YouTube Goodness: Talent, Structure, Steampunk and GUNS

I like to look for treasures on YouTube.

It's a bit like looking for treasures at the dump. The amount of junk one must sort through is appalling. Thank heaven for decent search engines.

I want to share with you now some of my favorite YouTube goodies that I found in the last month.

1. Howard Tayler on 'Who Needs Talent?'

This is only the first part. But watch all four parts. It completely changed the way I think about writing, 'talent', and what I have potential to do.

2. Dan Wells on 'Seven Point Story Structure'.

This is an AWESOME seminar that helped me a lot. I'm a budding outliner (I used to think I was a freewriter, but I think I'm changing with age) and having only ever freewritten my entire life, I was lost as to how to begin. This helped me through. First of five parts.

3. The Definition of Steampunk

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

4. World's Fastest Gun Disarm

Because maybe one of your characters needs to be able to do this. There are tutorials, but I'm fairly certain most of us can't be as fast as this dude.

Speaking of gun tutorials: do you have a character who needs to know how to intelligently use a firearm?

5. This guy has a channel with, like, 900 videos on how to shoot a gun, for newbies. He's got stuff from the difference between smoky and smokeless powder, to reasons why not to put your thumb behind the slide on a semi-automatic... which is what the next video is about. If you want details, this guy will give you details.

Hope something in this grab bag of a post was useful to you! Tell me about it in the comments, if you did.

Celebrations: Walter Farley

I remember being five years old and working my way through Little Black, A Pony by Walter Farley (June 26, 1915 - October 16, 1989). Up to that point, I had become an expert picture book reader. But this marked a new landmark in my progress as a reader. It was the first "real" story I ever read. I remember sitting on the couch with my mom beside me. She encouraged and helped like she did with the earlier Dr. Seuss stories and other picture books, but she mostly left it to me to figure out the words on my own. It was hard work, but I loved the story and I loved reading, and I felt like such a big boy by the time I finished. I was also excited to repeat the process with Little Black Goes To The Circus.

There's no way to know how many books I've read since then, probably far into the thousands, but I will always remember Hop on Pop as the first book I read by myself, and Little Black, A Pony as the first real story book.

It was a few years later when I discovered that Farley had written a whole library of books about horses, most notably the entire Black Stallion series. By then, I wasn't so much into books about horses. I read a few Black Stallion books, but none of them had the same impact on my life (as, in fact, few books since have) as Little Black, A Pony.

(Note: This is the last of the planned Celebrations posts. What do you readers say? Should we continue this series? Is it interesting?)

Celebrations: Winnie-The-Pooh

A.A. Milne's first Pooh book, Winnie-the-Pooh, was published on October 14,1926, and has delighted children ever since. If you only know Pooh from the movies, you're missing out. Get hold of the books today and give them a read.

Milne never set out to be a children's writer. His goal was to write whatever he felt like writing. By the time he started writing stories for his son, Christopher Robin Milne, he had already written several plays and three novels for adults. He is said to have been somewhat annoyed that his adult work was so overshadowed by his children's stories.

Still, he continued to write for both adults and children, finishing more novels and plays, works of non-fiction, and articles. One of his better-known plays was "Toad of Toad Hall," an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

Celebrations: Louise Fitzhugh

Louise Fitzhugh (October 5, 1928 - November 19, 1974) influenced me in a very unexpected way.

I got Harriet The Spy from my book club when I was about 10, and I didn't want to read it. I wasn't interested in books about girls. Because I liked writing stories, I thought the plot of this one sounded interesting, but I couldn't get past the fact that it was not only about a girl, but that the cover had her picture and her name.

Finally, one day, when I ran out of new books to read, I reluctantly cracked open Harriet The Spy. And I loved it, from the first sentence to the last, so much that I immediately read it again.

After that, even though I still preferred books about boys, I was less opposed to books about girls, as long as they did cool stuff like Harriet did.

I think about Harriet now and then, especially since this boy/girl thing has come full circle: I'm now (slowly) working on my first story with a girl main character.

Harriet the Spy received some criticism for containing characters who were less than admirable, but that's part of what made me love the book. It was almost like a grown-up book for kids. As it turns out, this is what made Fitzhugh so influential.

Her obit in the New York Times said it best: "The book helped introduce a new realism to children's fiction and has been widely imitated."

Celebrations: Edward Stratemeyer

You might not recognize the name of Edward Stratemeyer (October 4, 1862 – May 10, 1930), but I'll bet you a quarter he had an impact on your childhood reading.

Stratemeyer was an American children's writer and publisher. He is best known as the creator of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a collective of ghostwriters responsible for the well-known series that Stratemeyer developed. These include the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others. Stratemeyer created the characters and hired the ghostwriters, and might have developed the outlines for some of the earliest books in the series.

Although most of the series he created were not written by Stratemeyer, he reportedly, according to one source, wrote 1300 books on his own under a number of pseudonyms, many of them serials that first appeared in newspapers or magazines, and sold over 500 million copies.

Not a bad career for a guy you've never heard of.

Celebrations: Theodore Geisel

It's hard to believe it's been 19 years since the death of Dr. Seuss (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991).

There's nothing I can say that pays tribute to this man as much as his own work. The first book I ever red by myself, like many of you, was Hop On Pop. The next several were also most his, including One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, The Cat in The Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and on and on and on. How many of you, like me, remember sitting down as a beginning reader and puzzling through the progressively harder pages of Fox In Socks, a book that continues to push early readers to increase their skills?

He was also influential in media besides books. One of my first records was a read-along LP with Bartholomew and the Oobleck on one side and Myrtle the Turtle on the other. And those of us who are part of the first generation to be raised on TV remember the excitement of each new televised special.

I dare you to name a more influential children's writer than Dr. Seuss.

Celebrations: The Hobbit

The Hobbit was published on September 21, 1937, changing fantasy stories forever.

Celebrations: Oliver Butterworth

Chances are probably pretty good that you've never heard of Oliver Butterworth (May 23, 1915 – September 17, 1990). He didn;t write as many children's books as others I pay tribute to in this series, but his first book, The Enormous Egg, opened a door in my mind, showing me a whole new aspect of the imagination.

The whole idea of a chicken laying a dinosaur egg, and a boy about my own age raising a pet triceratops, as well as the struggles little Nate Twitchell had to endure against adults who wanted to claim the dinosaur for their own purposes, created a new world full of magic and interesting characters and conflicts.

I re-read The Enormous Egg a couple years ago and discovered something that went completely over my head as a kid. When Congress is debating whether Nate's dinosaur should be placed in the National Zoo, one congressman's blustery speech is one of the best pieces of political satire I've ever read. That this bit is hidden in a children's book helps to show the value books for young readers have in our society, and what adults miss when they grow "too old" to read kids' books.

Celebrations: Robert McCloskey

It's hard to think of many writers or illustrators, with the exception of Dr. Seuss, who influenced picture books for the last three generations more than Robert McCloskey (September 15, 1914 – June 30, 2003).

A list of the books he wrote and illustrated pretty well describes my childhood library checkouts, and then my own bookshelf. Starting with Lentil in 1940 (one of my first Scholastic Book Club books), and then continuing with Make Way for Ducklings, Homer Price (still one of my favorite books), Blueberries for Sal, Centerburg Tales, One Morning in Maine, Time of Wonder, and Burt Dow - Deep-Water Man, McCloskey set the bar high for writer/illustrators, with two Caldecott Medals and two more Caldecott Honors awards.

That would be more than enough to make his birth worth celebrating, but there's more. In addition to his own books, he also illustrated several books for other authors, including one of my favorite childhood reads, Journey Cake, Ho by his mother-in-law, Ruth Sawyer.

Not bad for somebody who described himself as an accidental writer. McCloskey's early dream was to be a musician (reflected in Lentil), and he played several instruments. He was also a life-long mechanical tinkerer and inventer. As a child he invented a machine to whip cream. Unfortunately, just like with Homer Price's doughnut machine, something went wrong when he tried and he sprayed cream over all four walls of his mother's kitchen.

Finally, he developed an interest in illustrating. He wrote that he had never intended to write, but when he drew, stories came out between the pictures.

Celebrate this great author's life today by digging out one of his books and reading it to your kids, or just curl up and read it to yourself.

Celebrations: Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916.

There are very few children's writers whose accomplishments are so great, that there's no need to list them. James and the Giant Peach has always been one of my favorite books for any age group. Even now that I'm old enough that even my kids' childhoods are behind them, James is a great read. If he had written nothing else, Dahl's birth would still be worth celebrating. Of course he wrote more. A lot more.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches--it's a long list: 17 children's stories, three volumes of children's poetry, two adult novels, 19 short story collections, several non-fiction books, a play, six movies (including the screenplays for "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and the 1971 version of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,"and a bunch of TV episodes including several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Tales of the Unexpected, and his own series, Way Out.

But Dahl was more than a writer. A fighter pilot for the RAF in WWII, Dahl's victories earned him the title of Flying Ace. He also became known for his controversial stance against Israel (although, he claimed not against Jews).

Dahl was truly a transformational author. His influence on other writers is obvious. It's possible that no author has influenced current writers, especially middle grade authors, as much as Roald Dahl.

Talented Writers...Myth or Fairy Tale?

Yes, I meant what I said in my title.

Unlike basketball, painting or public speaking, I believe writing is a skill (as opposed to a talent) that rarely or never just appears in a person. When we look at great writers like Shakespeare, Emerson, Dickens (either one)--their writing is an amagalmation of their life experiences, as opposed to a natural born talent (though, of course, they have been gifted in the way they express it). We see very few teenage authors--most of us take several decades to reach the point where we've gained perspective, rich life experience, and the tenacity to pursue such a difficult craft.

There are very few things in the logical world that haven't come easily to me (scrapbooking, painting or singing--very different story). So, when I sat down to draft a book 2 1/2 years ago, I thought I could fast-track the process and get published far before the average writer. I was one to two years ahead of every subject in school and the youngest person to be employed to almost every job and I've had. But, writing was a skill I hadn't practiced, learned or studied (Honors English 200 was as far as I'd gotten). Now, as I sit down to tear apart the first draft of my second novel (the first will never get published), I am humbled and wonder if I will ever have what it takes. This is the first career (I've had several) that I refuse to give up on. Wise or not, writing is in my blood.

It's obviously in yours too, if you're reading this post. You have something to share. Don't let the perception of a lack of talent prevent you from doing so.