ReviMo Day 5 with H. Joseph Hopkins

We love Joe's book, The Tree Lady! AND Joe has LIVED on a houseboat. How cool would that be??!! I think that would be very cool. :D  And now, heeeeeere's Joe!

When I write I describe the pictures—images—in my head into my MacBook computer. I look for words that will provoke the reader to create similar pictures—images—in his/her head.

That’s what I strive for:

Hence the saying,

That goes for all kinds of writing, essays, poems, shopping lists, and this post.

I came to writing for children late in life, after decades of writing professional reports and a bit of newspaper work. As a newbie I have only a few ideas to suggest.

For me writing is re-writing. Even shopping lists have crossed-out items.

SCENES:

Let scenes tell a story. I’m at my best when I describe a scene. In my head I often picture a cartoon, stick figure drawing, or diagram that illustrates what I want to write. All around my messy house you will find backs of envelopes and sticky notes with my little cartoons or diagrams.

After I have a picture on paper or in my head, I use words to describe that drawing or design.

While writing I repeatedly ask myself,
 

One big value of re-writing—or “revising”—is:  

Or, the scene in your head may change and you realize that what you really want to say is different than what you originally thought.

In this way you clarify your thoughts by writing. Some writers call this process, “Letting ideas percolate.”

Note: you may have to ask old uncle Jigs what “percolate” means. 

Or, others say,

I know of only one writer— only one! — 

who did not depend upon re-writing: 

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). 

Stevenson wrote “Treasure Island,” “Kidnapped,” 

“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” 

and other action packed adventure fantasies. Stevenson’s books

were popular in his day and remain so today. 

I am told that Stevenson would sit or pacefor long silent periods, deep in thought,

and then proclaim with the mighty voice of a Pentecostal preacher, 

complete sentences of fully developeddescriptive prose. A secretary copied 

Stevenson’s literary utterances, and thus his works were written. 

Everybody else—including all the geniuses—depend upon re-writing. 

So, re-writing is not an admission of guilt or a badge of shame. Re-writing is a proclamation that you are doing the work of writing.

The fun of re-writing is discovering the exact words to express the precise idea that is in your head.

Discovering the precise word brings joy.


PUSHING WORDS AROUND:

Your computer lets you push words around on the page. So easy!

Two processes occur while you push words around on a computer screen:

• First, you glory in the freedom of being liberated from crossing out, writing in a crimped hand above a sentence, or squeezing notes in the margin. 

• Second, when I push words around on the screen I develop a deeper, richer understanding of my major ideas and the minor ones. So I get a deeper understanding of what I wanted to say.                                                               Then I keep pushing words around until I get the combination that satisfies me. 

Thus, by re-writing and revising I get to a place in which I understand my topic more deeply and clearly than ever before.

And note: I get to that place of understand by writing.

It’s true what they say:

And 

Have fun!

Joe Hopkins

Thank you Joe!! I wish I were like Robert Louis Stevenson, but since I'm not... good thing I get lots of great revision advice from great peeps! :D 

H. Joseph "Joe" Hopkins lived for many years on a houseboat on the Columbia River in Portland OR. Joe came to writing through a series of happy accidents after retiring from life as a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP). Joe's picture book, The Tree Lady, illustrated by Meg McElmurry, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2013 and has won numerous awards from librarians and groups interested in biography, sustainability, environmental science, and the lives of independent women. The Tree Lady is a picture book biography of Kate Sessions, an independently minded woman who spent her life bringing plant color to San Diego and Balboa Park in Southern California. Reactions by reviewers children and parents have been uniformly positive and passionate. Sales have been brisk and The Tree Lady has reprinted three times.  Contact Joe at Josephhopkins65@gmail.com