Ask the Author: Annette LeBox
Answered Questions (6)
Annette LeBox
My husband will tell you that I just switch genres from fiction to poetry. I was three-quarters through a YA novel about street kids on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and I didn't know how to end it. So I applied for The Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University to jump start my return to poetry.
I've spent the last wonderful year writing poetry, a manuscript I'm hoping to get published. All the while my unfinished novel is hanging over my head, taunting me. Well, maybe that's not the best way to deal with, writer's block but I'm not longer so invested in my novel that maybe I can relax enough about it to return to it with a more objective and less perfectionist eye.
I've spent the last wonderful year writing poetry, a manuscript I'm hoping to get published. All the while my unfinished novel is hanging over my head, taunting me. Well, maybe that's not the best way to deal with, writer's block but I'm not longer so invested in my novel that maybe I can relax enough about it to return to it with a more objective and less perfectionist eye.
Annette LeBox
The pleasure of creating work that you know will make a reader feel, either joy or sadness or a feeling of being understood. There's a high when you've been able to craft a set of words in just the right way so you hit a high note. I like to move my readers. Readers have confessed to me that they've cried at one of my stories and I know just the part they're talking about because I was tearing up as I wrote it.
Annette LeBox
Write everyday (though I confess I am not able to do this on a regular basis). Let your first draft sit, then revise it. Let it sit some more then revise again. It is seldom, if ever, that a great piece of writing comes from a first draft. Read widely. You can't be a good writer unless you're a reader. Write in a journal. Free write without stopping. Keep writing, even in the face of rejection and discouragement.
Annette LeBox
I'm currently working on a poetry manuscript. Poetry has always been the genre closest to my heart. The working title is A Kiss is an Opening Act.
Annette LeBox
I get inspired to write from my life experiences. As a conservationist, I wrote Wild Bog Tea in an effort to save Blaney Bog. I wrote Salmon Creek as I worked on the conservation of Codd Wetlands. Pen as sword, I speak to the world.
Annette LeBox
Shortly after 9/11, as I watched as the World Trade Centre crumbled, I sat at my computer weeping. I knew the world would be changed forever and there would be war. I wrote Peace is an Offering in a white heat, one of those gifts that seldom come so quickly and powerfully. It was a kind of lullaby to say that 'even in the midst of tragedy, you can find .. peace.'
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