Yesterday, I had a wonderful opportunity to speak before the Suffolk County School Library Media Association (SSMLA) at their annual dinner. This talk before a smart, high-spirited group of school librarians, game me the chance to remember my high school school library at–New Rochelle High School.

My school library was a refuge for a geeky kid who liked to read – who was involved in her school’s literary magazine – and not much else – I was raised by a single parent, a father, who raised 4 kids along after my mother had a stroke and was left almost fully paralyzed and brain-damaged. We couldn’t afford to buy books in our house – but we didn’t need to buy them. There was the library, especially the school library.

You could find me there almost everyday after school.  I didn’t want to go home.  Home was chaotic. Home was loud. Home was where I, as the eldest daughter had to cook dinner and clean and do laundry and not stop until everyone was in bed and then, maybe I could escape and read more.

I have to admit that I don’t remember the librarians’ names – but I remember their kindness. I remember how they smiled when I checked out every novel by Ernest Hemingway after I read The Sun Also Rises in 10 grade English class.

One thing I do remember -- one stifling spring day, my study partner, David, leaned over to me and said, "I like you more than you think." But that’s a story for outside the library.

If you are a librarian or an educator, I've done something thinking about the Common Core for ELA Grades 8-12 and my young adult novel, LIE. I would appreciate your thoughts on my study notes -- at my website www.carolinebock.com.

And thank you school librarians, you should be mandated for every school, you are critical to our students success!

I just finished an inspiring book -- WONDER by R. J. Palacio -- a middle grade novel about a young boy, Auggie Pullman, with a rare genetic facial deformity and his first year in middle school -- and spoiler alert -- it all turns out okay.  There are cool inspirational quotes along the way such as "You're gonna reach the sky..Fly... Beautiful child," from the Eurythmics "Beautiful Child." Different characters struggle with his deformity -- his own, his sister's, his best friend's -- and except for a handful of stock bullying bad kids -- they all turn out to be good, kind kids and see past what is obvious -- and to the inner self of Auggie. I envied his parents -- hard-working, caring, decent people -- a mother who said all the right things. At the end, his class gives him a standing ovation at the graduation ceremonies. Auggie soars. I loved this novel. I cried. I cheered. It's a novel to read with your kids. But I could never write it -- never, ever.

I think to write a happy novel -- one with characters that are essentially good people with decent values--one had to live a life filled with people who are essentially good. For the most part, I didn't have those kind of people in my life growing up except for my Pop. He was a good father, a good man,  too often overwhelmed with being a single parent. His words of wisdom were blunt: the way you make your bed is the way you'll sleep in it. I love him still for trying.

I don't know if R. J. Palacio had a happy life or not -- but I know that mine was broken. One way I've put it back it back together is writing. Even so, the pieces are never as happy as WONDER. But I'm thankful there are writers like her that can write 'happy' -- a wonder to me. Caroline

coming out in February, 2014

from St. Martin's Press

Here's a FEW favorite quotes... FROM ISAAC ASIMOV, classic sci-fi writer:

"IF I HAD ONLY SIX MINUTES TO LIVE,I WOULDN'T BROOD, I'D TYPE A LITTLE FASTER."

"I GUESS THE LESSON IS, IT'S OKAY TO WRITE ABOUT YOURSELF AS LONG AS ALMOST ALL OF IT IS MADE UP." 

"THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO POINT IN SITTING DOWN TO WRITE A BOOK

UNLESS YOUR FEEL THAT YOU MUST WRITE THAT BOOK, OR ELSE GO MAD, OR DIE." 

Feels like Pink Floyd should be playing in the background but I don't know how to do that --and would that be too obvious? Many more woman on the wall --  but that's another blog. Do you have a WALL?   Truly, Caroline

Pictures of inspiration from the NY Botanical Garden taken by my son, Michael Bock, new photographer - reminds me that there is spring somewhere -- even if it's under glass. First day of spring: March 20th. Truly, author of the new adult novels:

If you are one of those people who like to be in the know before anybody else... check out Lena Roy's blog post on my upcoming young adult novel, BEFORE MY EYES. I asked her if she could "blurb" (write an insightful but eye-catching yet meaningful few lines for promotional use based on an early, early review copy. A blurb is an art in itself). And was I surprised what I got back - much more than a blurb. Or maybe I shouldn't have been surprised - she's an amazing writer - and reader!  Here's a first take on BEFORE MY EYES:

   

"...Bock's story begins with a mass shooting on a Monday morning, and then she takes us back to Friday, weaving the narrative between three points of view: Max, a state senator's son who is having a hard time doing the right thing, Claire, a poet who has too many responsibilities, and Barkley, who hears voices, and unravels before our eyes. Max and Claire are more worried about themselves, and although we know what is going to happen, we quickly turn the pages.

 

From a writer’s perspective lines like this…

 

On selling a screenplay pitch:

 

“And now she knows where she recognizes that look from. It’s a look she sees every day, the look of someone doing the math, of someone seeing the angles.”

 

On age and celebrity:

 

“…two kinds of people always lie about their ages: actresses and Latin American pitchers.“

 

One refrain:

 

“We want what we want….”

 

runs through the novel and sets up the middle aged and older characters on a path of wanting the wrong thing: money and fame. But we want what we want so we go on destroying ourselves, and almost, almost destroy others in the process.

 

The last chapter begins with a heart-rending quote from the writer Milan Kundera:

 

“There would be nothing more obvious,

More tangible, than the present moment.

And yet it eludes us completely.

All the sadness of life lies in that fact.”

 

Ultimately, Beautiful Ruins is a story about seizing the moment, about being happy with what is real and near and true. It’s also a love story -- a triumph of love, a reaffirmation of what is real in this celebrity-driven culture.

 

This novel beautifully ruined me. More about this must read author at www.jesswalter.com.

Is there a novel that has ruined you recently?

 

Truly, Caroline Bock, author of LIE.

 

Do you ever stop reading and start to write? I’ve been reading a lot of short story collections trying to stretch my writing--attempting to see what’s new or different out there. Short stories are quicker to read than novels and the writing is often more telling in short form than long. 

 

More telling: Tom Perrotta talks about point of view is switched through many of the short stories in the preface to the 2012 edition of The Best American Short Stories – and how this was radical 20 years ago and more going back— and isn’t anymore. Big check off for me because I like to switch point of views a lot in longer pieces (see LIE, my debut novel-10 points of view) but didn’t do it in the past, wasn’t it against some rule somewhere? But now I’ve tried it in some new pieces – and it doesn’t hurt at all.

 

Not new, uneven, but often exhilarating exploration of character: The Book of Other People edited by Zadie Smith. Outstanding stories include: “Gideon” by ZZ Packer, heart-breaking, about a black-white romance, and the hilarious stream-of-conscious ranting of Jewish grandmother to her grandson in “Rhoda” by Jonathan Safran Foer  to the  story I can’t shake from me: “Puppy” by George Saunders with its two different points of views – two women at different ends of the economic divide and a disturbed boy chained to a tree and a puppy.     

 

I’ll admit it. I can’t stop reading. I read to write. I am a hard-core reader.

 

Next story collection: Married Love, by Tessa Hadley. What she says in the afterward resonated with this reader-writer: “I used to be nervous if I didn’t ‘know enough.’ Now I trust, up to a point, that the best part of “knowing” is imagining. If you can imagine it, then you’ll probably be able to write it.”    

 

So here a few of my writing thoughts… notes… from reading these short story collections..,

 

1)   the rule is there are no rules

2)   we all want something new

3)   even with no rules, wanting something new, we still want what we’ve always wanted: story, a way into other people’s lives because we can’t stand our own or a way into our lives to understand anything at all.

4)   At the end of day it’s you knowing that you can trust yourself to

       imagine and write.

 

More thoughts on reading-writing out there?

Truly,

Caroline

His “mythic, perfect story…was one big lie,”confessed Lance Armstrong, the world’s most famous cyclist, the winner or now loser of seven Tour de France races. But isn’t that what happens in myth? The gods take down the hero, usually through hubris or excessive pride? Isn’t Odysseus, blinded, sent on his travels when he refuses to accept his fate? We think we must be greater than our fellow man that we possess something special, that we deserve better, that we are fated to win and  fairness and justice and the small ordinariness of life is for another man.  

 

Some of the lines from my debut novel, LIE, what is said by Jimmy, the instigator of a a hate crime and the star of the football and baseball teams at his Long Island high school resonates now: there’s first place or no place… you’re either a winner or you’re nothing. LIE revolves around a murder but one the subthemes –about the winner-take-all attitude in the 21 century and how it sometimes faces a mythic and tragic fate for all involved.

 

What does Lance Armstrong hope to achieve by confessing now? Absolution? What about everyone that he involved and impacted by his hubris? His lies?

 

Ultimately in my novel, Jimmy is brought down—

though not by his own confession. At seventeen he isn’t ready to confess – but then neither was Lance Armstrong, he had to win first. He had to lie to us all and win. Was it worth it? As a writer that’s what I want to know.  Was it worth it?      

 

 

Caroline Bock

author of the debut novel -LIE -

called "Unusual and important"

in a starred Kirkus Review;

"gripping" in a starred Library Journal

review; "suspenseful and thought-provoking,"

in a starred Booklist review

and "smart ... painfully believable" in a

starred Publishers Weekly review --

is now available everywhere

books/ebooks are sold

from St. Martin's Press, a big six publisher.

 

Write from the heart, life is too short to follow trends, to chase what’s hot today. Though if from the heart comes the next paranormal, dystopian, fantasy, erotic bondage adventure, I won’t argue!

Return to short stories. Read over the holidays: Object Lessons-- The Paris Review presents the art of the short story (a great read for new writers - FREE excerpt available at the Paris Review website);The Best American Short Stories edited by Tom Perrotta; Dear Life by Alice Munro; Astray by Emma Donoghue, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012. Plan to re-read some of the classics by Flannery O’Connor and Sherwood Anderson next. Any other suggestions?

 

I love the completeness of short stories – both from the reader’s perspective and the writer’s. What do I mean by this – a novel is a marriage, a short story is a date, fun and over at the end of the night. Not that it doesn’t take a good while to write a good short story, it does.  I am still working at the long-term marriage, but right now, I need the gratification of a few wild dates.

 

Start with a character -- that you know inside and out, that you can describe from head to toe, whose emotional core you can write about for pages, and write at least one page on that character. "Character is the very life of fiction," from John Gardner is a quote I have above my desk.

How to start anything? Don’t obsess. Remember: the first draft of anything is “shit.” Ernest Hemingway said that. I have it above my desk too.    

 

Are you ready for 2013?

 

And coming in 2014… my new novel from St. Martin’s Press… BEFORE MY EYES.

 

Truly,

 

Wind-strewn, tree branch buckled, black dawn—the first day of winter, the last day on the Mayan calendar and the world is still here, barely. Electricity out all night but back on –for now. Twenty-six church bells for the victims of the senseless mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Everyone asking ‘why’ and what happens if there is no answer to ‘why?’ I keep coming back to the serious mental illness of this shooter, of Tucson’s, Aurora’s as much as I do to the easy access to military assault weapons. 

Though on guns: Why does anyone outside of law enforcement need to own a semi-automatic anything? Why?

And why did no one try to help this sick young man – we now flag kids who need extra educational resources and support them; we now mainstream physically and developmentally challenged students; we have interventions for kids who abuse drugs. But we let young men in their late teens and early 20s and who are most likely showing signs of suffering from serious mental illness have target practice or buy guns? Is this how the world ends?

 

Or, (because I have to end on beauty not pain) as the great American poet Robert Frost asks does it end in fire or ice?   

 

 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.


But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate


To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

     --

 

Thoughts and prayers to all the Newtown families --