Category: influences

influences, Life Talk

Music

elouisebates

Thank you to those who commented on the last post! I was asking the question because I was stuck on figuring out a particular magical adventure in my MG fantasy, and I wanted to see what, if any, were some common threads that wove throughout most people’s childhood dreams. There was one, too! It was … flying, whether on winged horses, flying carpets, or just on one’s own. Pretty neat, to see how much so many very different people have in common from childhood.

And now on to today’s topic, which is, as the title suggests, music.

My sister and I were very fortunate, growing up. We had parents who refused to listen to, or allow us to listen to, bad music. So my childhood music memories include listening to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf; making up dances to Bach; humming John Denver along with Dad; and taking naps accompanied by songs about phonics (“Apple, apple, a,a,a”) and Spanish-to-English translations of simple phrases, also set to music.

Awesome stuff.

Thanks to such a diverse and rich background musically (I don’t really remember listening to much kid’s music at all, except for Raffi, naturally, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the aforementioned tape with the learning songs on it – which I now have in CD form for my littles), I find that I still appreciate a wide variety of music. Different sorts for different moods or needs! I like:

Beethoven or Hayden for cleaning

Mozart-Handel-Brahms-etc. for relaxing

Bach for inspiration

And for just general listening, or if I need a specific kind of music for a specific kind of story: Owl City; Regina Spektor; Marina and the Diamonds (some); Lenka; Ingrid Michaelson; Kate Nash or Lily Allen (some); and, of course, Michael Buble.

And then there’s the Celtic music I like, whether instrumental or with vocals. And thanks to growing up with a string-pickin’ father, I’m a sucker for American folk music.

I’m trying to imitate that same sort of diverse background for my littles; we do have a bunch of children’s music, but it is all either Raffi (EVERY kid needs to grow up listening to Baby Beluga, which my Joy freely adapts into “Heaven above and the sea below, and a little white hi-ip-po – whee, whee, whee!”), or more folk music, adapted for kids. We are big fans of Elizabeth Mitchell and Lisa Loeb! More often, they listen to whatever Carl and I are listening to – which can be anything from instrumental hymns to Brahms to Michael Buble!

Do you have music that you listen to for specific tasks? When you write, do you have music playing in the background, or do you need silence, or does it depend on the story (it does for me – some stories I need to write in silence, while some require music to put me in the proper mindset)? What sort of music did you listen to as a kid, and do you still find yourself drawn to that sort of music now?


Disclaimer: I am not associated or affiliated with any of the artists mentioned in this post; the opinions therein are my own.

Books, influences, writing

Influences: Diana Wynne Jones

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Even though I only discovered her a few years ago, DWJ has ended up being an enormous influence on my writing, especially right now.

Every time I would pass her books in the store or library, I’d see the edition of one of the Chrestomanci books that has a cat on the cover, and I would think, “Ugh, feline fantasy. BORING.”

(Note to publishers – if a book is not, in fact, about cats doing magic, you might not want to imply that on the cover.)

Then, in recent years, more and more of my friends started recommending her books. I was getting desperate for good YA Fantasy, since Lloyd Alexander was gone and my list of favorite authors was growing smaller and smaller. Finally, I picked up the very volume with the cat on the cover, and gave it a try.
You can imagine my indignation when I discovered this wonderfully witty, clever, pithy writer, with a delightful story that had pretty much nothing to do with cats! I felt so cheated. I could have been reading her for years, and I’d missed out just because of a dumb cover. Her twisty way of turning plots around kept me tearing through the stories, and then going back and re-reading them so I could pick up the little nuances I missed the first time around.
Even better, for me, than the Chrestomanci books was Howl’s Moving Castle (I think it’s that way for a lot of people, yes, no?), with the delightful Sophie who only figures out who she truly is when she’s transformed into an old woman and no longer cares about society’s conventions and her family’s expectations.

I had already starting writing The Eldest Sister before I read DWJ, but I admit to being a little concerned about some of the superficial similarities between it and HMC. I didn’t let it worry me too much, though, since TES was such a different story and different tone.
Then I re-read HMC just a few weeks ago, and realized that I would much, much rather read that than TES. The similarities were just enough to show me how far off I had gotten with my own story. And that was what prompted me to ultimately pick it up and start from scratch again, changing a few of the basics so that it wouldn’t seem to be copying too much from DWJ, and determining to make it me, my voice, E Louise Bates as distinctly as all Diana Wynne Jones’ books are hers. 
I freely admit that I am nowhere near as witty or talented as she is, but that’s okay. I have my own voice, and thanks to DWJ, I am remembering how to use it.
Books, influences, writing

Influences: LM Montgomery

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I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t acquainted with Anne Shirley. I can’t quite remember now which came first, watching the movie or reading the book, but they certainly happened close together. Thankfully, the movie never ruined the book for me, and while these days I have to grit my teeth through parts of the sequel (and I refuse, utterly and completely, to ever watch the third), even knowing and loving the books as well as I do, I can still watch the movie without flinching.

This fellow might have something to do with that. Oh, Gilbert!

I’ve never been as big a fan of the Emily books – I adore Emily of New Moon, but the later two books of the trilogy get under my skin in parts. Frankly, Emily herself infuriates me the older she gets, as does Ilse.
However, as one who grew up in an extended family that can only properly be called a clan, with aunts and uncles and cousins galore, as well as second cousins and the like (my father is the oldest of eight; his father was also the oldest of eight, and his mother was one of five), my favorites out of all of LMM’s works would have to be the Story Girl books. And not just because my sister and I watched Road to Avonlea every week on CBC when we were growing up! The books are so different from the show.
For one thing, the books didn’t have him. Oh, Gus!

Ahem.
I love LMM’s writing style. I even love her “purple prose.” I’ve been writing LMM fanfiction since 2005. I started it as a bored and lonely newlywed, while Carl was at work and I needed something to distract me from my loud and inconsiderate neighbors, and the fact that I had no car or any way to get away during the day. Escaping to PEI, and a simpler time, more romantic way of life, an era I’ve always loved … well, it just might have saved my sanity. It certainly brought me some wonderful friends (hi, Adrienne and Cathy!) who shared my love for LMM and her works. 
Thanks to LMM, I learned how to explore different genres of writing besides just YA fantasy. I learned to play with different styles, to change my tone depending on what type of story I was writing. I learned that, as Mr Carpenter tells Emily, “pine woods are just as real as pigsties, and a darn sight more pleasant” – meaning, don’t let other people force you to write ugly things just because they are “realistic.” I learned how to write gentle romance (romance of any kind always having terrified me before).
I also developed a mad, passionate love affair with adjectives and rambling descriptions, which I am now desperately trying to combat. Not all influences are good!
I recently started my eleventh LMM fanfic (yes, for those of you who follow my LMM stories, that would be Gwen’s WWII story). I am not exactly working hard on it, having a few original projects that are taking most of my attention, but it is growing in my brain and a little bit on paper. No matter if I ever get published, or wherever my writing takes me, I suspect I will always have some LMM story brewing on the side.
It’s the least I can do to honor the woman who brought such magic to my childhood (and adulthood, if I’m honest).
Did you grow up reading the Anne books? Did you have a crush on Gilbert Blythe (or Gus Pike)? Is there a book that you have read for so long that you can’t remember a time when it wasn’t part of your life? Do you write or read fanfiction at all?
Books, influences, reading list

Two Giants

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I’ve been re-reading the Redwall series ever since Brian Jacques’ death. Thankfully, I own all of them but the most recent, so the biggest challenge in reading them has come from trying to remember the original published order instead of the chronological order I had them in on my shelves. Thank goodness for internet resources!

With the passing of Diana Wynne Jones, I’ve decided to intersperse the Redwall books (and the Flying Dutchman books, which I also own) with some of hers. I was going to start re-reading the Chrestomanci books, but I don’t own any of those, and somebody else at our library must have had the same idea, for the first two were checked out today when I looked. As was Howl’s Moving Castle, which was my second choice.

So I’m reading Enchanted Glass right now, and I have the collection of short stories Unexpected Magic to read as well. It’ll do until I can get my hands on the Chrestomanci books.

I came to Jones late – not until last year or the year before as a matter of fact. I’m not sure how I missed her as a kid – with my affection for Lloyd Alexander, E Nesbit, and others of like ilk, she would have been right up my alley.

Be that as it may, I have thoroughly enjoyed her books ever since I discovered them. Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around what’s happening, and often the endings leave me feeling vaguely confused (or, in the case of Fire and Hemlock, completely and totally confused, and having to re-read the ending several times over to make any sense of it). But I like that. It’s not the same frustration I feel when I read Robin McKinley, and the first half is thrilling, I get bogged down in the second, and by the end I am so in the dark I barely remember the story I’m reading at all (though oddly enough I keep going back to McKinley, so there must be something compelling about that sort of writing, too).

I like having to think while I read. I like the sense of satisfaction when I’ve figured out the hidden twist (I was so very tickled when reading The Game because I got it before All Was Revealed); and I like, sometimes, knowing that the writer completely pulled the wool over my eyes.

The Redwall books are my comfort books. Not only have I read them a million times, they all follow the same pattern. I know exactly what is going to happen in each one, and reading them gives me a comforting sense that everything is right with the world, and whatever isn’t will work out eventually.

I’m so very, very sad that these two marvelous writers had to die at all, especially so close to each other, but I think that reading their books intertwined with each other is actually going to be very good, and very helpful for me as a writer, because it will be me a much clearer sense of their very different styles, and what each style accomplishes, and what I need to do in order to achieve a certain atmosphere for my books.

And hopefully in studying their styles I will start to break myself of my habit of over-using adjectives – something I didn’t even realize I did until I was working on the last few chapters of my LMM fanfic the other day, and discovered that I peppered it with adjectives all over the place. Not too bad for LMM fic, since she was also adjective-happy, but not a habit I want to indulge in for my own writings!

Are you familiar with Jacques and Wynne Jones? What do their books do for you? What are your “comfort” books, and what are your “mind-stretching” books? Which do you prefer in the Redwall series, hares or otters? And finally, what are some of your bad writing habits that you have a hard time shaking?

children, fantasy, influences, writing

Influences: Edward Eager & E Nesbit

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I put these two writers together because of how inextricably their writing styles are connected in my mind. That, and because I only discovered E Nesbit through Edward Eager’s books.

I’m not sure how old I was when Mom helped me find this great-looking book in our local library – green and white hardcover, with a front figure who was half girl, half knight (and a very smug cat in the background). It looked terrific, so we brought it home to read.

That book was Half Magic, by Edward Eager, and not just me, but my mother and sister fell in love with the four siblings, who squabbled and worked together and had fun and were thoroughly human. The magic was perfect, too – not only was it not magic that just came easily to them, they didn’t even understand its rules. As Eager himself put it, first it thwarted them, then they had to learn how to thwart it, and in the end, when they had finally learned how to work it well, they gave it up for something better.

When we went back to the library the next week, we promptly checked out all the rest of Eager’s books, and loved almost all of them just as much. I’ve never been quite as fond of Magic or Not? or The Well-Wishers, but even those I’ve grown to appreciate more as I’ve gotten older. Knight’s Castle led me to read Ivanhoe at age twelve (no easy task, but well worth the effort), and I remember building Lego castles to imitate Torquilstone for months after.

In each of his books, Eager’s children reference reading E Nesbit’s books. This, naturally, led me to search for some of her works, as well. Mom was familiar with the Bastable books, but not the others. I think the first one I read (also borrowed from the local library) was Wet Magic, a solid red hardcover with no dustjacket, looking alluringly thick and mysterious. From there I discovered The Phoenix and the Carpet, and all the rest of her wonderful works.

Confession: I actually prefer Eager to Nesbit. I know she was a pioneer, and I admire her tremendously, but sometimes I feel there’s almost too much of a hard edge to her stories. Eager’s are a bit more light-hearted, and I enjoy that – though that’s a matter of personal taste, and I can certainly see why someone else might prefer Nesbit for that very reason.

My favorite Nesbit book, as it was for the children of Half Magic, is The Enchanted Castle, and when my parents got me the hardcover with Paul O Zelinsky’s stunning illustrations for a birthday present one year, I was thrilled (I think it might have been one of the first hardcovers I ever owned – if not the first, then one of the very earliest). I still have that book, displayed prominently on my shelves.

Through Eager and Nesbit, I learned the fun in reading – and writing – real people, as opposed to caricatures. I learned that reading about children arguing and teasing each other, and making up, and being loyal to each other through it all, just like my sister and my cousins and me, was delightful. I learned that one didn’t have to fall through a rabbit hole, walk through a wardrobe, or travel by tornado to find magic – it just might be lurking around the next corner. One should always keep ones eyes open, because one never knew when magic might happen.

And really, what better way to live than in that kind of delightful anticipation? I might never have found actual magic (by the way, what a great title for a book – Actual Magic), but I certainly found the world a very magical place all on its own, just by keeping my eyes open to its possibilities.

I’ve always found it very sad that there was no successor to Eager, as he was successor to Nesbit. Others have imitated, but nobody else has come close to matching their style, their wit, and their fun.

I’ve always had a sneaking hope that maybe, someday, I might be able to take up that mantle. After all, if I benefited so much from reading them, oughtn’t I help point the way back to them for future generations of readers, as well?

Are you familiar with Edward Eager and/or E Nesbit? If so, which author did you find first, and which do you prefer? Do you remember what books that meant a great deal to you as a child looked like? What were some of your earliest favorites, and how did they shape your perception of the world?
characters, humor, influences, world-building

Influences: L Frank Baum

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One of the stories my parents like to tell about me is how I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz all the way through, all by myself, when I was in kindergarten. That may not seem so impressive now, but back then, most kids went into kindergarten not even knowing how to read. So I was definitely an anomaly.

It can be hard, when you have a kid who reads so fluently so early, to find books that hold their interest writing-style, and yet don’t tackle subjects that are beyond their comprehension. Baum’s books were perfect in this regard – the writing was sophisticated, yet the stories were simple enough that even an over-sensitive six-year-old like myself could read them without being scared or confused, or even simply overwhelmed with concepts beyond my ability to understand.

Baum has been criticized considerably for “sugar-coating” Oz too much, turning it into a place where nothing truly bad could ever happen, and while I understand that criticism, there was (and still is, really) always something very comforting about taking a trip to Oz.

(Never mind the fact that as it was HIS creation to begin with, he could do anything he wanted with it, and people still wouldn’t have had the right to complain. After all, if you don’t like it, don’t read it, but don’t act as though the author is somehow presenting a false impression of a real place when it was all from his head to begin with. Ahem. Small rant over.)

One of the other great things about Oz was that there was enough humor for small people, but the puns and plays on words are sheer adult amusement. I rarely, even to this day, get through an Oz book without a surprised and delighted snort at something that went completely over my head as a kid.

I have heard the theory that Oz was meant to be a metaphor on communism or capitalism or something political. Maybe it was. But I know that it can be read without any kind of political background, and enjoyed as sheer good story-telling, and that is how I prefer it. I would much rather not see a possible political background to a good story than misread a grand yarn as a thinly-disguised treatise on capitalism.

So, how had Baum inspired me? Well, aside from being, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, one of the very earliest writers I ever read alone, and quite possibly responsible for my lifelong love for fantasy, from Baum I learned the sheer joy of world-building, of creating a place that exists quite independently from the characters, and has its own history and inhabitants and can quite happily sustain any number of stories, just as this world can.

From Baum, too, I have learned the fun of playing with words, of subtle humor, of inside jokes between the writer and reader, at the characters’ expense. I tend to be more of an invisible narrator, telling my stories solely through the eyes of my characters, but I always enjoy taking a break from that role once in a while and trying that omniscient narrator bit that Baum does so well.

And, of course, Baum was a master at creating realistic children, spunky heroines and heroes who frequently found themselves in scrapes, but by using ingenuity and courage always worked their way out. Dorothy is beloved by so many, I believe, not just for her staunch loyalty to Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, but for her wit and spirit, and for the fact that even after she came to Oz permanently and became closest companion to the ruler of Oz, she still maintained her independence and practical outlook on life. In some ways, she was wasted in such a happy land as Oz. She would have made a wonderful explorer and adventurer in this world, as well as a great righter of wrongs. Alas! She is safe in Fairyland, and it is up to we other writers to create our own characters to right those wrongs, and have those adventures.

Perhaps, if we are very fortunate, one or two of them might in time be as well-loved as brave little Dorothy Gale.

Are you a frequenter of the land of Oz? Do you enjoy it, or do you find Baum’s stories too safe for your taste? Who is your favorite “spunky girl heroine” in children’s and/or YA literature? And what was the first chapter book you can remember (or others remember about you) reading on your own?

fiction, influences, writing

Influences: Lloyd Alexander

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I’ve been thinking about doing a series of posts on authors/books/series that have influenced my writing the most over the years … those are the sorts of series I always enjoy reading from other people, seeing what has gone into forming their writing style. And sometimes it helps me discover authors or books I otherwise might never have known!

So, to begin: I considered doing, for this first post, something on the first writer who influenced me, but instead I decided to look at the writer who has been the biggest influence on me, my writing and my life. That writer is …

Lloyd Alexander.

I can’t remember, exactly, which of Alexander’s books I read first. It was either a Vesper Holly or The Wizard in the Tree. Whichever it was, I was immediately hooked. I read voraciously through all of his works in our local library. The Westmark trilogy, though I know many people don’t care for it, was the one that affected me the most, however. The very fact that there was no magic in it, that though a fantasy it was very real, and very grim, brought it much closer. Theo’s struggles with morality, especially in Kestrel; Mickle’s journey to finding herself and her place; Sparrow and Weasel and Keller … I don’t think I’d ever read something that touched me quite so deeply. (Oddly enough, I found myself mostly unaffected by Florian and his children.)

Alexander is best known for his Prydain Chronicles. I only started reading those after I’d already read most of his other books. Not by design – simply because our library didn’t have all of them, and I hate only reading partial series. It wasn’t until I started visiting a different library, which had the entire series, that I read them and fell in love with the Assistant Pig-Keeper and opinionated Princess Eilonwy.

For my own writing, Alexander’s use of humor, and his ability to tell a full and rich story with only a few well-chosen details, have been what I have studied the most closely, and tried to incorporate into my own works.

As a human being, the ideas he portrays about heroism, sacrifice, love, and life have been what I have tried to incorporate into my daily living. The very best writer does not just present a good story, but through his story inspires you to be a better person, and that is what Alexander has always done for me.

His final book, finished right before his death in 2007, is The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio. I usually prefer to buy books in paperback, but I pre-ordered that one, in hardcover, to come as soon as it was published. As with all his others, it blended humor and truth in perfect proportions, and never came close to preaching. It was a fitting epitaph to his life.

Every time I go into a bookstore these days, I find myself drifting hopefully over to the “A” section of both children’s and YA, wistfully thinking that perhaps they will have discovered some previously unpublished works among Alexander’s papers, and be able to offer us just one more story from him. Alas, I think we are destined to only be able to re-read the books already published, but at least they are well worth the journey. There are very few writers of whom I can say this, but every time I read one of his books I find something new in it.

From all I understand, Alexander exhibited those traits in his life he showed so well through his writing – humility, humor, kindness, practicality, and a keen zest for the adventure of life.

He has been a tremendous influence on me, both as a writer and human being, and I can only hope that someday I might be able to carry on his legacy in my own writings.

Are you familiar with Lloyd Alexander? If so, which is your favorite book, and why? (I think The Arkadians just barely tops my list, but I love them all too much to choose just one favorite!) What was the first book you read of his, and what do you remember most about it?