My series of workshops come with the suitably ridiculous title, The Imaginarium of Dr. Weston, which I’m certain will compete favourably with a certain similar-sounding and ill-fated movie from recent memory. Here’s the description from the TPL website:

“Award-winning author Robert Paul Weston will get your creative juices flowing, and improve your writing. He will introduce you to creativity games and writer’s block-busters, and uncover the secrets of writing. Space is limited. Please register at the branch or call 416-395-5630. For children 9 and up.”

Ben Franklin, in quiet repose

These days, for my work, I rent a cubicle in a shared office space catering to writers and academics. Admittedly, the place is an almost windowless, Orwellian range of anonymous grey cubicles called “The Quiet Room.” Step over the threshold and silence isn’t merely a virtue; it’s the law. I’ve tried working in my apartment; in cafes (ugh); in library carrels; I’ve tried taking my notebook to the park; but nothing compares to the intense productivity that comes with rigorously enforced silence.

The more I work in The Quiet Room, the more I’m convinced that the best things in life are produced this way. Even writers who prefer music in the background while they work (not me), surely don’t write while speaking themselves, meaning that although the music is playing, the writers themselves are silent.

Now if that’s true, then a possible corollary crops up: If creation requires a form a silence, then while you’re talking, you aren’t creating something truly great / new / inspired / challenging / et cetera. This might be good advice for the more loquacious among us—myself included.

As far as I can tell, it was Ben Franklin who is most famous for calling silence a virtue, which he did in his famous autobiography. In his world, there were thirteen virtues in all, among them Order, Resolution, Cleanliness, and Tranquility. Silence made it to number two on his list, second only to Temperance (such were the times). Franklin described the virtue like this: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Sounds like he would’ve got along with the Trappists.

I don’t know for certain if my mom was cribbing from Ben Franklin, but thirty or so years on, I’ve come to agree with her. At least when it comes to getting things done, silence really is a virtue.

Recently, however, a couple things were brought to my attention that, if not entirely refuting the old saying, they at least had me questioning it’s literal meaning.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Well, why not? The outside of a book is colourful, often unique in size, and emblazoned with artwork. Surely there’s tons by which to judge.

What were the couple things I mentioned? The first was this Joy of Books video, produced at Type Books, here in Toronto (and which by now everyone and their dog’s fleas have seen):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8[/youtube]
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Kinda speaks for itself. And far more eloquently than this post.

The second thing that had me thinking about book covers was this post by a blogger called That Cover Girl. She did an interview with Hugh D’Andrade about his design work for the softcover of Dust City.

It’s obvious That Cover Girl and her readers care deeply about how books look. And why not? To so many people—notably the 2 million plus who’ve watched the above video—books are things of beauty.

Indeed!

We’ll cover everything from picture books to so-called “YA crossover” novels, looking at characterization, narrative structure, suspense and more—in both a general sense, as it relates to all fiction, as well as what makes writing for youth unique. We’ll also examine what makes a successful children’s book, delve into non-fiction, the publishing world, and look at the process of writing graphic novels.

The course will be held Tuesday afternoons from 1-3pm on the main campus of U of T. If you’d like to enroll, you can do so here (NOTE: my section is course code 1717-014).

Eric Anderson, a professor at the University of Winchester and the interviewee for the programme, recently published a paper called “I Kiss Them Because I Love Them”, about the increasing tendency for young, heterosexual men to kiss one another on the lips. And yes, you read that right. Heterosexual. Straight guys kissing—y’know, just cuz it’s the friendly thing to do.

Admittedly, Anderson’s study is a narrow one. He only interviewed 145 respondents, and mostly athletes; but 129 of them—all young, straight men—said they had kissed a boy at least once, often as a show of congratulations on the sports field. ‘‘It’s just part of sport now, isn’t it?’’ said one respondent, while another claimed, “Loads of guys kiss on the lips after scoring a goal; you’ll see it on TV, too.’’

Also interesting was Anderson’s reaction to his own work. On the radio, he described himself as coming of age in the 1980s, a time when he never would have dreamed of seeing this sort of behaviour (two guys kissing as a from of friendship or congratulations). The reason for this is that the trend has only surfaced in the past 5 or 6 years, meaning it would be probably be unheard of to anyone currently over the age of twenty-five, and that’s the whole point, really.

I wanted to blog about this not only because I found the results surprising, but also because of what it means to someone like myself and many of my peers, namely adults who write books for youth. Anderson’s study highlights how easy it is to fall out of step with the people you’re writing about.

Even still, I’m not sure it’s a trend the publishing industry will embrace all that quickly. Any bets on how long it’ll be before we see a YA book featuring two young football players who share a smooch after the game-winning touchdown? I’m thinking it may be a while.

Besides, I’m sure it’s occurred to people that if you’re reading this it means every prediction for an apocalypse before now (or…now, or now) has been wrong. That’s a one-hundred percent failure rate. Pretty crap, if you asked me. No reason the Mayans are any different.

Speaking of being crap at predicting the future, the biggest computers in the world can’t tell me the weather more than a couple days in advance. But the entire earth exploding / imploding / melting 2000 years in advance? That’s just silly.

Yay, 2012! Have a good one.

The idea was that after each round of questions, for a few bucks a pop, the competing teams had the chance to buy the answers they didn’t know. Hence: cheating…but for a good cause.

At the start of the evening (after I’d already had a couple pints) one of the organizers called me over, handed me the microphone and said, “talk for a couple minutes, then we’ll have a break, then we’ll start the quiz.” Talk for a couple minutes. Not really difficult, but I hadn’t prepared anything in particular. As sometimes happens, however, when your inhibitions are dampened by a bit of tipsiness, your brain works even better than usual. Sometimes, at least. It’s a fine line.

When I finished my spiel, Kim Beatty, who founded the Book Bank, was standing up front. She asked me, “Could I get you to write down what you just said?” At the time, I declined—I was running a quiz, after all—but now, for Kim’s benefit and for anyone else who cares, here’s a rough approximation of what I said:

I hear a lot about something called “The Silver Bullet Book.” By that I mean a single book that you can give to a kid and it’ll instantly make that kid a reader. Or, if there’s not one single book for everyone, then maybe if you just get to know a young person, you’ll be able to select just the right book for that child and presto—they’re hooked on books.

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a Silver Bullet Book. Although I may like to think the ultimate Silver Bullet Book is my one, it’s not. Tons of kids hate my book! In short, the Silver Bullet Book does not exist.

All of that said, however, I do think that putting a book in a kid’s hands for the first time, giving a kid the pleasure of owning a book of their very own, a kid who’s never even held a book before—well, I think that’s as close as anybody’s ever going to get to shooting a silver bullet.

“We would like to see if a few of you could be voice recorded,” she wrote in an email, “for a commercial” to be played on an Ottawa radio station. I agreed, of course. (How often do you get to make a radio ad?)

A few days later, I drove up to a grey, anonymous, commercial park in the northern netherburbs of Toronto. There I met some of the folks at Sky Words, a recording studio that specializes in “aerial advertising.”

I learned that while they often record audio ads like the one I was about to make, their true specialty is traffic reports, which they provide to a host of different radio stations across the country. (Who knew you could run a news-gathering service almost exclusively reporting on traffic jams? It’s surely proof that car-culture in Canada is alive and revving.)

Before I started recording, Lisa, the program director, offered this small insight into how radio is made. “Speak with a smile on your face,” she told me. “It will make you sound livelier and more friendly.”

I’m not sure if you can hear how I was grinning like a fool (at least at the beginning), but if you’d like a listen, here’s how the ad turned out:

Also in attendance were Cynthia Kadohota, whose book Cracker won in the middle school category, and fellow Canadian, Yvonne Prinz, whose book Vinyl Princess won the John and Patricia Beatty Award. It was great to meet them both, and each gave rousing acceptance speeches—especially Cynthia, who brought many of us to tears with the story of one of the dogs that inspired her book.

Yvonne Prinz also happens to run the famous Amoeba Records in L.A. with her husband. Earlier that same day, I had stopped into the store, been duly impressed, and yet had no idea I’d later meet the proprietor. Small world.

For me, one highlight of the night was the centrepiece at our table—a Zorgamazoo tinker toy sculpture! Here’s a pic, snapped while I was delivering my acceptance speech:

Zorgamazoo: The Mobile (featuring the chemical symbol for "Enchantium Gas" up top—cute).

Huge thanks to Lia Ladas, Myleen DeJesus, Brenna (the young girl who wrote and delivered my introduction), the California Library Association, and everyone involved in the awards. Finally, my biggest thanks of all goes to the book lovers and avid readers of California—who voted for Zorgamazoo!

Here’s the full list of the winners in each category:

This was my second trip since living there circa 2003, and I was reminded of the many things that make the country such a great place. Here’s a couple that stand out.

1. The biggest hobby shop in the world (it must be)

I don’t know for certain if the above statement is true, but the flagship store of Tokyu Hands (in Shibuya, Tokyo) is eye-poppingly large. I generally think of a decent craft supply or hobby shop as having one, maybe two floors (if you’re lucky).

Tokyu Hands in Shibuya has not 2; not 5; not 10; but twenty-four floors of hobby and craft supplies (housed in a triangle of three linked buildings, eight floors each). Not only does it boast its own wood, leather and bicycle workshops, but there’s a whole floor entirely devoted to “Science Lab Supplies.” Check out the floor plan:

3 x 8 floors of eye-popping goodness.

2. A zillion different Kit-Kats (or maybe less than a zillion, but still a lot)

If I were pressed, I would have to say my favourite thing about Japan is probably the food. The country has incredibly diverse regional cuisines. Nowhere is this more evident than in all the Kit-Kats.

I used to think there was one basic kind of Kit-Kat: the lowly chocolate. In a pinch, I might hope to find the comparatively uninspired “white-chocolate” or “dark-chocolate” versions. Not so in Japan.

At any given moment there’s at least twelve different flavours available, sometimes as many as twenty. These are limited edition confections that change from season to season and town to town. Green tea, cinnamon, corn-on-the-cob, toasted red-bean sandwich, pear, cherry blossom, salted watermelon, wine, lemon cheesecake—all totally legit and surprisingly delish—among many others. Here’s a few I brought back for sharing:

Clockwise from top: Toasted red-bean sandwich, yubari melon, strawberry, zunda (green soybean), cherry blossom.

If you’re interested, Nestle maintains an online museum of the top flavours they’ve produced since the mid-1990s. You can access it here.