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WHALE IN A FISHBOWL : paisley patterns

1/24/2018

This is the second from a pail full of odds and ends I’ll be blogging about that involves the creation of Whale in a Fishbowl.

When I first set out to write the story, I knew I wanted to put a whale in an impossible situation. That was the premise. Because, in reality, this is the fate of many creatures. Just as with many humans, who are living — and dying — in impossible situations, whether physically or psychologically. Personification can show us much about ourselves.

In my early version, I pictured a whale covered with a paisley pattern. It was confined to an aquarium in a crate on wheels that traveled the world, entertaining all who saw it.

Here are my first lines:

Patrick was unlike any whale you’ve seen. (If you’ve seen one, that is.)
He wasn’t white. He wasn’t black. He was paisley-patterned.

People who saw him said, “Look! He’s unlike any whale we’ve seen!”

When a tiny girl comes up to him, she’s so small he’s reminded of something far back in his memory — seahorses. She tells him, “You belong in the ocean.” “But I’m paisley-patterned,” he contends. “I’m unlike any whale you’ve seen.” “I don’t care if you’re pink!” says the girl. “Or purple or polka-dot! You’re still a whale, and whales belong in the ocean!” The longer he thinks about this, the more he wastes away, and the more he wastes away, the more his patterns fade. Soon, he looks like an ordinary whale.

Of course, every whale, just like every creature or fellow human, is unique. I don’t believe there’s “ordinary” in the world of the living. But I decided to strip the story down to essentials, and this was too complex for what I wanted to do.

I moved to a similarly extreme yet familiarly plausible situation: a whale in a monumental fishbowl, in the middle of civilized chaos.

But the paisley pattern was stubborn. Now it appeared on a little girl’s dress. Why? One of my beta readers suggested her outfit be a sailor’s suit. It made sense to have something with an aquatic theme, but it simply did not feel right.

Piper (and Digger) by Richard Jones.

It occurred to me only a couple of months ago, long after I’d completed the tale and Richard Jones did the art : the paisley is the shape of a whale. Besides the empathetic connection between the girl and this captive creature, there’s a visual one, reinforcing her identity and compassion. It's also the shape of a teardrop.

Some aspects of the creative process are mysteries and can remain so for a long time. Some you may never understand. That is part of its magic. Part of the magic, too, with this picture book in particular, is how the illustrator's sensitivities responded to the text, and put the paisley patterns on a blue background. Perfect. Thanks, Richard.

Starred reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, Publisher's Weekly, and Bulletin. Release date is May 22.
You can order the book on Amazon here.

next up: WHALE IN A FISHBOWL : Piper and Digger / last time: WHALE IN A FISHBOWL : "Bloom"

Art © 2018 by Richard Jones.

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More twenty-first-century Andersen

1/1/2018

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Once again, I have pulled out a nineteenth-century Hans Christian Andersen tale and dusted it off for our twenty-first. Perhaps a tad scruffy or trite on the face of it, this little story, using simple domestic mundanity, has nevertheless an unsettling relevance to current events. Human nature is typically averse to change, whether in the mid-1800s or now.

Select the PDF below to print out a version of the story designed to be folded into the shape of a collar, wherein our poor man, as you will see, is caught — while his unsaintly halo goes missing.

Wishing you peace and fulfillment in 2018 and freedom from whatever it may be that encloses and encumbers.

THE COLLAR

Some collars are single and attach themselves to shirts — formal dress shirts — and make the rounds in weddings. Bachelors make the rounds too, and if they don’t find an attachment, feel their time running out.

There lived such a bachelor who owned such a collar, along with his mothballed tuxedo. Besides a shoehorn, a comb, and a few common possessions, he had little to his name. The shoehorn worked his feet into his shoes, the comb kept his thinning hair in place, and as to his name, desperation didn’t help that. Women couldn’t stand him.

But this story’s about his collar, which was as old and worn as he. The collar too, longed for love. Though it bumped into the comb now and then, it felt no attraction, for the comb was missing some teeth.

On a day before a wedding, the collar was whisked off to the cleaners, where it met a woman’s garter. “Hello, gorgeous!” said the collar, but the garter ignored it. The collar closed in, whispering, “You have secrets — I can tell.” The garter went from pink to red. “But I won’t tell, if you’ll hook up with me.” “How dare you!” said the garter, and tried to tumble free. “You’re my type,” said the collar. “Useful and sexy.” “Keep your distance, you creep.” “I’m a saint,” declared the collar. Which wasn’t true of course, no matter how good it sounded. As the garter slipped away, the collar huffed, “Feminist!”

Next came the dryer, then the starch, then the iron. “Ooo!” cried the collar to the iron. “You’re so hot!” “Shhh!” sizzled the iron, and flattened the collar out. But the collar persisted. “You warm my heart! I lay down my life for you!” “You’re a wretch,” said the iron. Which was true of course, because the collar, despite being washed and ironed, had not improved one bit. In fact, it was so worse for wear that the scissors stepped in to snip away its frayed edges. “What lovely legs!” crooned the collar. “You must be a showgirl.” Snip, snip, snip went the scissors. “I love how you tiptoe around me,” continued the collar. “You’d make a perfect wife.” “Wife!” said the scissors, and cut the collar deep. The collar gasped, “I’m undone! I should have gone for the comb. In spite of her missing teeth, at least she had a few hairs.”

It would not see the comb again. It was tossed into the rag bin and sent off to a repurpose facility, where fabrics were sorted by content — natural fibers, blends, synthetics. Some of the rags were bold, but the collar was the boldest of them. “You should have seen how they swooned over me! Yet I stood up to them all. No one was dating material. There was the pretty garter, but she clung too tight. There was the iron, who burned with desire for me, but she was too hotheaded. The scissors danced and danced, but made cutting remarks. See all the damage she did?”

Had the collar known its end was near, that it would pass through rollers to be pressed into paper, that its tale would appear thereon, it might have buttoned its lip. This is the paper, and this is the tale.

The forlorn bachelor — what became of him? He went to the wedding, collarless, and went home alone again. These days, he spends much of his time with reading, and may come across this account, and may even see himself in it. It may even do him some good. Though it’s highly unlikely, since he and his collar were cut from the very same cloth.

That is one thing, and here is another: We’re all headed for the rag bin and the rollers, where the truths of our lives will be told.