Me and E.B., running with scissors and playing with glue

Oh, yay! E.B. did it, too...

"Scenes that are out of place leap out at me. I have to cut and paste because they don't belong where I've put them. E.B. White calls this "transposition." He was a big cutter and paster. He felt that manuscripts often have serious flaws in the placement of their material..." --From The Shape of the Novel, at The Tollbooth

I write scenes out of order all the time. It's ridiculous---like my brain is in another time zone.

But it's not as hard as you might think to manipulate the space-time continuum. It just takes days of determined effort. Mwahahaha!

You and Me and E.B.: Changing the World

Yesterday was about Having a Good Time. Today is about Changing the World. (See quote from E.B. White above, or if you're reading this in a feed and can't glance up, here.)

What are the book/literacy/youth-related causes you support? I'd like to know.

Here are a few of mine:

Military Child Education Coalition

Plan International

Beyond 4 Walls Book Drive

I'm also interested in the following projects, but haven't acted upon them yet:

The Campaign for Drawing (sponsors The Big Draw and other projects)

Open Books (a literacy bookstore not yet operational)

KinderHarvest (rescues and recycles children's magazines to donate to families)

I'd like to compile a list of all the projects KidLit Bloggers (and readers) support. (Or is there one already? Someone tell me!) I would call it:

The Very Big, No-Kidding, We're Changing the World, You Bet! Good Deed List.

And I quote...

I added a quote to my header. You can see it up there, floating under Read Write Believe.

I love those words from E.B. White. They make me feel that it's okay not to know what you want all the time. That it's okay to want more than one thing. That it's not pretentious to desperately desire to be significant and worthy, even though you know you'd hop on a tabletop and polka if given half a chance. (I did that once, in Germany, at Oktoberfest. I was told sternly to get down.)


I also considered these lovely quotes:

"The painter passes through states of fullness and of emptying. That is the whole secret of art." --Pablo Picasso

"In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add." --Gore Vidal

"I have no words. My voice is in my sword." --Macduff from Shakespeare's Macbeth. (I don't know why, but I've always wanted to say that in real life.)

"Be kind, for everyone you know is fighting a great battle." --Philo of Alexandria (I love this one so much that I'm writing a book about it.)

or perhaps, simply:

"More matter with less art." --Hamlet, Shakespeare


I don't know. Did I pick the right one? Maybe I'll see how I feel when I get out of bed tomorrow.