic brain by using various brain scan technics. I have never done any of this research myself, and cannot claim any expertise on this subject. But I am interested enough in the working of my own mind to have read enough articles about recent technological breakthroughs to give a brief summary.
This new research all tends to back up the hypotheses posed by Orton nearly 100 years ago. Research has shown that two different parts of the brain are used while reading. One section of the brain is used very heavily by young readers and seems to be associated with sounding out words – literally decoding the symbolic representation of sound. Another part of the brain is used by more proficient readers who are able to read more quickly without having to carefully sound out each letter.
The part of the brain used by young readers does not seem to work in dyslexics. In other words dyslexics can’t sound things out. They can’t comprehend the symbolic representation of sound. Instead nearly the entire brain of young dyslexics lights up (except the part they should be using) when attempting and failing to read. Young dyslexic minds struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible by using other parts of their mind that are normally not involved in reading.
With enough effort the dyslexic mind can often narrow its path and teach itself how to read. Using tactile connections such as those developed by Orton and Gillingham in the 1930’s is one strategy that seems to work in redirecting the mind. But the end result is the part that is important. Remember, when normal adults read, they don’t sound things out. They just read – using an entirely different part of the brain that that used by normal children. This section of the brain does work in dyslexics. When a literate dyslexic adult reads their brain behaves in almost exactly the same way as a literate non-dyslexic. All the problems with the dyslexic mind appear to be centered on the sounding out part of the brain, not the reading part of the brain.
So how do people get this odd brain damage linked to the symbolic representation of sound? Personal experience alone tells me that it’s an inherited trait – my brother, father, uncle, and grandfather have all been diagnosed with dyslexia. There are also hints of the disorder in a few of my other more distant relatives. Less personal and more scientific research has also lead people to accept the idea of dyslexia as a genetic trait. The exact gene associated with the disorder has not yet been identified. Who knows, perhaps by the time my grandchildren are born they will be able to receive a blood test at birth and then begin their multisensory education long before they have a chance to fall behind in school.
A friend of mine recently asked me “What is Dyslexia?" That is actually a very difficult question to answer. Webster defines dyslexia as a disturbance in the ability to read. Sounds pretty simple right? Oddly, it never feels simple.
Samuel Torrey Orton, a neuropsychiatries and pathologist at Columbia University did a great deal of early research on dyslexia in the early 1900’s. By the 1920’s he had a fairly good understanding of how the dyslexic mind did/or didn’t work. In the 1930’s he teamed up with educator Anna Gillingham and developed the Orton-Gillingham Method of Multisensory education. In the 1980’s when I was diagnosed with dyslexia, I was taught using this method.
Orton determined that while dyslexics are able to see and hear, they are not able to comprehend symbolic representation of sound. So while a dyslexic child can see the letter c on a page, and can hear the sound ka, they can’t make the connection that the letter and the sound are the same thing. In order to teach dyslexic children to read, the brain has to be tricked into making the connection through another sense.
So when I was a kid, I got to write the letter c in a tray of rice hundreds upon hundreds of times while simultaneously saying “c, ka, ka, cat”. The idea was that if I saw the letter and felt the letter at the same time as I heard the sound and felt the sound, eventually my mind would figure out that I was seeing a sound.
In recent decades other methods of teaching dyslexic children have been developed. But I believe Samuel Orton had a pretty good idea of what he was dealing with back in the 1920’s and 30’s. Simply claiming that dyslexia is an inability to comprehend symbolic representation of sound is probably a very good definition.
Many neurological researchers are now attempting to learn more about the dyslexic brain by using various brain scan technics. I have never done any of this research myself, and cannot claim any expertise on this subject. But I am interested enough in the working of my own mind to have read enough articles about recent technological breakthroughs to give a brief summary.
This new research all tends to back up the hypotheses posed by Orton nearly 100 years ago. Research has shown that two different parts of the brain are used while reading. One section of the brain is used very heavily by young readers and seems to be associated with sounding out words – literally decoding the symbolic representation of sound. Another part of the brain is used by more proficient readers who are able to read more quickly without having to carefully sound out each letter.
The part of the brain used by young readers does not seem to work in dyslexics. In other words dyslexics can’t sound things out. They can’t comprehend the symbolic representation of sound. Instead nearly the entire brain of young dyslexics lights up (except the part they should be using) when attempting and failing to read. Young dyslexic minds struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible by using other parts of their mind that are normally not involved in reading.
With enough effort the dyslexic mind can often narrow its path and teach itself how to read. Using tactile connections such as those developed by Orton and Gillingham in the 1930’s is one strategy that seems to work in redirecting the mind. But the end result is the part that is important. Remember, when normal adults read, they don’t sound things out. They just read – using an entirely different part of the brain that that used by normal children. This section of the brain does work in dyslexics. When a literate dyslexic adult reads their brain behaves in almost exactly the same way as a literate non-dyslexic. All the problems with the dyslexic mind appear to be centered on the sounding out part of the brain, not the reading part of the brain.
So how do people get this odd brain damage linked to the symbolic representation of sound? Personal experience alone tells me that it’s an inherited trait – my brother, father, uncle, and grandfather have all been diagnosed with dyslexia. There are also hints of the disorder in a few of my other more distant relatives. Less personal and more scientific research has also lead people to accept the idea of dyslexia as a genetic trait. The exact gene associated with the disorder has not yet been identified. Who knows, perhaps by the time my grandchildren are born they will be able to receive a blood test at birth and then begin their multisensory education long before they have a chance to fall behind in school.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
It’s Okay to be Young
I like to joke that I write young adult because I’m super immature. I have the mind of a teenager, and there is no getting away from it. Because I’m super immature, it always makes me sad when I meet kids who are desperate to grow up.
One of my critique partners is still a teenager. She is also a really great writer. Her natural talent sort of pisses me off to be entirely honest. The stuff I wrote back when I was a teen brought new meaning to the word craptastic. But here is this teenage girl whose busy beating herself up because she just turned 18 and she doesn’t have a book deal yet. I mean, come on, be a kid already. Why do I have to be the immature one in our relationship?
Another young person I know who is desperate to be an old person is my little pest. I’m a big sister with the big brothers/big sisters organization. And my little sister is ten going on 25. She is way to mature for a ten year old. The girl is like a pre-goth chick. All of her clothes are covered with sculls and cross bones, and she loves horror movies. Every time she starts talking I’m forced to fain terror and suggest we go on a bike ride or watch a Disney movie ‘cause my nerves just can’t handle her attraction to gore.
While these two young people are very different, one is a serious over achiever and the other is pretty much the definition of “at risk youth”, they have one thing in common. They both want to grow up yesterday. And I keep telling both of them, act your age! Being young is really fun. I totally wish I could be twelve again. But then, we’ve already established the fact that I’m supper immature, so maybe that’s just me.
One of my critique partners is still a teenager. She is also a really great writer. Her natural talent sort of pisses me off to be entirely honest. The stuff I wrote back when I was a teen brought new meaning to the word craptastic. But here is this teenage girl whose busy beating herself up because she just turned 18 and she doesn’t have a book deal yet. I mean, come on, be a kid already. Why do I have to be the immature one in our relationship?
Another young person I know who is desperate to be an old person is my little pest. I’m a big sister with the big brothers/big sisters organization. And my little sister is ten going on 25. She is way to mature for a ten year old. The girl is like a pre-goth chick. All of her clothes are covered with sculls and cross bones, and she loves horror movies. Every time she starts talking I’m forced to fain terror and suggest we go on a bike ride or watch a Disney movie ‘cause my nerves just can’t handle her attraction to gore.
While these two young people are very different, one is a serious over achiever and the other is pretty much the definition of “at risk youth”, they have one thing in common. They both want to grow up yesterday. And I keep telling both of them, act your age! Being young is really fun. I totally wish I could be twelve again. But then, we’ve already established the fact that I’m supper immature, so maybe that’s just me.
Monday, September 5, 2011
A Few Good Reads
According to goodreads, I just read my 100th book of 2011. I try to post recommendations of my favorite reads from time to time, but figured it might be fun to do a top 10 update. Here is a list of my favorite 10 books I’ve read so far this year. Since I’ve read 100 books, these are the 10% that rise to the top.
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Swim the Fly by Don Calame 
Graceling by Kristin Cashore 
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 
Room by Emma Donoghue 
Where She Went by Gayle Forman 
Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock 
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson 
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
Friday, September 2, 2011
Famous Dyslexics
I have started a new feature on this blog. Since I recently wrote a book with a dyslexic MC, Friday's are now dyslexia day. Every Friday, I am re-posting a dyslexia related blog post (copied from an old, no longer active, dyslexia related blog that I'm planning to take down once I've re-posted all the good stuff). This was originally posted on September 9, 2009.
When I was first diagnosed with dyslexia, at age eight, I was immediately told that I wasn’t alone. Somehow being told I was exactly like my brother, father, and crazy uncle wasn’t overly comforting. So my mom produced a list of famous dyslexic.
22 years later, I still remember how I felt that first day hearing the names on that list. I suddenly felt like I belonged. There were so many talented people in the world, who had used their ability to think in a different way than the norm to accomplish wonderful and amazing things. If Thomas Edison could invent the light bulb, Pablo Picasso could create artistic masterpieces, and Hans Christian Anderson could dream up all the stories my mom read me at bedtime, surely I could survive third grade.
So here is a current list of noteworthy dyslexics. If your name also belongs on this list, feel free to do something fabulous and get yourself noticed. And remember, thinking outside the box is always a good thing, so stop trying to find your way inside.
*Please note, I pulled these names from other lists and did not do any direct research into the evidence supporting claims that all the people listed below are in fact dyslexic. Many historical figures are often attributed with many conditions that they may or may not have had, so if other lists do not confirm all the listed names, please accept my apologies.
Ansel Adams (photographer)
Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert)
Muhammad Ali (boxer)
Hans Christian Anderson (author)
Harry Anderson (actor)
David Bailey (photographer)
Ann Bancroft (arctic explorer)
Alexander Grand Bell (inventor of telephone)
Harry Belafonte (actor)
Robert Benton (screenwriter/director)
Jeanne Betancourt (author)
Orlando Bloom (actor)
Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Enterprises)
John Britten (motorcycles engineer)
Erin Brockovich (investigator)
Stephan Cannell (TV writer/novelist)
John T Chambers (CEO of Cisco Systems)
Cher (singer)
Agatha Christie (author)
Winston Churchill (British Prime Minster)
John Corrigan (author)
Tom Cruise (actor/Pope of outer space)
Pierre Curie (scientist/1903 Nobel Prize winner)
Harvey Cushing (surgeon)
Leonardo da Vinci (artist/inventor/general overachiever)
Walt Disney (filmmaker/dream creator)
Thomas Edison (inventor of light bulb)
Albert Einstein (scientist/all around smarty pants)
Richard Elliott (artist/my crazy uncle)
Fred Epstein (neurosurgeon)
Michael Faraday (scientist/electro magnetism pioneer)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (author)
Fannie Flagg (author)
Gustave Flaubert (author/playwrite)
Dave Foley (actor)
Henry Ford (car maker)
Fred Friendly (former CBS News president)
Danny Glover (actor)
Whoopi Goldberg (actor)
Duncan Goodhew (Olympic swimmer)
Terry Goodkind (author)
King Carl XVI Gustaf (Swedish King)
Susan Hampshire (actor)
Michael Heseltine (British politician)
William Hewlett (co-founder of Hewlett-Packard)
Tommy Hilfiger (clothing designer)
Anthony Hopkins (actor)
Jack Horner (paleontologist)
John Irving (author)
Andrew Jackson (7th US President)
Soren Kragh Jacobsen (filmmaker)
Thomas Jefferson (3rd US President)
Bruce Jenner (Olympic decathlon gold medalist)
Magic Johnson (basketball player)
Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (general)
John F. Kennedy (35th US President)
Nigel Kennedy (violinist/singer)
Kiera Knightly (actor)
John Lennon (Beatle/musical deity)
Jay Leno (actor/comedian)
Brad Little (Broadway actor/singer)
Greg Louganis (Olympic diver)
Paul MacCready (aeronautical engineer/engineer of the century)
Archer Martin (scientist/1952 Nobel Laureate)
James Clerk Maxwell (scientist/equation maker)
Bob May (golfer)
Craig McCaw (founder of McCaw Cellular)
O.D. McKee (founder of McKee Foods)
David Neeleman (CEO of jetBlue Airways)
Gavin Newsom (San Francisco mayor)
Edward James Olmos (actor)
Paul J. Orfalea (founder of Kinko’s)
Diamond Dallas Page (world wrestling champion)
George Patton (general)
Pablo Picasso (artist)
Edgar Allen Poe (poet/author)
Patricia Polacco (author)
Robert Rauschenberg (artist)
Steve Redgrave (Olympic gold medalist, rowing)
Keanu Reeves (actor)
Nelson Rockefeller (US Vise President)
Auguste Rodin (sculptor)
Nolan Ryan (baseball pitcher)
Rex Ryan (coach)
Charles Schwab (investor)
Kate Scott (blogger extraordinaire/soon to be famous author)
John R. Skoyles (brain researcher)
Tom Smothers (comedian/singer)
Jackie Stewart (race car driver)
Nicolai Tesla (inventor/engineer)
Billy Bob Thorton (actor/director)
Robert Toth (artist)
Ted Turner (entertainment mogul)
Jorn Utzon (architect)
Jules Verne (author)
Victor Villasenor (author)
George Washington (1st US President)
Bob Weir (Grateful Dead guitarist)
Paul Wellstone (US Senator)
Willard Wigan (sculptor)
Roger W. Wilkins (head of Pulitzer Prize Board)
Robin Williams (actor/comedian)
Woodrow Wilson (28th US President)
Henry Winkler (actor)
F.W. Woolworth (founder of Foot Locker)
W.B. Yeats (poet)
Loretta Young (actor)
When I was first diagnosed with dyslexia, at age eight, I was immediately told that I wasn’t alone. Somehow being told I was exactly like my brother, father, and crazy uncle wasn’t overly comforting. So my mom produced a list of famous dyslexic.
22 years later, I still remember how I felt that first day hearing the names on that list. I suddenly felt like I belonged. There were so many talented people in the world, who had used their ability to think in a different way than the norm to accomplish wonderful and amazing things. If Thomas Edison could invent the light bulb, Pablo Picasso could create artistic masterpieces, and Hans Christian Anderson could dream up all the stories my mom read me at bedtime, surely I could survive third grade.
So here is a current list of noteworthy dyslexics. If your name also belongs on this list, feel free to do something fabulous and get yourself noticed. And remember, thinking outside the box is always a good thing, so stop trying to find your way inside.
*Please note, I pulled these names from other lists and did not do any direct research into the evidence supporting claims that all the people listed below are in fact dyslexic. Many historical figures are often attributed with many conditions that they may or may not have had, so if other lists do not confirm all the listed names, please accept my apologies.
Ansel Adams (photographer)
Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert)
Muhammad Ali (boxer)
Hans Christian Anderson (author)
Harry Anderson (actor)
David Bailey (photographer)
Ann Bancroft (arctic explorer)
Alexander Grand Bell (inventor of telephone)
Harry Belafonte (actor)
Robert Benton (screenwriter/director)
Jeanne Betancourt (author)
Orlando Bloom (actor)
Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Enterprises)
John Britten (motorcycles engineer)
Erin Brockovich (investigator)
Stephan Cannell (TV writer/novelist)
John T Chambers (CEO of Cisco Systems)
Cher (singer)
Agatha Christie (author)
Winston Churchill (British Prime Minster)
John Corrigan (author)
Tom Cruise (actor/Pope of outer space)
Pierre Curie (scientist/1903 Nobel Prize winner)
Harvey Cushing (surgeon)
Leonardo da Vinci (artist/inventor/general overachiever)
Walt Disney (filmmaker/dream creator)
Thomas Edison (inventor of light bulb)
Albert Einstein (scientist/all around smarty pants)
Richard Elliott (artist/my crazy uncle)
Fred Epstein (neurosurgeon)
Michael Faraday (scientist/electro magnetism pioneer)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (author)
Fannie Flagg (author)
Gustave Flaubert (author/playwrite)
Dave Foley (actor)
Henry Ford (car maker)
Fred Friendly (former CBS News president)
Danny Glover (actor)
Whoopi Goldberg (actor)
Duncan Goodhew (Olympic swimmer)
Terry Goodkind (author)
King Carl XVI Gustaf (Swedish King)
Susan Hampshire (actor)
Michael Heseltine (British politician)
William Hewlett (co-founder of Hewlett-Packard)
Tommy Hilfiger (clothing designer)
Anthony Hopkins (actor)
Jack Horner (paleontologist)
John Irving (author)
Andrew Jackson (7th US President)
Soren Kragh Jacobsen (filmmaker)
Thomas Jefferson (3rd US President)
Bruce Jenner (Olympic decathlon gold medalist)
Magic Johnson (basketball player)
Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (general)
John F. Kennedy (35th US President)
Nigel Kennedy (violinist/singer)
Kiera Knightly (actor)
John Lennon (Beatle/musical deity)
Jay Leno (actor/comedian)
Brad Little (Broadway actor/singer)
Greg Louganis (Olympic diver)
Paul MacCready (aeronautical engineer/engineer of the century)
Archer Martin (scientist/1952 Nobel Laureate)
James Clerk Maxwell (scientist/equation maker)
Bob May (golfer)
Craig McCaw (founder of McCaw Cellular)
O.D. McKee (founder of McKee Foods)
David Neeleman (CEO of jetBlue Airways)
Gavin Newsom (San Francisco mayor)
Edward James Olmos (actor)
Paul J. Orfalea (founder of Kinko’s)
Diamond Dallas Page (world wrestling champion)
George Patton (general)
Pablo Picasso (artist)
Edgar Allen Poe (poet/author)
Patricia Polacco (author)
Robert Rauschenberg (artist)
Steve Redgrave (Olympic gold medalist, rowing)
Keanu Reeves (actor)
Nelson Rockefeller (US Vise President)
Auguste Rodin (sculptor)
Nolan Ryan (baseball pitcher)
Rex Ryan (coach)
Charles Schwab (investor)
Kate Scott (blogger extraordinaire/soon to be famous author)
John R. Skoyles (brain researcher)
Tom Smothers (comedian/singer)
Jackie Stewart (race car driver)
Nicolai Tesla (inventor/engineer)
Billy Bob Thorton (actor/director)
Robert Toth (artist)
Ted Turner (entertainment mogul)
Jorn Utzon (architect)
Jules Verne (author)
Victor Villasenor (author)
George Washington (1st US President)
Bob Weir (Grateful Dead guitarist)
Paul Wellstone (US Senator)
Willard Wigan (sculptor)
Roger W. Wilkins (head of Pulitzer Prize Board)
Robin Williams (actor/comedian)
Woodrow Wilson (28th US President)
Henry Winkler (actor)
F.W. Woolworth (founder of Foot Locker)
W.B. Yeats (poet)
Loretta Young (actor)
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