Category Archives: Writing

The End

The EndToday I typed The End.

I’ve been working on this novel for at least two years. Probably longer.
I should feel elated, but I feel strangely empty instead.
For one thing, I don’t really know if it is The End. I’ll have to reread the story (again!) to see if it has come full circle. Have I reached the place I was aiming for since page one? I don’t know. Is that because I’ve been with this story for so long that I’ve lost perspective? Perhaps.

Or perhaps I feel sad at the prospect of saying goodbye to these characters, who aren’t actually characters to me. They are real people. After all, I have been living with them for a couple of years now. It’s hard to leave old friends, people you’ve been with every day, wrestling with them, finding their flaws, discovering their strengths, observing their growth.

I recently heard a writer friend use the term Premature Submission. It refers to the temptation to send the manuscript to the publisher too soon, before it’s been put aside for a few weeks and then looked at with fresh eyes. This is an important step in the writing process. Problems with a story become much clearer when the writer has stepped away from it for a while. One can hope that the story will begin to age like fine wine, but more likely the writer will see the rough edges, the clutter, themes that are incomplete, connections that weren’t made.

This isn’t really The End at all. It is the beginning of a whole new stage in the writing process.

Weaving Fact With Fiction

Prodigal Summer I’m always inspired by the way Barbara Kingsolver weaves scientific facts into her novels without bogging down the story. A less skilled writer would risk sounding heavy-handed or preachy but she does it masterfully. When I finish reading one of her books I always feel I’ve learned something without having had to slog through a science journal. It probably helps that we share some of the same passions, but still…

The environment and all its creatures are featured in Kingsolver’s novel Prodigal Summer which I’m currently reading. This conversation between a woman and a child explains, very simply, the devastation of clear-cutting a forest.

“You could cut down all these trees and make a pile of money.”
“I could,” Lusa said. “Then I’d have a pile of money and no trees.”
“So? Who needs trees?”
“About nineteen million bugs, for starters. They live in the leaves, under the bark, everywhere. Just close your eyes and point, and you’re pointing at a bug.”
“So? Who needs nineteen million bugs?”
“Nineteen thousand birds that eat them.”
“So? Who needs birds?”
“I do. You do…… not to mention, the rain would run straight down the mountain and take all the topsoil off my fields. The creek would be pure mud. This place would be a dead place.”
Crys shrugged. “Trees grow back.”
“That’s what you think. This forest took hundreds of years to get like this.”
“Like what?”
“Just how it is, a whole complicated thing with parts that all need each other, like a living body. It’s not just trees; it’s different kinds of trees, all different sizes, in the right proportions. Every animal needs its own special plant to live on. And certain plants will only grow next to certain other kinds, did you know that?” Continue reading →

Most Stolen Library Book

dancingnakedA few years ago a couple teacher librarians in Ontario told me that I ‘won the prize’ for being the author with the title most likely to be stolen from their school libraries. That book was Dancing Naked.

Today I was reminded by a school librarian in Nanaimo, BC, that Dancing Naked was the book most often stolen out of her library too.

I don’t condone stealing library books. Absolutely not.

emarrassed chimpThat said, I’m embarrassed to admit how much this little honour pleases me.

Successful Writers Avoid Crazymakers

drama-queen“To become a successful writer you have to do two things. First, you have to toss your TV out the window. Second, you have to marry someone rich.”

These are the words of my first creative writing teacher.

It was good advice, especially the TV part, but I think he could have added one more item to the list. Avoid Crazymakers.

Julie Cameron, in her book, The Artist’s Way, describes Crazymakers as “those personalities that create storm centers. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive. And,” she adds, “for the creative person in their vicinity, they are enormously destructive. You know the type: charismatic but out of control, long on problems and short on solutions.”

In short, they will sabotage your writing time. Continue reading →

Congratulations Butch Batchelor!

Forever TwelveMy first ghost-writing assignment is complete, and the book is published. I am so impressed by Butch Batchelor’s tenacity. It was just over a year ago that he contacted me to ask if I would write the story of his daughter, Taryn, who has autism. During that year there were long periods where we couldn’t meet to work, but he never wavered in his determinations to see this project through.  Following is the forward I wrote for his book.

When Butch first contacted me to ask if I’d be the ghost-writer for Forever Twelve I was touched by his faith in my ability to write it, but I was also reluctant to accept the invitation. I write novels for teens. I throw one problem after another at my characters but still make everything turn out okay in the end. With a memoir I would need to stick to the facts. Would I be able to write Taryn’s story in a way that was compelling enough to make people want to read it? I did not want to disappoint Butch.

But Butch, being Butch, was very persuasive. We met for coffee and immediately I could sense how devoted he was to his family, and how desperately he wanted Taryn’s remarkable story to be recorded. When he told me that she had ‘crashed through all the barriers’, I was hooked. I wanted to hear her story and I wanted to help Butch tell it. Continue reading →

Book Club Blues

book_questionmarkBook Club meets on Sunday. I’m the moderator this month, the one who leads the discussion. I want it to be a lively dialogue, a reflection on the various themes, the research, the eloquent writing. I want to hear how people related to the characters, the relevance the story had   on members’ own lives, the nuggets of Truth that were found on its pages.

There’s only one problem: I hated the selected book. Continue reading →

Another good review of ‘Allegra’!

Thank you Booklist!

Book reviews“Hrdlitschka allows Allegra to tell her own story and her fine ear for teen emotion is well displayed in scenes that reveal Allegra’s social anxiety and panic attacks, her sorrow and disbelief over her parents’ crumbling marriage, and her resistance to unfamiliar feelings of love as handsome, young Mr. Rocchelli begins to fill the emptiness in her life. Allegra turns from dancing to composition as Mr. Rocchelli challenges her to write a full score from a melody he composed, and the metaphor is apt as Allegra runs with the assignment, sinking herself into a new obsession. Teens with a passion for the arts will see themselves in Allegra, whose intensity and flaws make her perfectly relatable.”