A Celebration of Birds, Decorated Cookies, and Puppets

It's Not Too Late to Watch a Wildly Inventive Take on The Christmas Carol

Several years ago, I was lucky enough to see a live Manual Cinema performance in New York. This astonishingly creative theater company puts on performances entirely with shadow puppets, paper cutouts, and overhead projectors. You're watching this story being told on screen, but you're also watching them do the whole thing right in front of you! It's hard to know which is more fascinating. I can't even describe how spellbinding the overall effect is. It is pure, low-tech magic.

Now they are making films! Because, you know, theater these days. If you'd like to see their modern take on the Dickens classic (and put a few dollars in the pocket of a worthy theater company), go here to watch the preview.

 

"Ask Me Anything" is Back

Would you like to win a free book? Do you also like to ask nosy questions? Then you will be happy to know that my "Ask Me Anything" giveaway has returned after a short hiatus. Here's how it works:

Go here to ask me a question. Could be anything at all! Questions about art, writing, my favorite brand of socks...it's up to you!

And if you've asked a question before & I haven't answered it, ask me again! I love all your questions and I'm happy to see repeat entries.

If I choose your question to answer in the next newsletter, I'll send you the book of your choice.

That's it! Get over there and pick out your book.

This Month's Question: Research First, or Start Writing?

This month's question comes from Emi in New York, who asks,

When you're writing a book with a lot of history or facts behind it, do you typically start with the facts or with a story in your head? I'm working on a nonfiction book where I gathered facts but am totally overwhelmed with them and have trouble seeing the arc. Not sure whether to build it up from zero (and verify it's accurate later) or try to shave it down.

I always start with the facts. I find it helpful to do all the research first and then figure out how to make a story out of it. (I teach a class on how I do research and one on how I keep it organized).

Once I've really dug into the research and I know as much as I can possibly know, the story starts to take shape. (I'm truly not trying to sell you on my classes, but I do have a class on story structure, too)

For my Kopp novels, which are based on a true story, I was very committed to telling their true story. That was the whole point of those books! I wanted people to love the real Kopp sisters as much as I did, and that meant sticking as closely as I could to who they actually were and what they actually did.

But a funny thing happens when you try to put real events into the shape of a book. It turns out that real life does not follow a three-act plot structure. But somehow, readers are conditioned to want that nice satisfying story structure, with a dramatic climax and characters who are changed by the end.

So in the case of fiction, that means tweaking real events to make them fit a story structure. (I always include historical notes at the end explaining what I fictionalized.) 

In nonfiction, it means knowing what to leave in and what to leave out. You can tell a true story but not tell all of it. You can leave out the boring bits, the distracting bits, the messy, unresolved bits. You can turn up the volume on certain parts of the story and turn it down elsewhere.

We all do this in real life! Imagine if you walked in the door at the end of the day and had to tell your spouse about a fender-bender you were just in on the way home. You would not start that story by describing every single thing you've done since the last time you saw your spouse! You would choose carefully how to tell that story...probably to make it look like it wasn't your fault. You would set it up in a particular way. You'd begin at a particular moment. You would give it the most satisfying possible conclusion.

So we all do this all the time. It's just a matter of figuring out how to do it for 300 pages. It's hard for everyone! Good luck!

Maybe You Need to Listen to Some Rare Australian Bird Songs

Perhaps you'd like to join everyone in Australia in falling in love with this recording of Australia's rare birds. It has become an unlikely chart-topper in Australia (move over, Taylor Swift) and proceeds support BirdLife Australia. Here's a cool handmade animated video featuring some of the birdsongs:

Do You Know About Dr. Ella Hawkins and Her Extraordinary Cookie Decorations?

I'm not putting this here to make you feel inadequate about your own cookie decorating skills. (For the record, I'm pretty sure I've never decorated a cookie.) But if you don't know this already, yo should know that there is a historian called Dr. Ella Hawkins and she makes the most extraordinary hand-decorated cookies (sorry, biscuits, she's British), and these are based on fabrics and wallpapers in Jane Austen's house, and I just can't get over how totally delightful they are. 

Also, the best possible thing an artist can do is to make your own project.  If you are the one person on the planet (well, now there's a bunch of us) who dreams of visiting Jane Austen's house and then illustrating your experience with cookies, well, JUST START DOING THAT! Don't wait for the Jane Austen people to come knocking on your door. 

Go here to read more about the incredibly cool collaborations she's done, and follow her on Twitter for more beauty and wonder.

I'm Inspired by David Hockney...Again

David Hockney is inspired by Chinese scroll paintings, which depict one endless scene as opposed to a fixed composition with defined edges and perspective. This video about his Normandy "scroll"  inspired me so much that I ordered a couple of these accordion (aka concertina) Moleskine sketchbooks so that I could do something similar from my window looking out over rooftops and treetops in Portland. But I decided to wait and start it when Portland has its first snow, so you can see all the changes starting in winter.

But that got me curious about what other artists do with these concertina sketchbooks, and that led me to Shilpa Agashe and her wonderful nature journals. So I decided to take one of my concertina sketchbooks and do the same. Feel free to follow along on Instagram if you want to see how mine progresses. I can't wait to make a video of the first finished sketchbook--they're so beautiful when you unfold them!  And I'm once again remembering this wonderful truth about sketchbooks: it doesn't so much matter how good any individual drawing or painting is. When you see them all together, the sum is somehow greater than its parts. The whole thing, once it's finished, it just amazing! 

So stay tuned for more, and maybe go get your own concertina sketchbook and try this out for yourself. The Moleskine Japanese Album is good sturdy paper that can handle light watercolor washes as well as ink, gouache, colored pencil, crayon, etc.

Probably You Need to Spend More Time Watching Bird Cams

I mean, who does not want to see this face? The good people at Cornell have compiled a list of wonderful bird cams that you can watch anytime you need a little break, which is pretty much all day long right now.

Writers Chat & Painting Demos on Pause

It turns out that I'm still super busy, Zoom-wise, so I won't be scheduling a writers' chat or a painting demo for now. But keep in mind that I teach many classes on both!

I Can Send (Some) Signed Books to You

Would you like a signed Kopp novel? I have small quantities of a few titles...or rather, my husband does. Supplies are limited, so get them while they last, and thank you sincerely for your patronage. Go here to browse and order.

What Are You Reading?

As soon as I started telling people that I was writing a book about trees, I realized that everyone was going to ask me if I'd read The Overstory. So I did read it, and I gotta say...I didn't love it. The first third was brilliant, the second third told the story of the timber wars that I already knew very well from living in Humboldt County, CA while those events were taking place, and by the last third, I'd lost the thread of it completely. It's hard to sustain a multi-POV, somewhat dystopian, somewhat mystical narrative...Obviously everyone else loved it, but it just wasn't for me. I'm sure Richard Powers will find the strength to go on, even in the face of my tepid response, whispered at the bottom of a newsletter long after you've all probably stopped reading.