Am I an official Puppet Slammer now?

I'm always interested in new ways of telling a story--so when I saw there would be a free puppetry class, taught by the talented members of Facto Teatro, I had to go.

I had no idea when I signed up online that one of my favorite friends was also attending, that I'd adapt a Liberian folktale ("Head, Body, Legs")  into a script, and perform 48 hours later in a full-on, big-time puppet slam.

If you like to make people laugh--and I do--then there's nothing that feels better than hearing an audience crack up over a story you're telling. And nothing makes you worry like fearing that they won't.

Building the set and the puppet.

So while we fretted over how to make our main character's head roll around on the ground and worried if the waves of our cardboard river were moving in sync, I knew that success rode just as much on the timing and the character voices. And when we scrambled onto the stage with our tabletop set, I wasn't sure what would happen.

I'm happy to say the audience laughed. A lot. Thank you Indie Grits film festival, Columbia Marionette Theater, Lyon Hill, Facto Teatro, and my classmates for a great experience. 

Alejandro Garcia fine-tuning "Head" (left) and one of our talented classmates using paper puppets to tell a magical story from her childhood.

I learned a ton, had a great time, and would love to make puppet slamming (if that's the right term) a regular part of my life.

I wrote about the storytelling lessons that my friend, artist Alejandro Garcia-Lemos, and I took away from the experience for the online magazine I manage for The Buckley School of Public Speaking, so if making a puppet show interests you, there's more over there.

To see the incredible work of all the puppet artists, here's a recap from Indie Grits.

Getting personal....and liking it

Personal essays.
I battled my mixed feelings about them the entire time I worked as an editor for skirt! magazine. Nikki Hardin, the magazine's founder, is superb at writing them. It was one of the reasons she created a magazine that featured personal essays. But I worried that some essays we published from other writers might sound like whining by people with more good fortune than they deserved.

That began to be all I could think about when I'd write my monthly editor's letter. Don't let me be guilty. Please don't let me sound like a spoiled brat.

Fast forward. It's Valentine's Day 2017.
I'm huddled around the table with my classmates in The Nickelodeon's podcasting class. Friends wondered why I was taking it. I'd been writing, producing and editing projects since before I was in college.

Those projects, though, didn't have the feel of This American Life. I wanted to see if I could write a personal story and bring it to life with sound.

That's not a heartbeat on Valentine's Day but a soundwave: Our teacher, Cooper McKim, giving us some tips for putting our stories together.

On that night, we were reading our scripts. And when it was my turn, I was incredibly nervous. Alone in front of my laptop, I thought I'd written something funny.  

But you never know.

My topic was my basketball fandom.
I follow the University of South Carolina's women's basketball team. I'm more than a fan, even. At the time, I was mentoring one of the players.

So when I watched my team play the invincible women of the University of Connecticut, it was nerve wracking.

That was the personal story I had decided to tell.

My voice cracked as I read the first lines. My hands shook. I was breathless, going too fast. 

I teach public speaking and present in front of huge groups of people, but all that experience--apparently--was worthless at the moment.

Then my classmates laughed. I started to relax.

They laughed some more. 

They liked my personal angle.

So, with a few minor copy changes, I went for it.
Being able to use my voice--my actual voice as well as my writing voice--to create a finished product was new for me. I liked it.

Taking the class helped me think about new ways for telling my stories. It reminded me of what I've always liked about personal essays, the vulnerability that the writer risks and the way it makes me feel connected to the writer.

Here's the end result on SoundCloud.
If it sounds a little "rustic," I hope you'll forgive that: All the audio was recorded on my cell phone, edited with free software downloaded from Hindenburg:

The joy of a live audience and collaboration

When musician Ayala Asherov first approached me about creating a work for children, I was excited but not sure how it would come together.

It turns out that working with Ayala and our other partner in crime, composer Dick Goodwin, has been one of the most delightful creative projects of my life.

Story and Chamber Music Concert
As Ayala described it, she wanted us to create something like Peter and the Wolf--a story with music--only a) shorter and b) written for a chamber group--so that schools could incorporate it more easily into classes and afford to host a performance.

So that is how I wound up imagining a story about a creature who might have trouble finding a dance partner. Porcupine. And how together, we created Porcupine Saves the Dance.

Dick Goodwin in the background on the left, Ayala Asherov in the foreground at the far right--the two composers preparing for our performance of Porcupine Saves the Dance.

Writing With Music in Mind
Collaborating with Ayala and Dick gave me some new perspectives as we worked out the story. Themes and ways to distinguish characters were important to the music.

At one point, I had written "Porcupine was discouraged." Dick asked if I could show what that looked like, so he could use music to illustrate it. Of course. It's what I should've done anyway.

But the music pushed me to get there.

"His shoulders slumped." Cue the oboe. 

"His needles drooped." A run of notes on the cello.

Then, "Porcupine sat down." Percussion.

The music, like images in a picture book, could also take the place of words. That was fun to work out. And to hear your story set to music is exciting.

Getting Story and Score to the Stage
We used an actor to read for our first few performances and I sat in the back of theaters, listening, thinking of ways to make it better.

I thought the actor was good. But Ayala believed, strongly, that I should read the story. "It's just different when you read it," she kept telling me. "You draw the kids in."

I wasn't so sure about that, but it's hard to say no to Ayala. That's why I'd gotten involved in this project in the first place. Ayala, the irresistible force. (Also needs to be said: Dick Goodwin is one of the most supportive and insightful people you could ever hope to work with.)

I had to admit, I sort of wanted to get in on the act.

In some ways, the music works the way illustrations do in a picture book.

Getting to Know Your Audience
Now, a great occasional treat for me is to read Porcupine Saves the Dance to a crowd of elementary-aged kids. They like the story and the music and the musicians. And then when they find out their narrator is the writer, they have so many questions for me. They seem genuinely excited to see a writer in person. How about that?

We had the old gang together this month to perform for around 150 kids.

And I got at least 140 hugs after.

Pretty incredible.

And not something you think about when you're scratching out lines and wondering if you'll ever get the words right.

The benefits of not being an expert

In the book Made to Stick, they call it "the curse of knowledge." What do they mean by curse?

Once we know something, it's hard to remember what it was like not to know it. That means we have a hard time explaining what we know to other people in ways that they can understand.

On many writing assignments, I feel one of the strengths I bring is what I'm dubbing "the blessing of ignorance." The subject is new to me. I ask some very specific questions. Some might even call them dumb questions. And in the process, I get my expert sources to re-imagine the topic they know so well.

I was never more aware of my "blessing" than while I was writing a PBS series, Man and Moment, about World War II heroes. My experts were military history experts and veterans. They talked about weapons and company names and battles in the same casual way I might talk about the flavors of Dunkin' Donuts. For those of us who aren't military history mavens, it was incomprehensible.

So I started asking what. And why. And how. How heavy was that machine gun? Why did they attempt the crossing in broad daylight? What did it feel like to stagger out of a plane with 100 pounds of gear and a parachute strapped to your back?

By the time I'd finished the scripts, I had a new kind of appreciation for these heroes. They weren't superhuman. Nor were they old men reminiscing about something far away. They were people I could relate to. Afraid. Not entirely sure what they were doing. Trying to do the right thing despite that. Hoping for the best.

My blessing of ignorance enabled me to write about World War II in a way that was interesting for me, and as it turns out, was interesting for other viewers, too. My goal had been to make programs that would appeal to people with no particular curiosity about military history. I knew I'd succeeded when, at the premiere screening, a woman came up to me and said: "I've never cared one bit about wars. I just came to this with a friend. But you had me on the edge of my seat. I was crying at the end."

On the outside, I smiled and said thank you.  But on the inside, I was jumping up and down and screaming "yes!"  

Sometimes, I think my experts wish I wouldn't ask so many questions, whether they're 90 year old WWII vets, engineers I'm helping with a pitch to land a contract, or companies I'm working with to write their websites.  But then, I see it flicker across their faces as the curse of knowledge is broken: Yes, right--that IS what it looks like. That is, simply said, exactly what we do. And that IS why I've been interested in my work for so very long.

Remembering Bill Cunningham...and Lord Maxwell

Reading the many sweet tributes to New York Times On The Street columnist Bill Cunningham these last few days has made me think about Lord Maxwell and yes, made me miss him.

It’s easy to remember how we came up with the name of our alter ego. Caroline Lord and I put our last names together, her idea: Lord Maxwell. The way he evolved took a little more time

We started writing our blog, Lord Maxwell, not totally sure what we would do with it. We thought of it as a love letter to the place we live and a gentle, affectionate spoof of street style blogs of the time, most especially The Sartorialist and all those impossibly cool people he managed to photograph so beautifully. Our town, Columbia, S.C., is not exactly famed as a fashion hub. We wanted to have some fun with that, but we most definitely didn’t want to be mean-spirited or make anyone feel bad. The internet has plenty of meanness without anyone else jumping on.

So we decided that Lord Maxwell would write as a newcomer to these parts, a fashion anthropologist who had inherited a house here. He would only write about people he appreciated. And he would look for—and celebrate—the many wonderful little things that people do with their style every day.

As his personae developed, I grew to love him—and think of him as real. Though he knew a tremendous amount, he sometimes mixed things up. His hearing couldn’t be trusted, so he was terribly sorry if he got your name wrong. The smallest flourish could make his heart beat faster. He didn’t care about fancy and famous (though he did capture this young woman before she became a superstar). He cared about inspired and real. He loved the people he encountered in Columbia—and anywhere else he ventured.

Before we started writing as Lord Maxwell, I really didn’t know much about Mr. Cunningham. But as I continued to learn more from writing our blog, I started paying attention to his work. In many ways, Mr. Cunningham was like our Lord Maxwell—or I should say, Lord Maxwell was just a little like the great Bill Cunningham. When I read this remembrance of Mr. Cunningham, in particular, I longed to begin writing as Lord Maxwell again.

Why did we ever stop? Because blogging is time-consuming. Because our following, unlike Mr. Cunningham's, was small. Because both Caroline and I have other writing that takes priority. Because sometimes it was nice to go to the local farmers’ market or museum opening and not approach people to ask if you could photograph them and explain why.

So, true, I don’t miss that especially. But I do miss the way I paid attention to other people’s style. Regular people around you really are very stylish. Even more, I miss the fellow we invented, his warmth and his quirks. And I miss hearing the occasional person say, “Lord Maxwell was here yesterday. I think I might even know who he is.” Of course, they didn’t. And of course, that was also part of the fun.

Now, blogs feel old-fashioned, even for a 70-year-old British fashion anthropologist living in the American South. Perhaps it’s time for LM to join Instagram.

A Project for 2016

When the end of 2015 rolled around, I realized it had been more than a year since I'd been selected to attend the Rutgers One-on-One conference, more than a year since I'd been told that I had a middle grade novel worth publishing.

And had I completed the suggested changes and submitted that novel? Had I walked through that open door?

No, I had not. It was easy to blame my busy work schedule, the many assignments I'd been juggling, family demands. Those things might have been part of it. But blaming them didn't solve the problem.

I have a lot of writing that hasn't quite made it across the finish line, despite good reviews, despite encouragement from professionals who know what they're talking about.

So at the end of 2015, I persuaded my fellow writer and dear friend Caroline Lord to join me in an experiment we're calling The Year of Submission.

Since January 1 of this year, we've been meeting regularly to plan ways to get our work finished and submitted. It still hasn't been a snap. But we're making progress. We nudge each other along. We hold each other accountable. And by posting about our year on a blog, that somehow is making us feel accountable, too. Stay tuned.