Category Archives: About Writing

This writing prompt is for the birds

Leave a Reply

The last few weeks of winter have been hard. The snow piles that became ice piles finally begin to melt. A relief. But with the melt comes the revelation of how much garbage is on the ground. So many coffee lids, cigarette butts, fast food wrappers, bits of blue plastic twine, (why is there so much blue plastic twine and where does it come from?) a rubber glove, a ruined pink toque now dark with grime.

The birds are back, and that is something. They fly in and out of the Bulk Barn sign, nesting in the curve of the “u” and the “a”. Then I see a sparrow flit to the sidewalk, pick up some blue plastic twine and take it to the nest.

This bird is making its nest with garbage.

Is this awful or not? I can’t decide, but the image sticks. It is a metaphor for everything. I can make it optimistic or pessimistic or both simultaneously.

Use it. Write.

 

 

 

Snow Day!

1 Reply

Is there anything better than a snow day? Is there any better story prompt than SNOW DAY! I don’t think so.

Go outside. Stand in the cold. Kick your feet through the snow. Is it powdery? Sticky? Does it squeak underfoot? Let the cold get to you. Let your nose turn red and start to run. Remember sledding, that time you just missed that tree, or that time you fell off and the sled went into the river and you stopped just short, scrabbling at the snow going by with frozen hands inside of gloves so big they might as well have been oven mitts. How does it feel? Remember the feel of snow in the gap between your pants, socks and boots, how snow could build up in there and give you a rash on the back of your legs. What is happening to your fingertips? Is snow getting inside your collar? Shovel a bit. How heavy is the snow?

What are the animals doing? Where do the squirrels go when it snows? Where are the birds? How does it sound out there? Is snow falling from tree branches? Has it piled up high on the fences? Is it blowing from roofs? Is it drifting? Are there other people around? Describe how they are bundled up. Can you see their eyes? Are they squinting against the snow and wind? What are they thinking?

When you get inside again, read that Jack London classic, “To Build a Fire.” Not many people will ever experience something like that. But plenty among us are homeless, struggling to survive in the city, sheltering wherever possible, trying to stay alive. What’s the conflict in a story like that? Human against nature, certainly. But isn’t it also human against capitalism? Neoliberalism? Pull-yrself-up-by-yr-bootstrapism? Recently in Toronto, a woman died because she was trapped in a clothing donation bin. She was looking for dry clothes.

Or, stay sheltered with pen and paper in hand. What do you see from your vantage point? How does the warmth feel? Do you feel gratitude to have your shelter? Are you annoyed that your are stuck and that the roads are too bad to drive on and the buses are trapped on icy hills? If you stay home from work, do you lose a day of pay? Is there somewhere else you need to be? Are you anxious? Is it terrible to feel the loss of control?

Or does it fill you with joy and wonder? Snow. Snow day!

Think about all of it. Think about whatever this makes you think about. And write.

 

 

Submissions Continued: It’s a process

1 Reply

It’s public accountability time. I said I would get 10 submissions done by January 15 and I’ve done three. I forgot. It’s a process. A time-consuming, angsty process.

I know I have one day left, but tomorrow is not a day I’m going to get any submissions done, so I admit defeat.

BUT–here is what I did accomplish. I created a plan for myself. I researched every possible Canadian publisher who is accepting unsolicited submissions and found all their requirements and figured out where my book fits. This meant studying back lists. It’s a process. The Writers’ Union of Canada has a helpful directory, (cost 10$), but beware: it is already out of date. Everything needs to be cross checked with the publisher websites and some publishers who were accepting unsolicited submissions have stopped. (Hello Anvil Press). Then I tiered my submissions from first choice to last. And so, a submissions strategy was born.

Next, I created my “Master Query Document,” which includes everything I might use in any query, from my bio to a marketing plan, (this means that I also created or spiffed up all of these things, including a marketing plan). I finally have a synopsis that actually works. It goes without saying that I already have a book, but maybe it does not go without saying, so I will say it.

I have a lot of *feelings* about being asked to create a marketing plan. I get it, but honestly, anyone who can guess what is happening in publishing must have a crystal ball at this point. I think what publishers really want to know is: will I work hard to sell this book? The answer is yes.

And then there were other very practical matters. I figured out what happened to my long dormant Submittable Account, went to the office supply store and got paper and envelopes. Some publishers still want a hard copy, and I have to say, I appreciate that. I think a physical stack of paper is somehow more insistent and harder to ignore.

And I have sent in my first three submissions, one via email, one hard copy and one via Submittable. Yay me.

I’ll finish the next seven by the end of this week. I’ll be two days over the deadline, but what’s two days in the lifespan of creating this novel? Barely a dot of an i at this point. And it’s not like anyone is waiting to see it. And isn’t this the crux of the problem? Who cares about this besides me? Maybe you. Thanks for reading, and for giving me a sense of a deadline, even if I did make it myself, and even if I did blow it.

 

 

Submissions

2 Replies

It’s been so long since I have posted on my site that I forgot how to get into it. Obviously, I solved that problem. Now for the rest.

Recovering from my concussion has been a long, terrible process that I don’t want to talk about. Now, I have to reclaim my life as a writer. Will I be able to? I’m not sure.

You may recall that when my regular programming was interrupted, I was part way through a novel. More than part way. Almost finished. That was April 2016, a very long time ago now. I’ve tried to keep at it. What would have been done in about two months prior to my concussion has taken me two years instead. And honestly, there is something in the voice that is altered. I can’t put my finger on it. If I could, I would fix it. As a very wise writer I know advised, I have done the best job I can do as the writer I am today.

I came to the point where I needed feedback. I invited readers into the world I have lived in, mostly alone, for ten years. Oh, what a relief! Finally, I could talk about my characters with other people, real people. It was like I was introducing my friends to a secret group of friends from another part of my life. My worlds collided and it was glorious. And the things they said about my characters! It was a delight to get all of this reaction, to know that my intention was carried through my words. Lovely news for any writer. To everyone who did me the honour of reading my book, I thank you.

I know the fundamentals of the book are solid. I have had lots of encouragement. I was told again and again it is ready to submit.

The word “submission” is not one I like to have to close to me. To submit is to put my fate entirely in the hands of another. Or is it? It is to put my book in the hands of another. It is not me. My success is sealed. In spite of everything, I finished. I feel good about that. I will always feel good about that.

I started submitting to agents, not because I think I’m so fancy that I need an agent, but because my concentration is still pretty limited and I would love for someone else to do the business end of this work and to keep track of the things that are still awfully hard for me to track. But it seems it is not to be. I will have to do this myself, like most writers do, at least most of the writers I know. But you can’t blame a gal for trying. Nevertheless, thanks to all the agents who have read it, especially those who offered feedback and encouragement. Who knows? One might still get back to me with a positive response.

But I am moving on to publishers now. I will use this space as a place where I describe this terrifying process, so replete with rejection and self-doubt. Follow along, if you like. The working title of my novel is “Patterson House,” a perfectly respectable title, although honestly, I always wanted to call it “Constance,” after one of the two main characters. I still might.

As a form of public accountability, I vow to have this MS sent to ten publishers by January 15. That’s an awfully generous time-frame, you might say, but it’s the holiday season and whatnot. I don’t want to over-promise. I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

 

 

Anne Fadiman and Confessions of a Common Reader

Leave a Reply

As part of my ongoing concussion recovery, I’m teaching myself to read again, an activity that I always found so joyful before and now find so daunting. I am generally re-reading. It’s easier, what with my memory the way it is now. Anyway, the trivialities of my self-initiated treatment plan aside, what better book to re-read than Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris; Confessions of a Common Reader.  ex libris

In it are eighteen delightful essays about reading, about books, about personal libraries and about words by someone who is, I would say, an entirely un-common reader. Fadiman is the kind of person you see walking on the street devouring a book open in front of her. Her taste for reading was nurtured by her academic parents in a household stuffed to bursting with books. Her own writing is scholarly without being snobbish, a situation ripe for incidental learning. The book is full of factual tidbits so seamlessly incorporated into its text that I come away feeling as though I could hold my own at an English Department dinner party. The tone is friendly and confiding. Her vocabulary is vast and slants Victorian, which, to my mind, is an asset.

My copy of Fadiman’s book is slightly ruined in my own library – a little warped from moisture, a little dog-eared, and not without considerable underlining and marginalia. Her essay, “Never Do That to a Book” issues a solid approval of all of my mishandling of her work. She writes of her childhood in which she used her father’s books as building blocks and how her own children do the same with hers. She writes of people who eat books, literally digesting the words, and her own son’s consumption of the corners of Good Night Moon. It occurs to me that for Fadiman, the rating system for used books employed by on-line purveyors is entirely backwards. A five-star book condition for her would mean a book was stuffed with notations and worn pages and a “like new” book would not interest her at all. Her essay about inscriptions in books has left me changed forever. Never again will I just dash one off.

It is difficult to choose an essay to highlight. I love them all. Like all the best personal essays, each one touches the universal. We are not just reading about reading; we are reading about life and death, marriage and parenting, love and loss. Her description of the process that she and her equally bookish husband undertook to marry their libraries  describes both a marriage and a library for the ages. In a later essay, she explains how, after inheriting part of her father’s library, she kept it in separate book shelves at first and then changed her mind. Integrating his library into hers becomes a testament to how the people we love and lose become indistinguishable parts of our own lives. It is deeply reassuring.

If I had to choose a favourite, “Nothing New Under the Sun” might make the cut. It is a sly investigation into plagiarism that should be read by every teacher and every writer everywhere. The footnotes are screamingly funny. I would love to plagiarize it, but I won’t.

I remember exactly how I came to be in possession of this book. It was a gift from a dear friend, Arlette Zinck, a kindred spirit in reading, and I hope I thanked her appropriately at the time. If not, I do so again.

Lastly, as if these essays weren’t enough, Fadiman’s final pages include recommended reading (of course) – a bibliography of other books about books. It is marvelous.

Give yourself a treat and buy a copy, preferably from a dust-mote filled used bookstore, and curl up under a blanket. Lay it down, open and upside down, on your bedside table, pages splayed and dog-eared.

Fadiman, Anne. Ex Libris. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.

Advice for a New Writer

1 Reply

Today, my physiotherapist told me that she wants to write. She has a story. She has written four pages. Her excitement was fantastic. Palpable. Electric. It made me remember how exciting writing used to be before I had this concussion and it became a struggle. Then she asked me a bunch of questions. Like I’m Stephen King or something.

img_3508

I answered, but I want a “do-over.” I want to give her a better answer than I could give when I was on the spot and having my neck moved around and sort of feeling like a big fake because I’m hardly writing at all now (because of the concussion). I want to give a better answer than the answers I first got when I started to write. I don’t want her to give up for a dozen years like I did. I don’t want her to have to feel around in the dark too much. A little feeling around is necessary, but there’s no need to be afraid and in the dark for too long.

If she had asked me another day, I might have told her to forget about writing and keep living her happy life. But today, I am an optimist, and if there is one thing writers know it is that if you are called to write, that’s the way it is.

To be clear, this is not actually what my physiotherapist wanted. She was asking for resources, for “the rules,” for information about how to share her work and who to share it with and what happens now that she has four pages. She wants to do this thing properly, whatever this thing is and whatever properly is.

It’s a tricky business, this advice giving. I have shelves full of craft books, an MFA and a history of teaching. What I do not have is an enviable publishing record. I’m not prolific. I just do my thing, something that took me years to be okay with. I toil in obscurity, as so many writers do. But I’m the writer she knows, the one that is on her table, the one that, thankfully, she feels safe enough to ask. That trust means a lot to me. I want to give her enough to keep the spark alight, but not so much to blow it out.

So, what did I tell her? First of all, I said, don’t worry about the rules too much. You’re doing the most important thing you can do right now, which is to get the story down. Just get it down. I don’t think I told her to do it fast, before she loses it, but I’ll say that now. Do it fast, before you lose it. Even if parts are in point form. Or in diagrams. Or emoticons. Or stick figures. There’s no time for grammar and corrections and worrying about your quotation marks right now. She is worried about her quotation marks.

When the story is down, you can start to worry about the quotation marks because they do matter. They really do. I told her what every new writer is told. Read Strunk and White, The Elements of Style. Those are the rules, and when you have a story down, you can revise and follow them. What I didn’t tell her is that after you’ve done that, you can break all of those very same rules. I don’t think she’s ready for that yet. Next, I told her the thing no writer wants to hear and every writer needs to hear. I told her that she will write this story many times before it’s done. What I forgot to tell her is that the first time is the most important time (except for the last) and the one that she needs to have done before she can do anything else.

Because she is sporty, I told her that learning to write is no different than learning a sport; you have to be bad before you are good; you have to practice to improve. I told her about writing groups. In my city, Toronto, there are writing groups that meet regularly at the public library. You can also join a drop-in group with the Toronto Writer’s Collective for free.

Then I suggested Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, with a couple of warnings. I told her it was a little too “inspirational” for me, a person who thinks memes like “Live, Laugh, Love” are the ipecac of social media and prefers to use cute sayings painted on wood for kindling rather than home décor. But, I explained, if you can get past that and the talk of God (or as Cameron carefully explains, whatever it is that works for you if you prefer not to involve God in the whole process), it’s a good self-directed course in learning about your own creative process, what nurtures it, what shuts it down and how to avoid the latter.

And now that I’m at my desk and thinking more about it, I want to offer a couple of other books. Most writers I know list Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones among their favourites. I find something new in them every time I read them and I’ve read them so often now they’re like old friends. And, more importantly, both are good reads, even if you’re not a writer.

Two books with more “instruction” and a solid feminist bent are Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer and Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write. Both speak to all of the important questions my physiotherapist will ask soon but hasn’t asked yet. These are next year’s questions, perhaps, but if she keeps writing, they are coming, and maybe having these two little slim and helpful volumes at the ready will help.

Finally, there is one other book I recommend to anyone who is transitioning from being a serious reader to a writer, and that is Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer.

I figure this is a year’s work, so time to stop.

And I have one last piece of advice. Don’t talk about your story. Protect it a bit. Keep it to yourself. Talking about it let’s the magic out, or at least it does for me.

Was there something essential to your early development as a writer that you’d like to tell my physiotherapist about, something that might encourage her? If so, please leave a comment. We would both welcome it.