I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who have a journal. I like to picture myself sitting in the sun, using a fountain pen to scribble out my Deep Thoughts and Observations. I think a journal could boost my creativity. I think a journal could be a lot of fun.

I think all of that, but I’ve never actually written in a journal. Not consistently, at least.

Years ago, I tried the Morning Pages suggested by Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way. She suggests doing a bit of brain drain first thing, just after you wake up. Fill up three full pages. Then never look at those pages again. Well, I did that. I did it for months. The problem was that I found it really a) boring, b) time-consuming, and c) not that helpful. So I stopped. I knew there was something to the idea that I should empty out all of those junky thoughts at the beginning of my day, before I started trying to be creative. But that particular method just didn’t work for me.

Recently, I’ve started working with Gretchen Rubin’s book, The Happiness Project. In it, she suggests writing a one-sentence journal. Just a sentence every day. This idea has been a revelation. While it was often torturous for me to try to fill up three pages, writing a sentence is easy and fun. I do it every night, with just a thought or a highlight of the day, things like, “Zara learned to ride a bike!” and “Wrote a poem–must let it percolate….” Since I’ve started this, I have reconsidered the Morning Pages. Julia Cameron is adamant that you must write three pages, but I’ve decided that I don’t have to take her literally. Instead, I’ve come up with my own semi-crazy, semi-lazy method. Before I get to work, I write down one thing that is bugging me, and one simple step I can take to either improve the situation or make myself feel better about it. Then, I write down one thing I’m looking forward to, and one simple thing I’m going to do to make that exciting thing happen. Then I find a quote or a thought about writing, and I write a quick response to that quote. (Today’s was, “It ain’t whatca write. It’s the way atcha write it.” –Jack Kerouac) The whole thing takes about five minutes, and I find it very energizing.

Why not try it? Let me know if it works for you, and if you get any good writing out of it!

Recently, a friend of mine was bemoaning the fact that her middle-school-age daughter had recently announced that she wanted to shop at Abercrombie and Fitch instead of Old Navy. She was bemoaning this shift because 1. Abercrombie and Fitch is over-priced and 2. The store is dark and cologne-stinky. We didn’t even get into the inappropriate ads with the super-sexy half-nude kids lounging all over each other. (I thought about putting one up with this article, but realized I didn’t want any of those pictures on my site, so I settled for the image above.)

Anyway, then I read this article, which points out that—for girls—A&F sizes only go up to 10, while most other stores go up to 16 or 18. That’s because A&F C.E.O. Mike Jeffries doesn’t want “overweight” girls wearing his clothes. Boys’ sizes go up to XXL, because you can be an athletic boy, and wear a large size. Athletic girls, apparently, are only allowed to be small. Mike Jeffries explains that this is a marketing strategy, “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” Oh, boy. I guess that Mike Jeffries’s idea of having a “great attitude” is pretty different from mine.

Needless to say, this article filled me with rage. A&F’s policies are completely sexist, for one thing. For another, do we really need entire brand lines reinforcing the idea that thin, rich kids are “cool,” and everyone else isn’t worthy enough to buy clothes? Another friend of mine reminded me that A&F had printed up an entire line of racist T-shirts in 2002, including one with two cartoon caricatures of Chinese “Wong Brothers,” who run a laundry. “Two Wongs Make It White!” reads the shirt. This is the stuff that Mike Jeffries thinks appeals to the “cool” kids. Sorry—what does “cool” mean? I think Mike Jeffries is using a dictionary from another planet.

In middle school, my friends and I called ourselves “the Out Crowd.” We were the funny kids, the smart kids, the creative kids. We called ourselves that even though we never felt like outcasts. It was more like a joke—we had plenty of friends. At the time, the cool brands were Guess and Izod. We might have worn some clothes from those brands, or we might not. We definitely didn’t measure worth by the clothes people wore, and we didn’t think much of people who did. I don’t believe that most kids today are any different.

Yesterday, I ran into my friend again. I started to tell her what I had recently discovered about A&F, and she stopped me. “I saw it,” she said. “And when I told me daughter about it, she said, ‘Well, we’re not shopping there anymore.’” I gave my friend a high five.

Mike Jeffries, that is a cool kid.

A few months ago, while reading O, The Oprah Magazine (totally my favorite—don’t judge!) I came across an article written by Oprah herself, about a gratitude journal she used to keep. At the end of each day, she would write down the five things she was most grateful for that day. She included a sample page. The fifth item on her list was, “Maya Angelou calling to read me a new poem.” As I read that, my first thought was, “It really is the simple things, isn’t it, Oprah?” I mean, if Maya Angelou called to read me her latest poem, I could just write that down in my Gratitude Journal and stop there. I wouldn’t need to add anything else. Ever.

Then again, I’m not sure I would really enjoy that phone call. Of course, I’d be thrilled and honored…but I would also be slightly freaked out and worried that I was going to say something dumb. I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of Maya Angelou, do I? She’s like—I don’t even know what she’s like. She’s a towering beacon of awesomeness, and I mean “awesome” in the “inspiring respect and fear” way. That doesn’t really sound like my ideal phone call. I kind of hate the phone, anyway.

No—my ideal phone call is more like the one I had a couple of weeks ago, from a good friend who was calling to complain about work. By the end, I was laughing so hard I had stomach cramps—laughing so hard that my mascara was running. I got way more joy out of that call than I would out of a chat with Maya Angelou, as brilliant as she is. Then again, Ms. Angelou isn’t one of my best friends. And she is one of Oprah’s. So that was my second thought: that we should all be grateful for a call from one of our brilliant, funny, wonderful friends. It doesn’t matter who they are. It matters what they mean to us.

And my third thought was this: Even Oprah needs this little list. Oprah Winfrey—whose blessings outnumber the stars—has trouble maintaining mindfulness. Even she has to write down “Maya Angelou calling to share a new poem” as one of the highlights of her day, lest she forget and lose perspective.

The essence of creativity is eternal wonderment, and we can cultivate that with gratitude. Beyond my window, my garden is bursting to life. Even the trees are blooming. The grass is greening underfoot. I write this down so that I remember.

When I was in the sixth grade, my social studies teacher asked everyone in the class to draw a map of an imaginary country. We were learning about topography and maps in general, so he encouraged us to label our imaginary rivers, lakes, mountains, historically important sites, etc. He showed us how borders and shorelines are typically crinkly. He encouraged us to imagine whether our country was an island, a peninsula, or landlocked by neighbors. All of these considerations have an impact on the culture of the people who would live in our country.

For my map, I created a nation called Ookieland, which was inhabited by Ookies. I handed in my map and got an A. The difference between me and the rest of the class is that I did not stop drawing maps of imaginary countries. I drew map after map. I took inspiration from the maps in the Chronicles of Narnia, and as I drew my own, I imagined the people who would live in my countries. I imagined the warriors of the bitter north, the brave and fun-loving seafarers of the south, and the Ookies in the forest. And then I started to come up with stories about those people. As some of you know, I never quite let go of this project—Ookies make an appearance in my book, The Wizard, the Witch, and Two Girls from Jersey.

I recently stumbled across a map drawn by the Brontës when they were children. They would make up stories about their imaginary land—the same thing I used to do. Looking back on it now, that single assignment in sixth grade may have determined my entire career. I always thought I was a weird kid for sitting in my room and drawing all of those maps. Now I wish I still had one. I would frame it. It’s an important relic from my past, as important as my diploma.

Do you see anything interesting on this cover? Something toward the bottom? Hm? Yes, that’s right–I co-authored a book with THE James Patterson, and it’s available in stores now! This is the third book in the hilarious best-selling Middle School series. The first two novels–co authored by James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts–tell the adventures of Rafe Khatchadorian, middle school troublemaker. In the third book, it’s time for his sister, Georgia, to speak her mind. Here’s the brief description:

Georgia Khatchadorian plans to excel at Hills Village Middle School in all the places her troublemaking brother failed. She’s even bet him that she’ll quickly become one of the most popular girls in school. But Rafe left a big mark at HVMS, and no one will give Georgia a chance!

Working on this novel with James Patterson has been a blast! And I’m so pleased that it’s already  on the Wall Street Journal Best-Sellers list, and getting terrific reviews. So check it out!

Recently, my daughter suffered a sudden, unexpected health problem. My husband and I raced out of the house in the dark to the nearby hospital, where doctors and nurses descended on her in the kind of scene that is every parent’s worst nightmare. When she had recovered enough, we were transferred to the bigger hospital twenty minutes away and given a room in the children’s ward. It’s a bright, colorful place where the staff go to enormous trouble to make sure that the children are comfortable and well taken care of.

I am one of the few people in the world who likes hospitals. I find them reassuring, with their mysterious machinery and people who know amazing things about the body and how it functions. We were there for two days, and in those uncertain hours, a parade of nurses and doctors came in to examine my daughter. As I sat beside her, I wished that I were one of them. A sign at the end of the hall read, “What have you done today to help a child?” I found that sign haunting. Why did I choose to be a writer? I wondered. Why didn’t I go into the medical field? Why couldn’t I pick a career that’s useful? Why don’t I have any skills? 

That night, I lay on the hospital bed with my daughter while my husband took the fold-out chair beside us. Beyond our door, the nurses’ station hummed with quiet activity. A baby in the room beside ours wailed. The doctors were sure that my daughter would be fine, but she was scheduled for tests the next day. “Mama,” my daughter said in the semi-darkness, “I’m feeling sad. Would you tell me a story?”

That question was the answer I needed to hear. In addition to all of the tests, medicine, and knowledge, what my daughter needed was a story. Because, after all, our spirits need care as much as our bodies do. I do have skills, I realized. My career is useful.

And so of course I told her a story. I am a storyteller, after all. I think I found it even more comforting than she did.

Sunrise view from my frosted up window at VCFA.

I got back from Writer Camp about a week ago and promptly got the flu. I shouldn’t have been surprised. They keep you busy, busy, busy during each ten-day residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts, besides which there was a horrible plague making the rounds at the dorm, taking out one writer at a time with a case of feverish, puffy-faced misery. All of that busyness and plague was bound to catch up with me.

But. But! I had a wonderful time. I was in a workshop led by the exceedingly amazing Jane Kurtz—and, when Jane broke her elbow, guest-led by the brilliant Uma Krishnaswami—in which I learned just how hard it is to write a picture book. It’s way harder than novels. For me, at least. I tend to like going blahblahblah, and picture books are not about that. They’re about understatement, and creating interplay between words and pictures. Humor, tension, and even poignancy are found in the gap between the illustrations and what is left unsaid on the page.

Julie Larios made a similar point in her lecture on flash fiction. I had never even heard of flash fiction before. Now I’m obsessed with trying some. Julie compared the difference between a novel and flash fiction to the difference between seeing an image reflected in a mirror and seeing a piece of an image reflected in a shard of mirror. Flash fiction shows us a sliver of a life, a moment, by which the rest can be deduced. Again, what is unsaid takes on tremendous significance. It requires more of the reader, to create a world from a single scrap.

There were lectures, readings, a story slam, and more–but the best thing about the ten-day residency at VCFA is being part of a community who cares as much about reading and writing as I do. These people seem to understand the whole of me based on the single scrap they see in ten days. It’s like a life in flash fiction.

The question I am asked most—that every writer is asked most—is “Where do your ideas come from?” I have tried to answer this question before here. But, for some reason, when I received this question in my E-mailbox last week, I started to think about it again. It’s a frustrating question, not because it is a bad one, or an obvious one, but because it is such an essential one, and I’m not even sure that I know the answer.

I wish that I could tell you that they come when I’m relaxed, or when I’m happy, or when I’m concentrating hard, but the truth is that they often come at the most inconvenient times—when I’m driving, or showering, or cooking. In her fabulous TED talk about inspiration, Elizabeth Gilbert tells a wonderful story about Lou Reed. I’m paraphrasing, but one day, while he was driving along, Lou Reed caught a piece of a beautiful melody. He desperately wanted to hold onto it, and was furious that it had come to him at such a lousy moment. So he told it, “Can’t you see I’m driving? Go bother Leonard Cohen.” In ancient Greece, Archimedes struggled with the problem of how to be sure whether or not a crown was made of solid gold without melting or altering it. He realized the answer while stepping in the bathtub, and ran through the streets shouting, “Eureka!” People say that stepping into the bath gave him the idea of buoyancy as it relates to volume. But millions of people have stepped into millions of baths before and since, and only Archimedes thought of the solution to the problem of determining volume. So—where did that idea really come from? Where did Lou Reed’s idea come from?

I don’t know for sure. I know only that the world is speaking to us. We are surrounded by ideas and solutions—we have only to think of them. We must also be ready for them. When Lou Reed was not ready to hear the melody, he had to let it go. But a musician is always listening to the world—he trusted that a new melody would appear. Archimedes was searching for the answer to a problem, and when the world showed him something, his mind was ready to see the meaning. Writers need to have questions, the willingness to hear the answers, and faith that the ideas are out there. They will come to you.

Just hopefully not while you’re driving.

I got an interesting letter in the mailbag this week. The author asked me how many books I planned to write. She wanted to know if I had a goal in mind. I thought this was a pretty interesting question—it was one I’d never really considered before. But I knew the answer right away: One.

I just want to write one good book. One book that is the absolute best I can do. It does not have to be the best book ever written. It does not have to be a best seller. But I want to write a book that reflects my best possible effort.

Every book I write is a learning experience. Sometimes I learn something new. Sometimes I relearn something that I knew before, but had forgotten. But each book prepares me for the next one. So I’m always writing one more, hoping it will be the best I can do. But then I learn something…and so I must write another.

So the answer is no. I don’t really have a number in mind. I will keep writing as long as I keep learning, and as long as I have something to say. We’ll see what the final tally is. But one really good one would be enough for me.

Several years ago, I went to hear a panel of illustrators at the Eric Carle museum. Whoever organized it clearly did not have much experience with panels, because this had something like nineteen amazing illustrators crowded onto a single stage, among them, icons like Brian Selznick and Barry Moser.

After a few questions, a woman in the audience stood up and asked the panel what their Plan B was. Nineteen illustrators stared at the questioner blankly. Silence filled the room. Finally, one of the artists said, “Uh—could you rephrase the question?” The woman asked something like, “If you weren’t artists, you know—what would you do instead?”

More silence. The illustrators looked at each other, with giant “Yo no comprendo,” question marks over their heads. To the audience, the question was a rather straightforward one: “How would you feed yourself if no one wanted to buy your art?” But for the artists, it was as if this woman were asking a flock of birds, “If you weren’t a bird, what would you be?” How could a bunch of birds be anything but birds? How could the artists ever be anything but artists?

Finally, one of them seemed to manage a tentative translation. “You mean—how would I make money?” Yes, the woman said. One or two of the artists said something about teaching. But, for most of them, it was clear that there really wasn’t a Plan B. Success was Plan B, as well as Plan A.

I often say that the people I have seen have success as writers are the people who keep working. If you really commit to something, you can’t help but develop skills and get better. In Mindset, Carol Dweck writes that intelligence, and even artistic ability, are not fixed. The harder you work to improve, the more intelligent or artistic you become. This isn’t opinion. This is scientific fact. Malcolm Gladwell makes a similar point in his book, Outliers. The people who succeed are generally the ones who have devoted the most time to their profession. (Both books cite the example of Mozart. We think of him as a young genius, but by the age of 28, he had played so much piano and composed so much music that his hands were hideously deformed.) Does this work in all cases? No, of course not. There are some artists who toil in obscurity and never make a living from art. But being an artist is separate from making a living. These people would make art no matter what. And that kind of commitment usually leads to success.