ALAN, Plus the World's Best Stage Directions
This morning I board a plane for Orlando, and late this afternoon, I'll be at NCTE-ALAN, receiving the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award for Fire. My parents will be there, and also secret codename: Cordelia! How nice that this event is taking place near a branch of my family!
The other day, in my post about my editor, I mentioned that good editing is invisible, like the world's best stage directions. Giving credit where credit is due: that was my friend Becca's analogy, not mine. And one of the reasons I liked it so much when she said it is that I've recently been encountering what just might be the world's best -- or, at least, the world's most entertaining -- stage directions. Where? In the plays of J.M. Barrie.
Imagine, as a set designer, being given this:
"There is a piece of carpet that has been beaten into nothingness, but is still a carpet, there is a hearth-rug of brilliant rags that is probably gratified when your toes catch in it and you are hurled…
The other day, in my post about my editor, I mentioned that good editing is invisible, like the world's best stage directions. Giving credit where credit is due: that was my friend Becca's analogy, not mine. And one of the reasons I liked it so much when she said it is that I've recently been encountering what just might be the world's best -- or, at least, the world's most entertaining -- stage directions. Where? In the plays of J.M. Barrie.
Imagine, as a set designer, being given this:
"There is a piece of carpet that has been beaten into nothingness, but is still a carpet, there is a hearth-rug of brilliant rags that is probably gratified when your toes catch in it and you are hurled…