Here’s one big of magic that we found, my well-loved and duct-taped copy of Tatum’s Favorite Shape by Dorothy Thole, Woodcuts by Whitney Hansen

And here is what the book cover looked like, before it was loved-off:

This book made me so happy when I was a kid. It just felt warm and safe and sweet and right. A little boy comes home from school, vowing to never return because he can’t remember his shapes. His mom finds simple ways to help him realize he does indeed know his shapes. And that’s that. A delicious bite-sized cupcake of a story.

And the woodcut illustrations! I wanted to live there, in that little house with the blooming tree and tire swing and picket fence.

Reading this now as a mom, I think about Tatum’s mom. Is she happy? Is she filled up? There’s an easel in the background of one of the images, and I find myself hoping that she’s an artist, and that she has enough time to create.

*My insert image skills are are lacking, which is why this image is all wackadoo!

I wonder if she’s always home to greet Tatum after school and if she’s glad for it, or if sometimes she would rather be doing something else. I wonder if she’s in graduate school and stays up after the kids go to bed to study. I wonder what she longs for and what she regrets and what makes her laugh and what fills her joy.

I wonder if she’s always the kind , patient, playful mother she is in the book, or if she ever has days when she is not.

None of this matters, though, when I’m reading. What matters is that she and Tatum and Sissy had a lovely afternoon, and us readers are lucky enough to be there to share it.

I am still searching for bio information for the author, Dorothy Thole, and will update when I do.

I did find a site for Whitney Hansen, though! And I’m so excited to start poking to see where I can see her work.

What books did you love as a kid? What did they make you feel then? What do they make you feel now?

xoxo

AMV

Hellooooo!

I’m totally doing a welcome dance. I know you can’t *see* me dance, and for that you should be grateful. It could be embarrassing. For you. You know, because of your jealousy of my moooooves.

Anyway!

I’m really glad you’re here. Connecting with readers and other writers is seriously my favorite thing about being an author, an equal tie with the actual writing.

I am a sometimes-blogger, but an all-the-time Tweeter. You can see my feed over on the right hand side of the page, and I would love it if you followed me. On Twitter. Not, like, to the bathroom.

Also, I’m always happy to answer emails at AMV [at] adriennemariavrettos dot com

xoxo

AMV

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m 21 and I’m at my parents house.  They are out.  So is my big brother, who is home from college. The dog’s here.  But he’s asleep.

My right leg is broken in two places.  It’s not in a cast, but in an ace bandage to keep the swelling down.  The little fang-like sets of holes where they took the staples out itch a little.

It’s six weeks since I was hit by a car, and three weeks since my grandmother died.

I know that I am not doing well.

I have graduated from crutches to the duck-head cane my brother gave me for Christmas.  Later, when I get back to school, my best friend Kate will write my soul on a scrap of paper. We will stick it inside the duck’s head.  I will keep that soul forever, so far.

But that winter … I spend too much time lying on my bed, listening to Mazzy Starr and not eating.

My mom has a neighbor come over to make me lunch while she’s at work.  Our pastor comes over, too.

My high school friends, home from college, have taken me out a few times since they came home for the holidays.  I haven’t built my strength back yet.  This means I experience the strangeness of someone my own age gently carrying me across an icy front lawn, up a slick set of steps, and carefully setting me down in someone’s living room.  Like a keg, but greeted with less enthusiasm.

Tonight I opt to stay home.  I’m in pain, and my body feels too unweildly and uncertain to take out.

I wish My So Called Life was on, but it’s not.

The loneliness of this empty house on a Saturday night is too familiar.  I was supposed to have left this place.

Everything I have done since I left home feels imagined.  I don’t believe I will ever have it back.  I am going to be here, unchanging forever.  This winter will not end.  I think about my grandmother.

I can feel myself sinking.

But then the front door opens and my brother comes in.  He brings the wind and the smell of ice and cold.  And life, he brings life.

We sit at the kitchen table and he rings in the New Year with me, singing made-up versions of Jane’s Addiction songs to make me laugh.

Just him, being there, means everything to me.

So Happy New Year to my big brother, and to everyone else who has shared or received a simple kindness that has changed everything.

Betend.

As in “Let’s betend we’re kittens.”

I am totally in love with this word, and not just because I totally love my kid.  I love this word because it says everything about what I love and fear about writing.

Here’s what it means to me.

To betend is to let go of yourself and free fall into a story and not know when you will feel the ground beneath your feet or what it will feel like when you get there.  To betend is to let your characters tell their story even if that story includes them telling truths you don’t agree with. Betending is letting yourself have faith that this story came to you for a reason, and that you are the one to tell it, and that it’s okay when you find bits of yourself inside of it.  Your characters will protect your secrets.  And they will speak them for you.  Betending is feeling your characters’ joy and fear and shame and love.  You feel it together and then it’s not so much to bear.

Betending is magic, I’m sure of it.

xoxo

AMV

For example.

This is Allie Grant.

You may know her from her work on Weeds, and more recently for her work on Suburgatory.  I think she’s a fantastic young actress.  But I am annoyed.  Really, really annoyed.  Not with Allie Grant, but with whomever is writing for her.

Because on Weeds (and disclaimer, I’ve seen only maybe ten episodes) it seems like the bulk of what her character did was to react to a mom who tortured Allie’s character about her weight.

And now, in Suburgatory, she is … playing a girl who is tortured by a mom about her weight.

The girl’s talent is being totally wasted on another character whose main job is to hate herself.  And that just SUCKS.  Give her something more to work with!  I promise you she’s up to the task.

I think I need to change out of my crankypants into something with an elastic waistband.  All the better to nap in.

AMV

It happened with The Red Tent, the Davinci Code, The Help, The Devil Wears Prada, Harry Potter, and most recently The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The fact is, even though I love that it seems like everyone in New York reads the same thing at the same time, I’ve always opted out of this particular ‘it takes a village to read a book’ activity.  There is a great possibility it’s because I’m contrary.  Oh yeah, you’re all reading that?  Well I”m going to read THIS instead!

And also I was usually reading stuff for work and couldn’t fit in grown-up reading at the same time.  And, honestly, the manuscripts I was reading for work were so FRICKING GOOD I wasn’t really upset I didn’t have time to read the The Passage with everyone else.

But now that I’m retired and leading a life of leisure, I have time to catch up on community book group.

Starting with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

It’s just okay.

That’s a lie.

I am 100% obsessed.

And 100% paranoid that someone is going to tell me something about it that I don’t know already.  So if you see me wandering the streets of Brooklyn in an astronaut’s helmet, you’ll know why (why not ear plugs, you ask?  they could fall out!  too risky).

Yours in book obsession,

AMV

I am standing on the front porch of our little red house in the mountains.

I am five?  I’ve just woken up from a nap and wandered outside to the too-bright light of day.

Things don’t look the way they should.  I look down at my white smocked shirt with the brown stitching and it looks like its under water.

Then I look down at my hand, and am frozen at the sight of a tiny white spider burrowing its way into my palm.

It hurts, and I can feel it working its way under my skin.

I remember trying to explain it to my dad, but when I showed him my palm, it was just my palm.  The hole was gone.

I remember that spider going in, but I don’t remember it coming out.  Even if it was a fever dream, I wonder how high a fever I need to watch it wiggle its way back out.

xoxo

AMV

It’s been so long since you were last here!

And yet, I still have not written a word of my new project.  Don’t tell ANYBODY!

Actually, that’s a lie.  I’ve written lots of words for the new project.  I’ve written first words, sentences, paragraphs, once even the first two pages.  And then I deleted it.  Numerous times.

Because I’m scared.  And I’m so bored of my own fear I groan out loud, “Oh, get over yourself” but it’s really hard advice to take.

I can see the story in my head, I can feel its rhythm.  But I can’t write it down.

I know that whatever I write I can change, but every word I write feels so permanent, and so wrong.  How can I write a whole book if I can’t write the first word?  How can I tell a story if I can’t even start?

I am filled with doubt.

OMG!  You know what I need?  A session with Stuart Smalley!  He can help me get over my performance anxiety.

Seriously, look what he did for Michael Jordan!

If Michael Jordan realizes he doesn’t have to dribble the ball fast or put the ball in the basket, then I can realize I don’t have to write a totally perfectly perfect first draft.

There, I TOTALLY cured myself of writer’s block using the internet!  I take back (almost) all my technophic statements.  Just not the one related to Terminator, because that sh*t could really happen!

xoxo

AVM

Burnout

By Adrienne Maria Vrettos

(McElderry, ISBN: 9781416994695; September 2011; Fall catalog p.79)

Nan has been clean for awhile now. After months of drinking heavily that culminated in a night when she almost died, she willingly went to rehab, got sober, and went home. But now she’s waking up in the subway in a Halloween costume gone wrong, skeleton makeup on her face, and absolutely no idea how she got there or what happened the day before. Did she relapse or is something sinister going on? And, what happened to her friend Seemy? In this exciting and fast-paced thriller, readers get to know Nan through a series of flashbacks that are interspersed with the nightmare she’s in now–scared, alone, and unable to remember anything from the day before. She tries to retrace her steps as best she can by going back to places that were important to her and Seemy before she went to rehab and she and Seemy drifted apart. Although at first readers might think that all that’s important is the mystery of Nan and Halloween night, they will soon be pulled in not only by Nan’s current predicament, but also by the chain of events that led to her implied downfall. The book serves as an in-depth analysis of Nan herself, and readers will become engrossed in her story and the decisions that led her to this breaking point. The novel is gripping and will keep readers glued to their seats, wanting to know if Nan will ever remember what really happened on that terrifying night.