Wednesday, April 22, 2009

earth day

April 22nd is my third son's birthday (happy birthday, Dave), but it is also earth day. Today I had an especially good earth day. To begin with, it was the Wednesday that I spend the morning with the grade 5 girls at the UBC farm. We weeded, planted, transplanted, seeded, watered, etc. What better way to start earth day? But it didn't end then. My farm friend partner, Charlotte, offered to give me some plants. So I drove her home, and we put together a few pots of this and that for me to take home. She gave me strawberry plants, winter jasmine, thyme, oregano, chives, lemon balm, and michaelmas daisies. She also gave me a yogurt tub full of red wiggler worms for me to start a compost box. I won the box several years ago, and used it for a few years, but eventually the worms died and nothing was happening. So, today, Frank found the box under the back porch and cleaned it out for me, and I put in a layer of strips of newsprint and potting soil and dumped in the worms. I moistened the soil a little, and now I just hope things will cook there as I add vegetable peels and eggs shells and coffee grounds. On the way home from Charlotte's, I stopped at David Hunter's Garden Centre and bought potting soil, garden gloves and a planter. By 5:30 pm, everything was planted, with Ken's help. Ken cleaned up the front garden and the "laundry tub" planters, and now the place is beginning to look like someone lives here, and cares about the place. Yup! That's what I call a good earth day.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

5th of 5 hard questions

Now we come to the challenge: "How will you make sure that your work grabs and keeps your readers' attention every bit as well as your own favourites capture you?" I'm sure I never deliberately write boring pages, but I'm equally sure that sometimes what I find important or fascinating might not seem so to others. This is why critique groups are so useful. Constructive criticism is priceless. As writers, we have to have tough skins in order to listen to hard truths about our precious words. And we need the tenacity to stay with the task of producing worthwhile stories, so we don't waste our readers' time nor try their patience. If we can't do that, then what use is our work?

4th of 5 hard questions

This is more about us as writers/readers: What compels us to write fiction/memoir/poetry? I am not sure I can answer that. I write all sorts of things, mainly because I find that I like to put my thoughts down on paper. (Yes, paper. I prefer to write in notebooks, and only type onto the computer what I want to submit for others to read--such as this blog--but mainly to print it out or send it out for publication.) I write fiction if I feel that I have a story to tell. I write memoirs only for my own reading or for family. The title of my memoirs is If Anyone Should Ask. I write that only when I need to get past a dead zone in my writing. I don't believe in "writer's block" but sometimes writing is harder than other times. Poetry: I rarely write poetry. I don't think I ever feel compelled to write that.

3rd of 5 hard questions

The third question asks what makes us come back to our favourite genres. With the books I've used as examples, it's the character. We care about Harry Potter and about William, (odd--I just noticed that these names are the same as the two princes--coincidence!). In my favourite adult books, the Anne Perry mysteries, I care about the detective, Monk. The same goes for other mysteries, which seem to run in series rather than stand-alone books. My three favourite types of books (genres?) are 1. children's books, especially middle-grade fiction. Harry Potter is the only fantasy that I like. Normally, I prefer historical middle-grade. 2. adult mysteries, especially Anne Perry and Dick Francis. 3. history, especially biographies. So, why do I keep returning to these genres? I love kids' books because they are usually better written than adult fiction. Adults put up with long boring sections (we just skip over them, right?). Kids toss the books aside at the first long-winded passage because they can't guess how long the nonsense will carry on. I enjoy mysteries, because they demand that I pay attention to every word. If I don't, I could miss a valuable clue. So, in both these cases, I guess that the rule is not to waste words! As for history and biographies, I just like to know how things used to be and how people lived in by-gone days.

2nd of 5 hard questions

The second is harder than the first. It asks us to examine the books written by our favourite authors and select techniques ("what do they do") that grabs attention and keeps us turning pages. This is not something that I can answer off the top of my head. One thing that springs to mind is that the author makes me care about the main character. Maybe, as with Harry Potter, he's unfairly treated by people who should care for him. With my favourite character, Richmal Crompton's William, he just gets into trouble because he misunderstands the adult world, or is put upon by his elders, and he responds as an eleven-year-old boy would. Another important technique is to build a mystery. The reader has to care not only for the character, but also care about what will happen next. Then these questions have to be answered with just enough held back to keep the reader coming back for more. With Harry Potter, we need to know how he'll survive the threat to his life by the evil Valdemort (spelling?). And, how will all the magic of the world of Hogwarts come into play? With William, the stories are quite short, so it's just how he will get through the problem of the day.

5 hard questions

One of the lists I subscribe to is Writers Online Workshops.com. It's interesting, but last year I made a mistake and signed on for a course, and paid for it, only to find the course had already started and I would be unable to catch up (while traveling). I immediately sent them a message that I wanted out, but nothing happened. So, I'm quite leery about signing on for any more courses from them. I have no reason to believe that they aren't legitimate, but I'm not happy with their lack of response (and lack of refund).
Anyway, the title of this post is "5 hard questions". It comes from a short article that appeared on their site today, "5 Hard Questions You Must Answer to Succeed". I agree they are hard, but important, so I'll try them out here. First, "Who are your favourite authors and why?" That's not too hard, but my list is quite long and changes as years go by. Of course, I love JK Rowling. I also enjoy Eric Walters. My favourite all-time author is Richmal Crompton, who wrote "William" books for her nephew over 50 years ago. In fact, they're set mostly in the 1920s, I think. I remember being grateful to her when I lived in London, England, 1949-52, in terrible conditions.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

At last!

Last night I had 2 hours sleep. It took all day yesterday to finish writing that novel that was supposed to be done "by Easter". But, I worked on it as much as possible during Holy Week and Easter Weekend, then yesterday I just stayed up until it was not only finished but printed out ready to send to the publisher. Then today, after kindergarten, I just had to sleep for an hour or two, thereby being too late to get to the post office. So it won't actually get into the mail until tomorrow afternoon, when we're in Penticton. But it is done. Hallelujah! Now, just praying that the editors at TouchWood will like it enough to actually publish it!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

April catch-up

I've been keeping busy trying to complete the rewrite of Angels in the Flames. There's a lot of new material for a rewrite. It's a total make-over with many additions. I have two more chapters to get down and revised and re-edited before I can resubmit the novel to TouchWood. I still hope to get it off to the publishers by Easter, but time's a flittin' and I will have to work many hours to get it done. This morning I was at kindergarten and tomorrow morning I will be at the UBC Farm with the grade five children. Tomorrow evening is the service of Tenebrae at St. James, but it's quite late so we might not go. Thursday morning we won't go to Mass, because we'll be at the evening Maundy Thursday service followed by our vigil. Then there's the long service on Good Friday, beginning with Stations of the Cross at 11am, and the venerations will last until about 3pm. The next day is Holy Saturday and we'll go to the Vigil Mass, and then it's Easter. For me to finish that novel by then .... Well, it won't be easy. Can I do it? We'll see, but if I were a gambler I wouldn't bet on it. I can but try.