Catherine Egan's Blog, page 6
May 20, 2013
Satisfaction / It Was A Dream
Dear Blog,
Sometimes, like the Rolling Stones, I feel as if satisfaction is impossible.
I saw the Rolling Stones in concert seventeen years ago, and they were already old, or they seemed it, anyway, because seventeen years ago I was very young. I was in Prague with my friends and the concert was outside the city in a huge field. We had arrived on an overnight train and not slept yet, because going to concerts after being up all night on a train is the kind of thing that seems entirely reasonable to do when you are nineteen years old. We thought it was pretty awesome that we were going to see the Rolling Stones in Prague but in fact as the concert wore on I got so tired that I went to the edge of the field and lay down and went to sleep. I bought a t-shirt there and never wore it.
I wonder, when I am feeling unsatisfied, what it would take to bring real contentment. If I could arrange everything, my whole life, the way I wish, would that be enough? Probably not – it’s an attitude, right? I should know that by now, but I am a slow learner and I forget things after learning them because I am always too busy thinking about other things instead of the lessons I’m supposed to be learning.
A boy I liked once tried to turn me on to Krishnamurti. He talked about acceptance and peace, and because I was twenty I said I don’t want peace, I don’t want to accept things. We were both pretty into it, that he wanted inner peace and I didn’t. One night when we were drunk he held my hand in the video store and asked me if I was a feminist and I couldn’t stop laughing because he asked it like it was a really romantic question. We couldn’t decide what movie to get and I don’t think we watched anything, we just wanted to talk about him wanting peace and me not wanting peace, but in the end it wasn’t enough and we never did get together.
(There is a difference, of course, between being dissatisfied and being unsatisfied. Like the difference between eating something and not liking it, versus eating something but it just wasn’t enough, or it wasn’t what you wanted, even if it tasted fine. I am not dis, I am un. I’m not pissed off, but I am hungering.)
I suppose it’s possible that I’m having a mid-life crisis, or if I’m still too young for that (god, what are all these years FOR?), maybe I am having an identity crisis. Or probably it isn’t a crisis at all, because it’s not very dramatic and I am happy, more or less, and I am grateful, most of the time. It’s just me going through the days thinking vaguely, like Ani DiFranco, that this is not who I meant to be, this is not how I meant to feel.
Which reminds me that once I was at an Ani DiFranco concert when I was a teenager and she recited a poem by Lucille Clifton. I remembered the name because the poem was beautiful. The next day I went to a bookstore and I bought a collection of her poems. It seems like another life, when I went to concerts and bookstores like it was nothing, like I had all the time in the world, but I wasn’t satisfied then either. Lucille Clifton was the first poet I really loved. And all of this reminds me of this poem of hers:
it was a dream
in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This.
Yours, looking for that extra finger,
Catherine
Sometimes, like the Rolling Stones, I feel as if satisfaction is impossible.
I saw the Rolling Stones in concert seventeen years ago, and they were already old, or they seemed it, anyway, because seventeen years ago I was very young. I was in Prague with my friends and the concert was outside the city in a huge field. We had arrived on an overnight train and not slept yet, because going to concerts after being up all night on a train is the kind of thing that seems entirely reasonable to do when you are nineteen years old. We thought it was pretty awesome that we were going to see the Rolling Stones in Prague but in fact as the concert wore on I got so tired that I went to the edge of the field and lay down and went to sleep. I bought a t-shirt there and never wore it.
I wonder, when I am feeling unsatisfied, what it would take to bring real contentment. If I could arrange everything, my whole life, the way I wish, would that be enough? Probably not – it’s an attitude, right? I should know that by now, but I am a slow learner and I forget things after learning them because I am always too busy thinking about other things instead of the lessons I’m supposed to be learning.
A boy I liked once tried to turn me on to Krishnamurti. He talked about acceptance and peace, and because I was twenty I said I don’t want peace, I don’t want to accept things. We were both pretty into it, that he wanted inner peace and I didn’t. One night when we were drunk he held my hand in the video store and asked me if I was a feminist and I couldn’t stop laughing because he asked it like it was a really romantic question. We couldn’t decide what movie to get and I don’t think we watched anything, we just wanted to talk about him wanting peace and me not wanting peace, but in the end it wasn’t enough and we never did get together.
(There is a difference, of course, between being dissatisfied and being unsatisfied. Like the difference between eating something and not liking it, versus eating something but it just wasn’t enough, or it wasn’t what you wanted, even if it tasted fine. I am not dis, I am un. I’m not pissed off, but I am hungering.)
I suppose it’s possible that I’m having a mid-life crisis, or if I’m still too young for that (god, what are all these years FOR?), maybe I am having an identity crisis. Or probably it isn’t a crisis at all, because it’s not very dramatic and I am happy, more or less, and I am grateful, most of the time. It’s just me going through the days thinking vaguely, like Ani DiFranco, that this is not who I meant to be, this is not how I meant to feel.
Which reminds me that once I was at an Ani DiFranco concert when I was a teenager and she recited a poem by Lucille Clifton. I remembered the name because the poem was beautiful. The next day I went to a bookstore and I bought a collection of her poems. It seems like another life, when I went to concerts and bookstores like it was nothing, like I had all the time in the world, but I wasn’t satisfied then either. Lucille Clifton was the first poet I really loved. And all of this reminds me of this poem of hers:
it was a dream
in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This.
Yours, looking for that extra finger,
Catherine
May 13, 2013
On workcycles and Cafe Magic
Dear Blog,
At the SCBWI conference in Springfield (that’s “Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators” – catchy, no?) I went to a seminar on Time Management, presented by an author who shares a last name with (but is no relation to) my favorite ex-boyfriend. (That’ll send all the exes to google. Or not.)
She had managed to write through the caring-for-small-children years, through the full-time Real Job years, and now, while caring for a seriously ill parent. I went in ready for her to change my life, hoping beyond hope that she would tell me how to do this. One of the first things she said was, “For years and years I was sure that there was a schedule out there, if I could only find it, that would actually create space for everything I needed to accomplish. But that schedule did not and does not exist.”
I wanted to throw a full-blown toddleresque tantrum, right there in the front row with my pen and notepad at-the-ready. I didn’t, of course, and being a parent I have learned a lot of techniques for channeling aggression without actually screaming or striking anybody, so I wrote down exactly what she had said and then bit my pen very hard to punish it.
Then she talked about the pomodoro technique, which involves breaking your worktime into 25-minute intervals separated by short breaks. She recommended instead a 45-minute work-cycle, and then a 15 minute break. This idea of breaking your time up into short workcycles has a few obvious benefits.
First, it helps you to get started. Instead of thinking, OK I have two hours, I’ll just check my e-mail, oh and maybe facebook, and then giving up altogether an hour later because your time is really almost gone anyway and what’s the point now, you can say to yourself: here we go, one 45 minute cycle and then I will check my e-mail / do the dishes / dance to Murder Rubicon in my bedroom. Or, if you have two hours and waste the first hour, instead of giving up altogether you can tell yourself, oh well, I have one workcycle left, here goes! And then use it.
Second, it keeps you fresh, I guess. Apparently STUDIES SHOW that we can concentrate well on a task for about 45 minutes and then our concentration starts to wane. But if we take a short break and go back to it, we trick our brains into going back to the beginning and concentrating well again. So we are maximizing our attention to the task at hand by breaking up the time.
Third (and most usefully, for me at least,) if you break your time up in this way, you might look at your day and realize you have more time than you thought. Maybe you don’t have two hours, or even a full hour straight. But you may have two different 45-minute periods in which to work.
So, great. I was annoyed that NO SCHEDULE was going to work, and I did spend a good portion of the seminar making schedules that didn’t work, but I still thought this 45-minute workcycle idea might be useful to me.
Now, my weekday writing happens after lunch. LittleK recently stopped napping, a great blow to my writing time, but I figured maybe he could just stick to LittleJ’s routine of Quiet Time and a movie, and that’s more or less what we’ve been trying to do. However the idea of breaking that two hours into 45 minute segments is fairly ridiculous, because it is broken up all the time, far more frequently and arbitrarily, when I have to break up a screaming squabble, stop the boys from climbing out the window or putting all their dad’s shoes in the oven, make snacks, tidy up the snacks that just got spilled all over the sofa, get drinks, mop up the drinks that just got dumped on the floor, get popcorn for the neenerdeath spinning around on the ceiling fan, etcetera. Getting fifteen uninterrupted minutes is pretty great. I’ve learned to write (sort of) in very short bursts, and to concentrate (sort of) unless the screaming is Really Loud or the silence Really Ominous. But it’s not good writing time. How can it be?
The End Of Naps led to awful frustration on my part, and so That Guy and I agreed that I will leave the house as early as I can on weekends and write all morning in a café. Hooray! We implemented this plan for the first time on Saturday. I put my computer in a backpack and went striding happily through the warm, pollen-filled morning to the nearest café that allows you to sit with a computer – about a ten-minute walk. I got a latte and a seat by the window, since it was still early and the café was nearly empty. I opened my computer and looked at the clock. 8:30. OK – so I would write until 9:15 and then I would take a 10-15 minute break and read poetry, which would inspire me to write better when I came back to my story refreshed. I was starting a Massive Rewrite at chapter 1 and was very excited.
I didn’t stop at 9:15. I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t stop at all until I shut the computer at noon. The café was packed now and people were waiting for tables, so I vacated mine and went swinging home happily. The time may come with this rewrite when the workcycle technique will be useful to me, but for now, I don’t need no stinkin’ breaks. I just need a little time.
Yours, rocking-the-rewrite-so-far,
Catherine
At the SCBWI conference in Springfield (that’s “Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators” – catchy, no?) I went to a seminar on Time Management, presented by an author who shares a last name with (but is no relation to) my favorite ex-boyfriend. (That’ll send all the exes to google. Or not.)
She had managed to write through the caring-for-small-children years, through the full-time Real Job years, and now, while caring for a seriously ill parent. I went in ready for her to change my life, hoping beyond hope that she would tell me how to do this. One of the first things she said was, “For years and years I was sure that there was a schedule out there, if I could only find it, that would actually create space for everything I needed to accomplish. But that schedule did not and does not exist.”
I wanted to throw a full-blown toddleresque tantrum, right there in the front row with my pen and notepad at-the-ready. I didn’t, of course, and being a parent I have learned a lot of techniques for channeling aggression without actually screaming or striking anybody, so I wrote down exactly what she had said and then bit my pen very hard to punish it.
Then she talked about the pomodoro technique, which involves breaking your worktime into 25-minute intervals separated by short breaks. She recommended instead a 45-minute work-cycle, and then a 15 minute break. This idea of breaking your time up into short workcycles has a few obvious benefits.
First, it helps you to get started. Instead of thinking, OK I have two hours, I’ll just check my e-mail, oh and maybe facebook, and then giving up altogether an hour later because your time is really almost gone anyway and what’s the point now, you can say to yourself: here we go, one 45 minute cycle and then I will check my e-mail / do the dishes / dance to Murder Rubicon in my bedroom. Or, if you have two hours and waste the first hour, instead of giving up altogether you can tell yourself, oh well, I have one workcycle left, here goes! And then use it.
Second, it keeps you fresh, I guess. Apparently STUDIES SHOW that we can concentrate well on a task for about 45 minutes and then our concentration starts to wane. But if we take a short break and go back to it, we trick our brains into going back to the beginning and concentrating well again. So we are maximizing our attention to the task at hand by breaking up the time.
Third (and most usefully, for me at least,) if you break your time up in this way, you might look at your day and realize you have more time than you thought. Maybe you don’t have two hours, or even a full hour straight. But you may have two different 45-minute periods in which to work.
So, great. I was annoyed that NO SCHEDULE was going to work, and I did spend a good portion of the seminar making schedules that didn’t work, but I still thought this 45-minute workcycle idea might be useful to me.
Now, my weekday writing happens after lunch. LittleK recently stopped napping, a great blow to my writing time, but I figured maybe he could just stick to LittleJ’s routine of Quiet Time and a movie, and that’s more or less what we’ve been trying to do. However the idea of breaking that two hours into 45 minute segments is fairly ridiculous, because it is broken up all the time, far more frequently and arbitrarily, when I have to break up a screaming squabble, stop the boys from climbing out the window or putting all their dad’s shoes in the oven, make snacks, tidy up the snacks that just got spilled all over the sofa, get drinks, mop up the drinks that just got dumped on the floor, get popcorn for the neenerdeath spinning around on the ceiling fan, etcetera. Getting fifteen uninterrupted minutes is pretty great. I’ve learned to write (sort of) in very short bursts, and to concentrate (sort of) unless the screaming is Really Loud or the silence Really Ominous. But it’s not good writing time. How can it be?
The End Of Naps led to awful frustration on my part, and so That Guy and I agreed that I will leave the house as early as I can on weekends and write all morning in a café. Hooray! We implemented this plan for the first time on Saturday. I put my computer in a backpack and went striding happily through the warm, pollen-filled morning to the nearest café that allows you to sit with a computer – about a ten-minute walk. I got a latte and a seat by the window, since it was still early and the café was nearly empty. I opened my computer and looked at the clock. 8:30. OK – so I would write until 9:15 and then I would take a 10-15 minute break and read poetry, which would inspire me to write better when I came back to my story refreshed. I was starting a Massive Rewrite at chapter 1 and was very excited.
I didn’t stop at 9:15. I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t stop at all until I shut the computer at noon. The café was packed now and people were waiting for tables, so I vacated mine and went swinging home happily. The time may come with this rewrite when the workcycle technique will be useful to me, but for now, I don’t need no stinkin’ breaks. I just need a little time.
Yours, rocking-the-rewrite-so-far,
Catherine
May 6, 2013
On conferences and having space to think a thought or two
Dear Blog,
So on Friday morning, I sat on the porch and waved goodbye to LittleJ and LittleK heading off to the park on their bikes with That Guy. They disappeared around the corner and I kept on sitting there in the sun with my suitcase. Then a taxi arrived and I did that thing I so rarely do: I stepped out of my life.
I read a book on the train. I slept in a big hotel bed for two nights. I couldn’t figure out how to close the curtains or stop the air-conditioning from blasting and the breakfast was awful but it still felt luxurious. I woke up at dawn, annoyed that I wasn’t able to sleep in, missing the little hands in my hair but also glad to be alone. It seemed the most incredible kind of leisure, to turn on the light and read a bit before getting up.
I was in Springfield MA, which, without wishing to offend the inhabitants of that town, is not a place I’d ever choose to visit. It was my first time attending the New England SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators!) conference. I lugged my computer and notepad to talks, discussion panels, workshops. I listened to people talk about writing and I thought about writing and actually DID some writing without anybody yelling at me that they wanted milk or a different video or the spinasaurus’s toe is broken please fix it. I met some great people and one of my favourite authors. I think I made a real friend, which is no small feat in my mid-thirties. We had the kind of conversations where you are almost stumbling over your words with things to say and really can’t wait to hear what the other person is going to say next and find everything incredibly funny together and somehow ideas and inspiration and energy feel so easy to come by. I drank wine and chatted about books and writing with other writers and had time to think. That Guy sent me a video of the boys goofing off at supper and I cried because I missed them so much, but I was also glad to be away.
I thought I might come home and write a blog post about how I almost forget who I am or how to be without two little boys attached to me, reaching for their hands as I cross the street; how writing has been the only force in my life powerful enough to pry me away from my children since they were born; or maybe something less self-absorbed about younger children reading books with “mature” content (inspired by the “Edgy YA” discussion panel on Friday night); or about time management, because I attended a very useful seminar on that, the only downside to it being that it was based on the assumption that you have some time to manage. All those things are in my head and I hope to write some conference-inspired blog posts in the coming weeks but I haven’t written any of them down yet.
I stepped out of the taxi back into my life and when they came to hug me I could hear how my voice sounds different when I talk to my children. I slipped back into that other me, the usual me, the everyday me, the me that wants to be a writer but doesn’t really feel like one, not in terms of actual minutes spent thinking like a writer or, you know, writing. It’s OK. Somehow the writing happens; somehow the writer part of me is the one part of whoever I used to be that survived becoming a mother. I never meant for motherhood to swallow me up like this. I didn’t expect it and I don’t know how it happened. I’m sure it is something about my personality, the way I love, or the way I respond to being needed. I know it doesn’t have to be this way, but it is this way right now.
They keep saying I missed you, I missed you, and I say I missed you too, because I did, and today at the park K wraps my hair around his fist and says, “mommy came back” like he thought I might not, and I say of course I did, of course I came back. I pull them to me and hug them, kiss their soft cheeks. I say why don’t you roll down the hill, and so they do, giggling and rolling and getting covered in grass and ending up one on top of the other at the bottom, shouting and laughing. I wave at them, shade my eyes, and think about the book I am going to start rewriting this week while they charge back up the hill at me.
Yours, back in the fray,
Catherine
So on Friday morning, I sat on the porch and waved goodbye to LittleJ and LittleK heading off to the park on their bikes with That Guy. They disappeared around the corner and I kept on sitting there in the sun with my suitcase. Then a taxi arrived and I did that thing I so rarely do: I stepped out of my life.
I read a book on the train. I slept in a big hotel bed for two nights. I couldn’t figure out how to close the curtains or stop the air-conditioning from blasting and the breakfast was awful but it still felt luxurious. I woke up at dawn, annoyed that I wasn’t able to sleep in, missing the little hands in my hair but also glad to be alone. It seemed the most incredible kind of leisure, to turn on the light and read a bit before getting up.
I was in Springfield MA, which, without wishing to offend the inhabitants of that town, is not a place I’d ever choose to visit. It was my first time attending the New England SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators!) conference. I lugged my computer and notepad to talks, discussion panels, workshops. I listened to people talk about writing and I thought about writing and actually DID some writing without anybody yelling at me that they wanted milk or a different video or the spinasaurus’s toe is broken please fix it. I met some great people and one of my favourite authors. I think I made a real friend, which is no small feat in my mid-thirties. We had the kind of conversations where you are almost stumbling over your words with things to say and really can’t wait to hear what the other person is going to say next and find everything incredibly funny together and somehow ideas and inspiration and energy feel so easy to come by. I drank wine and chatted about books and writing with other writers and had time to think. That Guy sent me a video of the boys goofing off at supper and I cried because I missed them so much, but I was also glad to be away.
I thought I might come home and write a blog post about how I almost forget who I am or how to be without two little boys attached to me, reaching for their hands as I cross the street; how writing has been the only force in my life powerful enough to pry me away from my children since they were born; or maybe something less self-absorbed about younger children reading books with “mature” content (inspired by the “Edgy YA” discussion panel on Friday night); or about time management, because I attended a very useful seminar on that, the only downside to it being that it was based on the assumption that you have some time to manage. All those things are in my head and I hope to write some conference-inspired blog posts in the coming weeks but I haven’t written any of them down yet.
I stepped out of the taxi back into my life and when they came to hug me I could hear how my voice sounds different when I talk to my children. I slipped back into that other me, the usual me, the everyday me, the me that wants to be a writer but doesn’t really feel like one, not in terms of actual minutes spent thinking like a writer or, you know, writing. It’s OK. Somehow the writing happens; somehow the writer part of me is the one part of whoever I used to be that survived becoming a mother. I never meant for motherhood to swallow me up like this. I didn’t expect it and I don’t know how it happened. I’m sure it is something about my personality, the way I love, or the way I respond to being needed. I know it doesn’t have to be this way, but it is this way right now.
They keep saying I missed you, I missed you, and I say I missed you too, because I did, and today at the park K wraps my hair around his fist and says, “mommy came back” like he thought I might not, and I say of course I did, of course I came back. I pull them to me and hug them, kiss their soft cheeks. I say why don’t you roll down the hill, and so they do, giggling and rolling and getting covered in grass and ending up one on top of the other at the bottom, shouting and laughing. I wave at them, shade my eyes, and think about the book I am going to start rewriting this week while they charge back up the hill at me.
Yours, back in the fray,
Catherine
April 29, 2013
"The Next Big Thing" Blog Hop
Dear Blog,
I’ve been seeing “the next big thing” blog hop making the rounds on various author blogs over the past several months. Authors who get “tagged” answer ten questions about their upcoming project, and then “tag” a few other authors. I’ve been reading the blogs and getting excited about all these books-to-be, and also feeling a little like I’m standing against the wall at a high school dance watching everybody else and thinking, ooh, tag me, tag me! (… I know, that was not a fluidly employed metaphor and school dances are not games of tag, but maybe they should be, I bet more people would have fun).
Anyway. Do you see where this is going? Yippee! I’ve been tagged by the lovely and talented (yes, I am David Letterman) Anne Lazurko. You can see her answers to the ten questions and find out about her upcoming book Dollybird here.
In turn, I am tagging the following authors, so keep checking in with them and over the next few weeks you’ll be able to see what they are cooking up: Carrie Mac, Billie Milholland, Karen Rivers, Eric Sipple, and Anne Patton.
So here are the ten questions and my answers:
What is the working title of the book?
The Unmaking
Where did the idea come from for the book?
This is a sequel to Shade & Sorceress, and I don’t remember at exactly what point during the drafting of that first book I knew there would be a second but it was pretty early on. The first one grew out of a conversation I jotted down between Nia and Eliza, before I was sure of who they were or what the story around them was. As I got into the plot and the world-building, it became clear fairly quickly that there was more story than I was going to fit into one book.
What genre does your book fall under?
YA fantasy.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
The teen characters would have to be played by brilliant as-yet-unkonwns who would look remarkably like the characters in my head. The juicy roles would of course rocket them to stardom and whenever I read about their relationship scandals and wardrobe malfunctions I’d feel sort of uncomfortably responsible and I’d want to write them maternal letters full of advice but I’d hold back because, you know, they aren’t my children and I don’t even know them that well, it’s just so hard to disassociate them from the characters I love… um, well, I guess I don’t have a good answer to that question. Though I must admit that while writing, I sometimes imagined Kate Winslet delivering Nia’s lines.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
The Sorceress Nia (my beloved villain!) breaks free of her Arctic prison and begins a fabulously satisfying revenge spree (fabulous and satisfying if you are on the side of eeeeevil, that is), and Eliza (my beloved heroine!) has to face a horrible and deeply personal challenge that Nia has devised for her.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Neither. It is coming out in September 2013 with Coteau Books, an independent Canadian publisher.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
The first draft poured out in about six weeks (this was before I had kids – my writing has slowed down since then).
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I started the first book without ever intending to publish it – it was going to be a Christmas present for my niece and nephew. Obviously, I got a bit carried away with it. It grew quickly into a series because I was having such a ridiculous amount of fun with my made-up people (and non-people) in my made-up world.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Perhaps Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series – I hesitate to say that because I’m not the writer Pullman is, but I think there’s a comparison to be made, insofar as both series are about courageous young heroines drawn into epic, otherworldly struggles by their families. I also think readers of Diana Wynne-Jones’s Chrestomanci books would enjoy this – at least I hope so. Charmed Life was one of my favourite books when I was a kid and that was the sort of thing I was going for in the first book.
What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
Murderous Faeries and indestructible monsters, infiltrating military compounds and fancy secondary schools, death, vengeance, memory, and the importance of underwear – there is a lot going on in this book! The first book in the series did the hard work of setting up the world(s), introducing the characters, and establishing their relationships. In The Unmaking, I’ve already built my playground and now I just get to play on it. For readers of the first book, I hope there are some good twists and surprises in store.
That’s it! Now go check in with the authors tagged at the beginning of this post.
Yours, playing tag at the dance,
Catherine
#whospikedthepunchanyway
I’ve been seeing “the next big thing” blog hop making the rounds on various author blogs over the past several months. Authors who get “tagged” answer ten questions about their upcoming project, and then “tag” a few other authors. I’ve been reading the blogs and getting excited about all these books-to-be, and also feeling a little like I’m standing against the wall at a high school dance watching everybody else and thinking, ooh, tag me, tag me! (… I know, that was not a fluidly employed metaphor and school dances are not games of tag, but maybe they should be, I bet more people would have fun).
Anyway. Do you see where this is going? Yippee! I’ve been tagged by the lovely and talented (yes, I am David Letterman) Anne Lazurko. You can see her answers to the ten questions and find out about her upcoming book Dollybird here.
In turn, I am tagging the following authors, so keep checking in with them and over the next few weeks you’ll be able to see what they are cooking up: Carrie Mac, Billie Milholland, Karen Rivers, Eric Sipple, and Anne Patton.
So here are the ten questions and my answers:
What is the working title of the book?
The Unmaking
Where did the idea come from for the book?
This is a sequel to Shade & Sorceress, and I don’t remember at exactly what point during the drafting of that first book I knew there would be a second but it was pretty early on. The first one grew out of a conversation I jotted down between Nia and Eliza, before I was sure of who they were or what the story around them was. As I got into the plot and the world-building, it became clear fairly quickly that there was more story than I was going to fit into one book.
What genre does your book fall under?
YA fantasy.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
The teen characters would have to be played by brilliant as-yet-unkonwns who would look remarkably like the characters in my head. The juicy roles would of course rocket them to stardom and whenever I read about their relationship scandals and wardrobe malfunctions I’d feel sort of uncomfortably responsible and I’d want to write them maternal letters full of advice but I’d hold back because, you know, they aren’t my children and I don’t even know them that well, it’s just so hard to disassociate them from the characters I love… um, well, I guess I don’t have a good answer to that question. Though I must admit that while writing, I sometimes imagined Kate Winslet delivering Nia’s lines.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
The Sorceress Nia (my beloved villain!) breaks free of her Arctic prison and begins a fabulously satisfying revenge spree (fabulous and satisfying if you are on the side of eeeeevil, that is), and Eliza (my beloved heroine!) has to face a horrible and deeply personal challenge that Nia has devised for her.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Neither. It is coming out in September 2013 with Coteau Books, an independent Canadian publisher.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
The first draft poured out in about six weeks (this was before I had kids – my writing has slowed down since then).
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I started the first book without ever intending to publish it – it was going to be a Christmas present for my niece and nephew. Obviously, I got a bit carried away with it. It grew quickly into a series because I was having such a ridiculous amount of fun with my made-up people (and non-people) in my made-up world.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Perhaps Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series – I hesitate to say that because I’m not the writer Pullman is, but I think there’s a comparison to be made, insofar as both series are about courageous young heroines drawn into epic, otherworldly struggles by their families. I also think readers of Diana Wynne-Jones’s Chrestomanci books would enjoy this – at least I hope so. Charmed Life was one of my favourite books when I was a kid and that was the sort of thing I was going for in the first book.
What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
Murderous Faeries and indestructible monsters, infiltrating military compounds and fancy secondary schools, death, vengeance, memory, and the importance of underwear – there is a lot going on in this book! The first book in the series did the hard work of setting up the world(s), introducing the characters, and establishing their relationships. In The Unmaking, I’ve already built my playground and now I just get to play on it. For readers of the first book, I hope there are some good twists and surprises in store.
That’s it! Now go check in with the authors tagged at the beginning of this post.
Yours, playing tag at the dance,
Catherine
#whospikedthepunchanyway
April 22, 2013
In which I reconsider my relationship with The Internet
Dear Blog,
People talk about balance a lot. As in, Having A Balance. It gets talked about a lot in the context of working parents because it is particularly difficult to balance work and parenting when both areas of your life so often seem to require all of you, and you also need to take a shower sometimes. Being blissfully unemployed, I feel like my own balance ought to be a little simpler. Looking at the big picture, it is simple, and our days are full of happy adventures. We spend the mornings out and about Doing Things, and in the afternoon, the ideal scenario is that LittleK naps (more on this another time – le sigh), LittleJ has Quiet Time (secret fact: not so quiet), and I write: balance. But if you zoom in for a closer look, there is a lot of chaos and frustration. I like to pretend that I am balancing parenting and writing and that it is a difficult balance, but that’s not quite true, although it is sometimes true. Really, I think that my constant sense of imbalance is at least partly due to The Internet.
Now, I really like the internet. I like the ease and speed of keeping in touch over e-mail (she says, with a sheepish glance towards friends she owes e-mails to). I like the expanding circle of people I am able to keep in touch with over facebook, peeking in on their lives, exchanging little jokes, congratulations, commiseration, whatever. I am hooked on twitter too, where I find the most interesting links to articles and blogs and reviews. I want the news and the commentary and the book chat and the funny and / or thought-provoking posts and tweets, all that. I like you, blog. You are a lot of fun!
I don’t want to give any of it up. But there is no Internet O’Clock, that is the problem.
It’s too easy and too tempting and, unlike a newspaper, it is endless - that’s the other problem.
Here is how it goes, most days: I sit the boys down for breakfast and I catch up on the news. I may answer questions and requests incorrectly or ignore them completely, but nobody seems too fussed. At some point the boys get down from the table and go off to play, and the neenerdeath, who is becoming less shy, will often join them (though it still avoids ME, unless I am offering popcorn). So, since everyone is happy for the moment, I check facebook, poring enviously over a friend’s vacation photos or whatever, and then twitter, where I follow a too-tempting-to-ignore link which leads to another and then another, and then all of a sudden 45 minutes have disappeared and LittleK has taken his diaper off and peed on the floor and LittleJ is up on the counter trying to dismantle the toaster oven with a screwdriver and the neenerdeath is emptying the cupboards out looking for popcorn and we are all in our pajamas (except the neenerdeath, who does not wear pajamas) and it’s well past nine o’clock. So I leave the very interesting blog on the difficulties of writing historical fiction for later; I mop up the pee, take the screwdriver away from LittleJ, give the neenerdeath some popcorn, rush through the dishes while the three of them have a jumping off the sofa contest which leads to LittleK bumping his head, so I break that up and ice the bump, decide to leave the rest of the dishes, and then I need to get both boys on the potty, brush teeth, wash hands, get dressed, find shoes and coats, get a snack and drinks, and by the time we get out of the house it is 10 o’clock and they are cranky because they’ve been cooped up for hours waiting for me to get my shit together and our morning out is sadly shortened. Lunch rolls round and we repeat the process, more or less.
I try (and generally succeed) to keep my Writing Time sacred. And I try (and sometimes succeed) to keep that sliver of evening between the boys going to bed and my own collapse computer-free. So it spills over into the rest of the day, and instead of doing the millions of things I ought to be doing, I am reading reviews on goodreads, giggling at facebook statuses, and retweeting clever people on twitter.
It is fun, but I feel guilty about it too and I wonder if life would be simpler and we would all perhaps be happier without The Internet. Maybe I would use some of that time to meditate! Maybe I would use some of it to clean the bathroom and fold laundry and plan meals in advance. And then maybe I would be a serene person who never snaps unjustly at her children, with a clean apartment and fresh cookies cooling on the counter.
So obviously, I should give up the internet. But I do not want to give up the internet!
I am curious about how other people (with kids, with jobs, with friends, with artistic aspirations, with meals to make and floors to sweep and sleeps to sleep and all of that) fit The Internet into their busy lives. Is it a problem (or do I have a problem)? Do you have rules, a system? Is balance possible? Does it feel like time well-spent or time wasted (I mean in general, ahem, not this particular blog post)? Does it make you feel connected to other people all over the world, or disconnected from the people in the room with you? All thoughts and suggestions are welcome. I am not going to break up with The Internet. But I am reconsidering the parameters of our relationship.
Yours, amid the unwashed dishes,
Catherine
People talk about balance a lot. As in, Having A Balance. It gets talked about a lot in the context of working parents because it is particularly difficult to balance work and parenting when both areas of your life so often seem to require all of you, and you also need to take a shower sometimes. Being blissfully unemployed, I feel like my own balance ought to be a little simpler. Looking at the big picture, it is simple, and our days are full of happy adventures. We spend the mornings out and about Doing Things, and in the afternoon, the ideal scenario is that LittleK naps (more on this another time – le sigh), LittleJ has Quiet Time (secret fact: not so quiet), and I write: balance. But if you zoom in for a closer look, there is a lot of chaos and frustration. I like to pretend that I am balancing parenting and writing and that it is a difficult balance, but that’s not quite true, although it is sometimes true. Really, I think that my constant sense of imbalance is at least partly due to The Internet.
Now, I really like the internet. I like the ease and speed of keeping in touch over e-mail (she says, with a sheepish glance towards friends she owes e-mails to). I like the expanding circle of people I am able to keep in touch with over facebook, peeking in on their lives, exchanging little jokes, congratulations, commiseration, whatever. I am hooked on twitter too, where I find the most interesting links to articles and blogs and reviews. I want the news and the commentary and the book chat and the funny and / or thought-provoking posts and tweets, all that. I like you, blog. You are a lot of fun!
I don’t want to give any of it up. But there is no Internet O’Clock, that is the problem.
It’s too easy and too tempting and, unlike a newspaper, it is endless - that’s the other problem.
Here is how it goes, most days: I sit the boys down for breakfast and I catch up on the news. I may answer questions and requests incorrectly or ignore them completely, but nobody seems too fussed. At some point the boys get down from the table and go off to play, and the neenerdeath, who is becoming less shy, will often join them (though it still avoids ME, unless I am offering popcorn). So, since everyone is happy for the moment, I check facebook, poring enviously over a friend’s vacation photos or whatever, and then twitter, where I follow a too-tempting-to-ignore link which leads to another and then another, and then all of a sudden 45 minutes have disappeared and LittleK has taken his diaper off and peed on the floor and LittleJ is up on the counter trying to dismantle the toaster oven with a screwdriver and the neenerdeath is emptying the cupboards out looking for popcorn and we are all in our pajamas (except the neenerdeath, who does not wear pajamas) and it’s well past nine o’clock. So I leave the very interesting blog on the difficulties of writing historical fiction for later; I mop up the pee, take the screwdriver away from LittleJ, give the neenerdeath some popcorn, rush through the dishes while the three of them have a jumping off the sofa contest which leads to LittleK bumping his head, so I break that up and ice the bump, decide to leave the rest of the dishes, and then I need to get both boys on the potty, brush teeth, wash hands, get dressed, find shoes and coats, get a snack and drinks, and by the time we get out of the house it is 10 o’clock and they are cranky because they’ve been cooped up for hours waiting for me to get my shit together and our morning out is sadly shortened. Lunch rolls round and we repeat the process, more or less.
I try (and generally succeed) to keep my Writing Time sacred. And I try (and sometimes succeed) to keep that sliver of evening between the boys going to bed and my own collapse computer-free. So it spills over into the rest of the day, and instead of doing the millions of things I ought to be doing, I am reading reviews on goodreads, giggling at facebook statuses, and retweeting clever people on twitter.
It is fun, but I feel guilty about it too and I wonder if life would be simpler and we would all perhaps be happier without The Internet. Maybe I would use some of that time to meditate! Maybe I would use some of it to clean the bathroom and fold laundry and plan meals in advance. And then maybe I would be a serene person who never snaps unjustly at her children, with a clean apartment and fresh cookies cooling on the counter.
So obviously, I should give up the internet. But I do not want to give up the internet!
I am curious about how other people (with kids, with jobs, with friends, with artistic aspirations, with meals to make and floors to sweep and sleeps to sleep and all of that) fit The Internet into their busy lives. Is it a problem (or do I have a problem)? Do you have rules, a system? Is balance possible? Does it feel like time well-spent or time wasted (I mean in general, ahem, not this particular blog post)? Does it make you feel connected to other people all over the world, or disconnected from the people in the room with you? All thoughts and suggestions are welcome. I am not going to break up with The Internet. But I am reconsidering the parameters of our relationship.
Yours, amid the unwashed dishes,
Catherine
April 15, 2013
How to support a Young Writer
Dear Blog,
When I was six years old I told my grandmother that I was going to be a writer. We were sitting at the dining room table and the first chapter of my first novel, written in pencil and illustrated in brown crayon (a bold artistic choice) lay on the table between us. Now, my grandmother knows a thing or two (many things, really - maybe too many things!) about writers and about the life of the artist. She told me very seriously how much work it would be, that once I had finished my first draft (that was the first time I had ever heard the word "draft"), I would need to rewrite it. Completely. Four, five, maybe six times. I looked at my beloved, PERFECT first chapter, and said: "But." She said "There will be hundreds of rejections. HUNDREDS." I had no idea what that meant, but I took her point: this writing thing was no joke; it was not for the faint of heart. Well, I was not faint of heart. She pointed at my chapter, which she had read very carefully and offered comments on, both complimentary and critical: "First, you need to finish this." And I did.
Ten years later, my grandmother and I were out for lunch at a nice restaurant on Granville island. We ate outside, where we could see the boats in the harbour and the mountains rising up across the bay. She didn't tell me how worried everybody was. She didn't tell me I looked awful, or that I was being awful, or that I was terrifying the people who loved me. She didn't try to draw me out or ask me questions, either. She talked about my writing. She talked about rage and confusion as useful, if I knew what to do with them. She told me stories about people she'd known who used their talents and people who squandered them. She talked about her own gift and how it shaped her life, what it had given her and what it had taken away. She talked about working hard and made it sound worth doing, and she talked about making a living, and I've never forgotten any of it.
Looking back, nobody ever laughed at me in a "how-cute" sort of way when I declared my intent, at a chubby-cheeked age, to be a writer. Nobody told me it might not work out. Nor did they joke about movies and millions the way many kind friends do now I've got a book out. If writing has been something joyful all my life and if rejection has never held much sting, that is likely thanks to my family. You can only think of it as "toiling in obscurity" if the reward for your toil is assumed to be the opposite of obscurity. If the primary goal is the story the toil results in, satisfaction comes from doing it, and you don't depend on anyone for that. You just do it, in obscurity or, you know, wherever.
Of course I did and do fantasize about making a living at this. Of course I want people to read my stories - as many people as possible! Of course I find myself disappointed by my own limitations and feel I am failing to write the book I want to write. But then there are always the stories I haven't written yet, still-perfect, shimmering like mirages in the distance, and I am always crawling towards them across the sand, sure that I am getting better at this. As long as I keep doing it.
As far as I'm concerned the writing life is all pluses, this particular glass is always half full, and making a story is one of the greatest joys I know.
My grandmother was a violin prodigy. Her experience of being young and gifted was complicated and full of anxiety and, for better or for worse, obscurity had no part in it. Of course, she was very young, and very gifted, which is unusual. Still, she took my own expression of artistic ambition at the age of six entirely seriously - why not? she'd had a career at my age - and along with my entire family she offered a vision of the Life Of The Artist that was both positive and practical. So if you are wondering how to support the young writer in your life (and this could apply to any artist, of any age) here is the checklist of what I was lucky enough to grow up with:
1. If they are serious, take them seriously.
2. If they know what money is, they are old enough to be told that they will almost certainly need to earn it ... doing something else.
3. If they are old enough for #2, they are old enough to hear that rejection is a thing, and they will experience it if they put their work out there, and it's no big deal.
4. Praise their drive and work ethic. Put practice above talent.
5. Be positive. Passion and / or talent is a gift and can be a source of huge joy. Let them know you value and respect and admire their gift and hope they will keep at it.
5. Be honest when the work is good and when it isn't.
6. Talk about mastery of their craft as the great goal. Success in the wider world is gravy.
7. Be happy for them. If you can handle rejection, and if you can make a living in one way or another, then the writer's life is the best life of all.
Yours, still loving the work,
Catherine
When I was six years old I told my grandmother that I was going to be a writer. We were sitting at the dining room table and the first chapter of my first novel, written in pencil and illustrated in brown crayon (a bold artistic choice) lay on the table between us. Now, my grandmother knows a thing or two (many things, really - maybe too many things!) about writers and about the life of the artist. She told me very seriously how much work it would be, that once I had finished my first draft (that was the first time I had ever heard the word "draft"), I would need to rewrite it. Completely. Four, five, maybe six times. I looked at my beloved, PERFECT first chapter, and said: "But." She said "There will be hundreds of rejections. HUNDREDS." I had no idea what that meant, but I took her point: this writing thing was no joke; it was not for the faint of heart. Well, I was not faint of heart. She pointed at my chapter, which she had read very carefully and offered comments on, both complimentary and critical: "First, you need to finish this." And I did.
Ten years later, my grandmother and I were out for lunch at a nice restaurant on Granville island. We ate outside, where we could see the boats in the harbour and the mountains rising up across the bay. She didn't tell me how worried everybody was. She didn't tell me I looked awful, or that I was being awful, or that I was terrifying the people who loved me. She didn't try to draw me out or ask me questions, either. She talked about my writing. She talked about rage and confusion as useful, if I knew what to do with them. She told me stories about people she'd known who used their talents and people who squandered them. She talked about her own gift and how it shaped her life, what it had given her and what it had taken away. She talked about working hard and made it sound worth doing, and she talked about making a living, and I've never forgotten any of it.
Looking back, nobody ever laughed at me in a "how-cute" sort of way when I declared my intent, at a chubby-cheeked age, to be a writer. Nobody told me it might not work out. Nor did they joke about movies and millions the way many kind friends do now I've got a book out. If writing has been something joyful all my life and if rejection has never held much sting, that is likely thanks to my family. You can only think of it as "toiling in obscurity" if the reward for your toil is assumed to be the opposite of obscurity. If the primary goal is the story the toil results in, satisfaction comes from doing it, and you don't depend on anyone for that. You just do it, in obscurity or, you know, wherever.
Of course I did and do fantasize about making a living at this. Of course I want people to read my stories - as many people as possible! Of course I find myself disappointed by my own limitations and feel I am failing to write the book I want to write. But then there are always the stories I haven't written yet, still-perfect, shimmering like mirages in the distance, and I am always crawling towards them across the sand, sure that I am getting better at this. As long as I keep doing it.
As far as I'm concerned the writing life is all pluses, this particular glass is always half full, and making a story is one of the greatest joys I know.
My grandmother was a violin prodigy. Her experience of being young and gifted was complicated and full of anxiety and, for better or for worse, obscurity had no part in it. Of course, she was very young, and very gifted, which is unusual. Still, she took my own expression of artistic ambition at the age of six entirely seriously - why not? she'd had a career at my age - and along with my entire family she offered a vision of the Life Of The Artist that was both positive and practical. So if you are wondering how to support the young writer in your life (and this could apply to any artist, of any age) here is the checklist of what I was lucky enough to grow up with:
1. If they are serious, take them seriously.
2. If they know what money is, they are old enough to be told that they will almost certainly need to earn it ... doing something else.
3. If they are old enough for #2, they are old enough to hear that rejection is a thing, and they will experience it if they put their work out there, and it's no big deal.
4. Praise their drive and work ethic. Put practice above talent.
5. Be positive. Passion and / or talent is a gift and can be a source of huge joy. Let them know you value and respect and admire their gift and hope they will keep at it.
5. Be honest when the work is good and when it isn't.
6. Talk about mastery of their craft as the great goal. Success in the wider world is gravy.
7. Be happy for them. If you can handle rejection, and if you can make a living in one way or another, then the writer's life is the best life of all.
Yours, still loving the work,
Catherine
April 8, 2013
Real Life
Dear Blog,
I was cleaning the bathroom yesterday when LittleJ burst in, leaping onto my back and almost knocking me into the toilet (our bathroom is very small), and shouted: "I think my dinosaurs are starting to become real!"
For you to understand the cold terror that shot through me upon hearing those words, you have to know two things.
One: we have A Wolf in our closet. We didn't used to. At least, I don't think we did. I'm sure it was empty when we moved in. It's a big storage closet and we put in things we don't use often, like suitcases and hiking backpacks and space heaters and squash rackets (we don't play squash - why do we own squash rackets?). Sometime in the fall, LittleK started pointing at the closed door and declaring, "Wolf Inside!" Whenever we made to open it he would emit such an earsplitting shriek that, wolf or no, we found ourselves backing away from the door.
Soon enough we could all hear it growling and panting and moving around in there. One night it started howling. I mean, howling. We aren't even supposed to have pets here. LittleJ thought it was hungry. I opened the door just enough to toss in a packet of chicken thighs. An animal stench wafted out and the howling was replaced with a wet chomping and slurping. We've tried dog food for the sake of our budget but The Wolf was not impressed. It is keen on whole roasted chicken. Anyway, I don't know how we are ever going to get our suitcases out of there.
Two: The ceiling right above LittleJ's bed split open several weeks ago. I was tidying up in there one morning and looked up and saw a gaping hole about the size of a fist. Later that day I showed it to That Guy and said, what do you think happened there? He climbed up on the bed and peered into it. I have no idea, he said. We'll have to e-mail the landlord (he never answers his phone). Then LittleJ came in and said, oh, that's where the Neenerdeath came out. The ... Neenerdeath? we said. He was quite matter-of-fact about it. It comes out the ceiling and sleeps in my bed because it gets cold on the roof, he said. Ah, OK, of course, a chilly Neenerdeath, it is winter, makes absolute sense. That Guy is a night owl and often works until the wee hours of the morning. So I told him, before you go to bed, have a peek in at LittleJ. He woke me at 2am and led me to LittleJ's room. There, curled up on the bed and nestled against the shoulder of my lovely firstborn son was... well, I guess I'll take his word for it and call it a Neenerdeath: dusky little wings folded on its back, a hairy, wizened goblin-face quite peaceful in sleep, and small clawed fingers curled into fists. In the morning it was gone. I asked LittleJ after breakfast what a Neenerdeath does. Fights dragons, he told me. But it's so small, I said. That's just so it can fit in my bed, he told me. It can get bigger if it wants to. Oh, wonderful.
Needless to say I've been feeling slightly anxious about all this and so when he announced that the dinosaurs were becoming real, I thought, oh hell, that's all we need, a bunch of real dinosaurs rampaging through the house. I am still working out how to word my e-mail to the landlord. I keep starting but it sounds so absurd. "We were not informed of The Wolf in the closet and would like the monthly cost of chicken for The Wolf to be deducted from our rent" - "We are concerned about the Neenerdeath that has come through the ceiling, we were not informed..." - but I'm not even sure what I want done about the Neenerdeath. It seems such a peaceful thing, obviously fond of LittleJ, and I suppose fighting dragons is a plus. For that matter we've gotten used to The Wolf, more or less. But dinosaurs - too much, definitely too much. I tore into the living room. They were lying on the floor, inanimate as always.
I started to yell, "what are you talking about?" but then remembered we've been reading The Velveteen Rabbit. I remember my own first reading of the book as a child - how true it seemed. It perfectly captures the way that children love their toys, with a love so vivid and fierce it is impossible, even as an adult, not to believe those toys love them back. Love and Fear alike can be life-giving forces if you ask me. Given the state of our household, however, I am encouraging a little more distance between LittleJ and his dinosaurs.
He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him. Nearby he could see the thicket of raspberry canes, growing tall and close like a tropical jungle, in whose shadow he had played with the Boy on bygone mornings. He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden - how happy they were - and a great sadness came over him. He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other, the fairy huts in the flower-bed, the quiet evenings in the wood when he lay in the bracken and the little ants ran over his paws; the wonderful day when he first knew that he was Real. He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.
And then a strange thing happened.
Yours, wondering-about-a-wolfy-litter-box,
Catherine
I was cleaning the bathroom yesterday when LittleJ burst in, leaping onto my back and almost knocking me into the toilet (our bathroom is very small), and shouted: "I think my dinosaurs are starting to become real!"
For you to understand the cold terror that shot through me upon hearing those words, you have to know two things.
One: we have A Wolf in our closet. We didn't used to. At least, I don't think we did. I'm sure it was empty when we moved in. It's a big storage closet and we put in things we don't use often, like suitcases and hiking backpacks and space heaters and squash rackets (we don't play squash - why do we own squash rackets?). Sometime in the fall, LittleK started pointing at the closed door and declaring, "Wolf Inside!" Whenever we made to open it he would emit such an earsplitting shriek that, wolf or no, we found ourselves backing away from the door.
Soon enough we could all hear it growling and panting and moving around in there. One night it started howling. I mean, howling. We aren't even supposed to have pets here. LittleJ thought it was hungry. I opened the door just enough to toss in a packet of chicken thighs. An animal stench wafted out and the howling was replaced with a wet chomping and slurping. We've tried dog food for the sake of our budget but The Wolf was not impressed. It is keen on whole roasted chicken. Anyway, I don't know how we are ever going to get our suitcases out of there.
Two: The ceiling right above LittleJ's bed split open several weeks ago. I was tidying up in there one morning and looked up and saw a gaping hole about the size of a fist. Later that day I showed it to That Guy and said, what do you think happened there? He climbed up on the bed and peered into it. I have no idea, he said. We'll have to e-mail the landlord (he never answers his phone). Then LittleJ came in and said, oh, that's where the Neenerdeath came out. The ... Neenerdeath? we said. He was quite matter-of-fact about it. It comes out the ceiling and sleeps in my bed because it gets cold on the roof, he said. Ah, OK, of course, a chilly Neenerdeath, it is winter, makes absolute sense. That Guy is a night owl and often works until the wee hours of the morning. So I told him, before you go to bed, have a peek in at LittleJ. He woke me at 2am and led me to LittleJ's room. There, curled up on the bed and nestled against the shoulder of my lovely firstborn son was... well, I guess I'll take his word for it and call it a Neenerdeath: dusky little wings folded on its back, a hairy, wizened goblin-face quite peaceful in sleep, and small clawed fingers curled into fists. In the morning it was gone. I asked LittleJ after breakfast what a Neenerdeath does. Fights dragons, he told me. But it's so small, I said. That's just so it can fit in my bed, he told me. It can get bigger if it wants to. Oh, wonderful.
Needless to say I've been feeling slightly anxious about all this and so when he announced that the dinosaurs were becoming real, I thought, oh hell, that's all we need, a bunch of real dinosaurs rampaging through the house. I am still working out how to word my e-mail to the landlord. I keep starting but it sounds so absurd. "We were not informed of The Wolf in the closet and would like the monthly cost of chicken for The Wolf to be deducted from our rent" - "We are concerned about the Neenerdeath that has come through the ceiling, we were not informed..." - but I'm not even sure what I want done about the Neenerdeath. It seems such a peaceful thing, obviously fond of LittleJ, and I suppose fighting dragons is a plus. For that matter we've gotten used to The Wolf, more or less. But dinosaurs - too much, definitely too much. I tore into the living room. They were lying on the floor, inanimate as always.
I started to yell, "what are you talking about?" but then remembered we've been reading The Velveteen Rabbit. I remember my own first reading of the book as a child - how true it seemed. It perfectly captures the way that children love their toys, with a love so vivid and fierce it is impossible, even as an adult, not to believe those toys love them back. Love and Fear alike can be life-giving forces if you ask me. Given the state of our household, however, I am encouraging a little more distance between LittleJ and his dinosaurs.
He was shivering a little, for he had always been used to sleeping in a proper bed, and by this time his coat had worn so thin and threadbare from hugging that it was no longer any protection to him. Nearby he could see the thicket of raspberry canes, growing tall and close like a tropical jungle, in whose shadow he had played with the Boy on bygone mornings. He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden - how happy they were - and a great sadness came over him. He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other, the fairy huts in the flower-bed, the quiet evenings in the wood when he lay in the bracken and the little ants ran over his paws; the wonderful day when he first knew that he was Real. He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.
And then a strange thing happened.
Yours, wondering-about-a-wolfy-litter-box,
Catherine
April 1, 2013
Interview with Maureen Ulrich
Dear Blog,
Here is my interview with Maureen Ulrich, the author of an excellent girls' hockey trilogy: Power Plays, Face Off, and Breakaway. Thank you so much for visiting my blog, Maureen. *pours coffee for self and for Maureen*
Rather than me trying to describe the Jessie Mac books, I'll get you to do it! What are the books are about?
I view each of these books as “A Season in Jessie MacIntyre’s Life.” Each one follows the rollercoaster of her hockey, and hopefully each one also sheds some light on issues that teenage girls face: bullying, friendship, self-esteem, binge drinking, and dating.
Power Plays is Jessie’s Grade Nine year. She has just moved to a new city and is having trouble making friends. She ends up running afoul of two girls, who make her life miserable and sometimes, very scary. Jessie doesn’t tell her parents, thinking the harassment will stop if she can avoid the bullies. Jessie makes friends when she starts playing girls’ hockey, and from them she learns a lot about what it takes to be part of a team.
Face Off focuses mostly on Jessie’s Grade Ten year. Because Jessie makes a bad decision at a party, she learns just how easy it is to damage her reputation. In addition, her hockey team has leadership and coaching problems. It isn’t easy staying motivated to play her best when the dressing room isn’t fun anymore. This is the year Jessie realizes just how much can be going on “behind someone’s face.”
In Breakaway, Jessie is in Grade Twelve and is playing her last year of minor hockey. She is nervous about AAA and worries that her team won’t win a single game. She also frets about her future. What will she take at university? Will she be able to keep playing hockey after high school?
I can’t talk about The Jessie Mac Series without mentioning Mark Taylor. He is very much the object of Jessie’s affections, and she has to learn to sort out her feelings for him.
I hope Jessie is a well-rounded character, with strengths and flaws. My intention is to show, through her thoughts and actions, what it means to be motivated by integrity and loyalty.
The books are meant to be an honest reflection of what it is like playing a sport. My husband, who coached our daughters, always told the girls, “The highs can’t be too high, and the lows can’t be too low.” Such good advice.
Having taught high school for years, and having two teenage daughters, did you ever find yourself writing a character that was too close to a "real" person?
I often start from a real person as a reference point. Too close to a real person? I would say not. It takes very little time for the character to start moving further and further away from the real person. The character has a different background from the real person. His or her experiences and interactions other characters make him or her unique.
The books have a lot of secondary / minor characters, obviously, since you need to make up a team and then some. Though I sometimes wanted MORE of the characters I particularly liked, I was impressed that you managed to make each one feel real and memorable without resorting to cliches or cardboard cut-outs, and without letting anybody's side-story bog down the pace of the Big Story or the focus on Jessie. Did this require a ton of editing and revision? Can you tell us anything about balancing a large cast of characters in a fast-paced story?
I had a very steep learning curve on this topic. I wrote Face Off and Breakaway in entirely different fashions. In Face Off, I set out to gradually introduce the reader to the girls on Jessie’s past team the Xtreme, and the new players on the Rage. I wanted each girl to have an identity and make a contribution to the plot and the team. The feedback I got from adult readers indicated that I had “too many characters.” My sister-in-law actually provided some great insight on this. She said, “This wasn’t an issue in Power Plays. There were only a few girls that were integral to the plot. The rest just filled in the dressing room.” I tried to act on this advice in Breakaway – but I did so AFTER I had written the entire draft, in which Larissa had a far bigger role. I decided to move Kathy front and center (literally, she plays center, right?) and push Larissa into the background again. Juggling these hockey girls has been an adventure, that’s for sure.
Do you have a favourite non-Jessie character in the books? If so, who, and why?
Kathy certainly comes to mind. I liked the way she became part of Jessie’s conscience in Breakaway. I like the way she doesn’t “play games” off the ice. Kathy tells it like she sees it, and I hope readers enjoy her sense of humour.
Kathy was one of my favourites too :). Why did you decide to write in the first person? Did you ever consider third person?
The first six drafts of Power Plays were in third person. Probably the best decision I ever made was to switch to first person and present tense. I did this because of the popularity of The Outsiders with my Grade Eight Students. Using first person allowed me to find Jessie’s voice.
Wow, I am trying to imagine the book as a third person novel. Definitely works well in first person. So, when you wrote the first book, did you know you were writing a series? If not, when did you know it was going to be a series?
I thought I might write a series, but I thought the other books would be from other female hockey players’ viewpoints. That was before I found Jessie’s voice. Somewhere along the way I realized Jessie and her friends could show teenage girls how to treat one another and deal with conflict.
Frankly I revised Power Plays (originally called Not Just a Boys’ Game) so many times, I never felt I had time to work on a sequel!
One of the very great pleasures of a series (speaking both as a reader and as a writer) is that the characters have time to grow, and you can create a more complicated and fuller arc. This is not only true of Jessie, but of many of the secondary characters too. Jodi in particular has a very interesting story-line. How much of the full three-book arc did you imagine from the get-go, and how much just came to you as you started the second and third books?
I would say that I saw very little of it. I knew Jodi’s binge drinking would catch up with her in Face Off, but I didn’t know exactly when it would occur. I remember my excitement when I realized, “Yes, THIS is where it happens!”
It’s funny how Power Plays left “doors” open for me in Face Off. For instance, when Jessie asks Mark, “Why did your parents break up?” and he never tells her, I didn’t actually know the answer.
The Evan-Jessie storyline in Breakaway was originally supposed to have happened in her “unrecorded” Grade Eleven year. Probably I should have written a book about this year, because I had enough storylines in Breakaway to fill two books.
Of the three books in the series, which was the easiest or the most fun to write?
I usually describe Power Plays as a reno. You would not see much similarity between the original manuscript and the one Coteau published. It took three years to write, and five years to revise. I still look at it and view certain scenes as “rooms” that I wish I had demolished.
Face Off was by far the easiest. I wrote about half of the manuscript, then wrote the ending, and wrote up to the ending. I knew where I was going, and that made all the difference. I did do some heavy revisions on some flashback scenes I had used, but structurally, the book changed very little from the pre-editing stage draft.
Breakaway was written in the least amount of time, but I paid for that in the revision stages. You’d think I’d know more by the time I got to the third book, but I really didn’t. I think writing a manuscript is very much like raising a child. They can get away on you, and you don’t have the objectivity to step back and figure out what’s not working. You might sense that something isn’t, but it’s hard to put it in a nutshell what it is.
When people ask me what my books are about, I can’t put the description into ONE cohesive sentence. Maybe that’s not a good thing, but maybe it is. Maybe it means there are enough layers to satisfy different kinds of readers.
Do you have a favourite, now that they are all finished?
I don’t think I have a favourite book. I have favourite moments in all of them. The book with the most of these is probably Breakaway, so I guess that one is closest to being my favourite. I worked hard to put a “gem” on every page.
You have mentioned that you might write another Jessie Mac book. Can you share any of your thoughts about this, or is it Top Secret?
University hockey has many challenges. Outsiders might regard it as fun, but it can take a huge emotional toll on players. I think I might like to explore this, but I haven’t written a word yet. I do jot down notes while I am watching hockey. I think it would be fun to project Jessie, Kathy, and Amy into their university years, but I don’t know if I can stomach concocting an entire manuscript of hockey narrative. If only I could keep the girls in the dressing room!
You mentioned also that you are working on a fantasy novel right now. I'm excited! What can you tell us about it? How are you finding writing fantasy, after writing contemporary YA?
My fantasy is actually more “alternative history.” There is no magic, although there is a great deal of superstition. Several cultures are threatened by the aggression of another warlike culture and their cold-blooded leader (Roland). Gabrielle and Damon, my main characters, have lived in several of these cultures. They share the gifts of languages and intelligence. Damon has the mind of an engineer while Gabrielle is a naturalist.
The biggest difference between this manuscript and The Jessie Mac Series –is the humour. This manuscript just seems so serious. Revenge motivates most of my characters, and ultimately I want to show how self-destructive this can be.
Another difference is the shifts in narration. I try to stick to Gabrielle and Damon, but I do step outside their viewpoints so that readers get a better sense of some of the other major players.
You also write youth theater, is that right? How different is that from writing fiction? How do you organize such different writing projects (in terms of time / mental space)?
I haven’t written many youth plays lately. I wrote them mostly for schools where I taught. I recall auditioning kids for The Banes of Darkwood (then called A Splash of Horror) when I hadn’t even written the final scene! I gave a Grade 8 boy the part of Uncle Lester, even though I hadn’t written a single line of dialogue for that role. Naturally I did have the play finished by the time we had our first rehearsal/read through.
Deadlines are very motivating! I finish what I need to finish first.
I write a play when I know a theatre group is going to be performing it. Currently, I have only three completed plays that have never been performed – out of around thirty total.
I am a binge writer. Being involved with writing groups and other writers definitely helps me to keep working on manuscripts. I wish I could say that I write a certain amount every day. I do have a fulltime job and some heavy volunteer commitments. I try not to let these things push my writing too far into the background.
What are your lowest and highest moments, as a writer?
I am so lucky. I don’t have many low moments. It’s disappointing to have so much success with Power Plays with awards, and not with the other books, but it’s hard to be upset when I have such a great relationship with my publisher. There are many writers out there, with the noses pressed up against the pane of publication, wanting to get out of the cold. I am blessed to have a few publications out there, and I don’t take a moment of that for granted.
My highest moments? Invariably they are when non-readers get turned on to reading because of Jessie Mac. I know a man in his mid-fifties who reads extensively now although he hadn’t picked up a single book between high school and 2007 when he started reading Power Plays. I am really proud that Jessie can reach out and influence a reader in this way.
Book recommendations please! Can you name a few of your favourite books when you were a child, and a few of your favourites now? What should my legions of blog-readers be reading?
My favourites growing up:
The Black Stallion series, Walter Farley
Exodus, Leon Uris
The Virginian, Owen Wister
The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas
Prince of Foxes, Samuel Shellebarger (in fact all of his books)
Great Lion of God, Taylor Caldwell
The Big Fisherman, Lloyd C. Douglas
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
There wasn’t much YA literature when I was growing up. I think this is a pretty new phenomenon.
I don’t think teen readers can go wrong with anything written by Eric Walters or Carol Matas. I loved The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all these questions! Maureen Ulrich can be found on-line in the following places:
http://www.maureenulrich.ca/
https://twitter.com/MaureenUlrich
https://www.facebook.com/groups/12823...
Yours, grateful-for-my-writer-friends,
Catherine
Here is my interview with Maureen Ulrich, the author of an excellent girls' hockey trilogy: Power Plays, Face Off, and Breakaway. Thank you so much for visiting my blog, Maureen. *pours coffee for self and for Maureen*
Rather than me trying to describe the Jessie Mac books, I'll get you to do it! What are the books are about?
I view each of these books as “A Season in Jessie MacIntyre’s Life.” Each one follows the rollercoaster of her hockey, and hopefully each one also sheds some light on issues that teenage girls face: bullying, friendship, self-esteem, binge drinking, and dating.
Power Plays is Jessie’s Grade Nine year. She has just moved to a new city and is having trouble making friends. She ends up running afoul of two girls, who make her life miserable and sometimes, very scary. Jessie doesn’t tell her parents, thinking the harassment will stop if she can avoid the bullies. Jessie makes friends when she starts playing girls’ hockey, and from them she learns a lot about what it takes to be part of a team.
Face Off focuses mostly on Jessie’s Grade Ten year. Because Jessie makes a bad decision at a party, she learns just how easy it is to damage her reputation. In addition, her hockey team has leadership and coaching problems. It isn’t easy staying motivated to play her best when the dressing room isn’t fun anymore. This is the year Jessie realizes just how much can be going on “behind someone’s face.”
In Breakaway, Jessie is in Grade Twelve and is playing her last year of minor hockey. She is nervous about AAA and worries that her team won’t win a single game. She also frets about her future. What will she take at university? Will she be able to keep playing hockey after high school?
I can’t talk about The Jessie Mac Series without mentioning Mark Taylor. He is very much the object of Jessie’s affections, and she has to learn to sort out her feelings for him.
I hope Jessie is a well-rounded character, with strengths and flaws. My intention is to show, through her thoughts and actions, what it means to be motivated by integrity and loyalty.
The books are meant to be an honest reflection of what it is like playing a sport. My husband, who coached our daughters, always told the girls, “The highs can’t be too high, and the lows can’t be too low.” Such good advice.
Having taught high school for years, and having two teenage daughters, did you ever find yourself writing a character that was too close to a "real" person?
I often start from a real person as a reference point. Too close to a real person? I would say not. It takes very little time for the character to start moving further and further away from the real person. The character has a different background from the real person. His or her experiences and interactions other characters make him or her unique.
The books have a lot of secondary / minor characters, obviously, since you need to make up a team and then some. Though I sometimes wanted MORE of the characters I particularly liked, I was impressed that you managed to make each one feel real and memorable without resorting to cliches or cardboard cut-outs, and without letting anybody's side-story bog down the pace of the Big Story or the focus on Jessie. Did this require a ton of editing and revision? Can you tell us anything about balancing a large cast of characters in a fast-paced story?
I had a very steep learning curve on this topic. I wrote Face Off and Breakaway in entirely different fashions. In Face Off, I set out to gradually introduce the reader to the girls on Jessie’s past team the Xtreme, and the new players on the Rage. I wanted each girl to have an identity and make a contribution to the plot and the team. The feedback I got from adult readers indicated that I had “too many characters.” My sister-in-law actually provided some great insight on this. She said, “This wasn’t an issue in Power Plays. There were only a few girls that were integral to the plot. The rest just filled in the dressing room.” I tried to act on this advice in Breakaway – but I did so AFTER I had written the entire draft, in which Larissa had a far bigger role. I decided to move Kathy front and center (literally, she plays center, right?) and push Larissa into the background again. Juggling these hockey girls has been an adventure, that’s for sure.
Do you have a favourite non-Jessie character in the books? If so, who, and why?
Kathy certainly comes to mind. I liked the way she became part of Jessie’s conscience in Breakaway. I like the way she doesn’t “play games” off the ice. Kathy tells it like she sees it, and I hope readers enjoy her sense of humour.
Kathy was one of my favourites too :). Why did you decide to write in the first person? Did you ever consider third person?
The first six drafts of Power Plays were in third person. Probably the best decision I ever made was to switch to first person and present tense. I did this because of the popularity of The Outsiders with my Grade Eight Students. Using first person allowed me to find Jessie’s voice.
Wow, I am trying to imagine the book as a third person novel. Definitely works well in first person. So, when you wrote the first book, did you know you were writing a series? If not, when did you know it was going to be a series?
I thought I might write a series, but I thought the other books would be from other female hockey players’ viewpoints. That was before I found Jessie’s voice. Somewhere along the way I realized Jessie and her friends could show teenage girls how to treat one another and deal with conflict.
Frankly I revised Power Plays (originally called Not Just a Boys’ Game) so many times, I never felt I had time to work on a sequel!
One of the very great pleasures of a series (speaking both as a reader and as a writer) is that the characters have time to grow, and you can create a more complicated and fuller arc. This is not only true of Jessie, but of many of the secondary characters too. Jodi in particular has a very interesting story-line. How much of the full three-book arc did you imagine from the get-go, and how much just came to you as you started the second and third books?
I would say that I saw very little of it. I knew Jodi’s binge drinking would catch up with her in Face Off, but I didn’t know exactly when it would occur. I remember my excitement when I realized, “Yes, THIS is where it happens!”
It’s funny how Power Plays left “doors” open for me in Face Off. For instance, when Jessie asks Mark, “Why did your parents break up?” and he never tells her, I didn’t actually know the answer.
The Evan-Jessie storyline in Breakaway was originally supposed to have happened in her “unrecorded” Grade Eleven year. Probably I should have written a book about this year, because I had enough storylines in Breakaway to fill two books.
Of the three books in the series, which was the easiest or the most fun to write?
I usually describe Power Plays as a reno. You would not see much similarity between the original manuscript and the one Coteau published. It took three years to write, and five years to revise. I still look at it and view certain scenes as “rooms” that I wish I had demolished.
Face Off was by far the easiest. I wrote about half of the manuscript, then wrote the ending, and wrote up to the ending. I knew where I was going, and that made all the difference. I did do some heavy revisions on some flashback scenes I had used, but structurally, the book changed very little from the pre-editing stage draft.
Breakaway was written in the least amount of time, but I paid for that in the revision stages. You’d think I’d know more by the time I got to the third book, but I really didn’t. I think writing a manuscript is very much like raising a child. They can get away on you, and you don’t have the objectivity to step back and figure out what’s not working. You might sense that something isn’t, but it’s hard to put it in a nutshell what it is.
When people ask me what my books are about, I can’t put the description into ONE cohesive sentence. Maybe that’s not a good thing, but maybe it is. Maybe it means there are enough layers to satisfy different kinds of readers.
Do you have a favourite, now that they are all finished?
I don’t think I have a favourite book. I have favourite moments in all of them. The book with the most of these is probably Breakaway, so I guess that one is closest to being my favourite. I worked hard to put a “gem” on every page.
You have mentioned that you might write another Jessie Mac book. Can you share any of your thoughts about this, or is it Top Secret?
University hockey has many challenges. Outsiders might regard it as fun, but it can take a huge emotional toll on players. I think I might like to explore this, but I haven’t written a word yet. I do jot down notes while I am watching hockey. I think it would be fun to project Jessie, Kathy, and Amy into their university years, but I don’t know if I can stomach concocting an entire manuscript of hockey narrative. If only I could keep the girls in the dressing room!
You mentioned also that you are working on a fantasy novel right now. I'm excited! What can you tell us about it? How are you finding writing fantasy, after writing contemporary YA?
My fantasy is actually more “alternative history.” There is no magic, although there is a great deal of superstition. Several cultures are threatened by the aggression of another warlike culture and their cold-blooded leader (Roland). Gabrielle and Damon, my main characters, have lived in several of these cultures. They share the gifts of languages and intelligence. Damon has the mind of an engineer while Gabrielle is a naturalist.
The biggest difference between this manuscript and The Jessie Mac Series –is the humour. This manuscript just seems so serious. Revenge motivates most of my characters, and ultimately I want to show how self-destructive this can be.
Another difference is the shifts in narration. I try to stick to Gabrielle and Damon, but I do step outside their viewpoints so that readers get a better sense of some of the other major players.
You also write youth theater, is that right? How different is that from writing fiction? How do you organize such different writing projects (in terms of time / mental space)?
I haven’t written many youth plays lately. I wrote them mostly for schools where I taught. I recall auditioning kids for The Banes of Darkwood (then called A Splash of Horror) when I hadn’t even written the final scene! I gave a Grade 8 boy the part of Uncle Lester, even though I hadn’t written a single line of dialogue for that role. Naturally I did have the play finished by the time we had our first rehearsal/read through.
Deadlines are very motivating! I finish what I need to finish first.
I write a play when I know a theatre group is going to be performing it. Currently, I have only three completed plays that have never been performed – out of around thirty total.
I am a binge writer. Being involved with writing groups and other writers definitely helps me to keep working on manuscripts. I wish I could say that I write a certain amount every day. I do have a fulltime job and some heavy volunteer commitments. I try not to let these things push my writing too far into the background.
What are your lowest and highest moments, as a writer?
I am so lucky. I don’t have many low moments. It’s disappointing to have so much success with Power Plays with awards, and not with the other books, but it’s hard to be upset when I have such a great relationship with my publisher. There are many writers out there, with the noses pressed up against the pane of publication, wanting to get out of the cold. I am blessed to have a few publications out there, and I don’t take a moment of that for granted.
My highest moments? Invariably they are when non-readers get turned on to reading because of Jessie Mac. I know a man in his mid-fifties who reads extensively now although he hadn’t picked up a single book between high school and 2007 when he started reading Power Plays. I am really proud that Jessie can reach out and influence a reader in this way.
Book recommendations please! Can you name a few of your favourite books when you were a child, and a few of your favourites now? What should my legions of blog-readers be reading?
My favourites growing up:
The Black Stallion series, Walter Farley
Exodus, Leon Uris
The Virginian, Owen Wister
The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas
Prince of Foxes, Samuel Shellebarger (in fact all of his books)
Great Lion of God, Taylor Caldwell
The Big Fisherman, Lloyd C. Douglas
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
There wasn’t much YA literature when I was growing up. I think this is a pretty new phenomenon.
I don’t think teen readers can go wrong with anything written by Eric Walters or Carol Matas. I loved The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all these questions! Maureen Ulrich can be found on-line in the following places:
http://www.maureenulrich.ca/
https://twitter.com/MaureenUlrich
https://www.facebook.com/groups/12823...
Yours, grateful-for-my-writer-friends,
Catherine
March 25, 2013
Capturing Castles
Dear Blog,
I have two large boxes in our basement filled with the journals I kept from age 10 until my mid-twenties. When I moved back to North America several years ago and retrieved this box from my parents' attic, I spent a long afternoon reading over my childhood and adolescence, rolling my eyes, laughing, and shuddering at me-of-the-past. There are three years of little hardcover notebooks filled with snarky observations in an ugly ballpoint scrawl. When I turned thirteen I started using big fat spiral notebooks and writing nicely with a fountain pen, so the journals become much easier to read. My style changed, too, becoming suddenly quite flowery and British-sounding. I was writing longer entries, trying to "capture" people and places and give events a fictionalized feel. The reason for the change was obvious and I laughed aloud in the attic realizing what it was: I had read Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle for the first time.
This was by far my favourite book in my early teens (also a great read for adults, like any really good YA). It is presented as the journal of Cassandra Mortmain, middle child of the eccentric Mortmain family, who live in destitution in a Victorian house attached to a castle in the countryside near London. It tells the story of their changing fortunes when their rich, young American landlord moves to England to claim his estate after his grandfather's death. The beautiful oldest child, Rose, who cannot bear their poverty any longer, sets her sights on marrying him. The story starts out (as Cassandra notes) a sort of cross between Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, but carries on past the engagement and what might have been the "happy ever after" in a very different sort of story (for example, a Jane Austen / Charlotte Bronte book) to explore all the complications of real life and real love.
Here is Cassandra on happy endings, which this book is far too good to offer up in any pat way:
Oh, I'd love the clothes and the wedding. I am not sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, and one obviously has to try them sooner or later. What I'd really hate would be the settled feeling, with nothing but happiness to look forward to. Of course no life is perfectly happy - Rose's children will probably get ill, the servants may be difficult, perhaps dear Mrs. Cotton will prove to be the teeniest fly in the ointment. (I should like to know what fly was originally in what ointment.) There are hundreds of worries and even sorrows that may come along, but - I think what I really mean is that Rose won't be wanting things to happen. She will want things to stay just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exciting may be just round the corner.
It made me think about wanting, and how differently we want and hope when we are young and every door is still open (or, many of them, if we are lucky). I used to take long walks in my teens and early twenties imagining the places I would go and the life I would have - it was different every time of course. I still have a long list of places I want to go and I still want things for myself - mainly time to write and money to travel - but something has shifted and now most of my wants, the really big wants, are for my children. Hopes and dreams for my own life are narrower and more practical. I've closed so many doors. And one has to, eventually (or maybe one doesn't - but the desire for children and perhaps the connected desire to stop thinking / dreaming about myself is a whole other post for another time). In any case, the book deals beautifully with dissatisfaction and wanting and the sense of anything-is-possible that (can) characterize youth. In a way, Cassandra is content in their dire straits and enjoys entertaining hopes for the future, until she falls in love and wanting becomes something altogether different for her. It is as authentic and painful and powerful a depiction of first love as I've ever read, and Cassandra is one of the most likable, enjoyable narrators in any book anywhere ever.
Three more observations about I Capture The Castle :
1. I am really interested in the way different authors write about children and teenagers wrestling with and questioning religion. Dodie Smith writes wonderfully about Cassandra's own faith / lack of faith. Cassandra is not quite an atheist - she goes to church on occasion, and she prays, but she has no certain and definite faith. Her prayers are a bit like wishing on a possibility. The vicar in the book talks very beautifully to Cassandra about faith, about religion as an art form, perhaps the greatest art, "an extension of the communion all other arts attempt." Later, considering this, Cassandra writes: I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretence that things are real, due to one's longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art - and then I had a glimpse of how religion really can cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful.
It's an interesting passage (I think) and made an impression on me as a teen, because it seemed to separate religion from real faith in a way. It was sort of like the way an atheist might choose to be religious. And in fact Cassandra does not convert, but her thoughts on religion (and the vicar's too) are worth reading and beautifully expressed.
2. I have been reading a lot of YA lately and was struck but just how slow this book is, comparatively. Not that there isn't narrative tension - Dodie Smith is a master of it. But she takes her time. She is not constantly driving the plot forwards. She takes us on long journeys inside Cassandra's thoughts. She "captures" the Castle and the countryside and the village and the characters vividly and at length. When Cassandra rides her bike to the train station, we get the whole bike ride: her thoughts, the weather, the scenery. YA books in particular tend to be page-turners these days. It is rare to get such a long and languid book. I'm not sure exactly what I want to say about that. The old fogey in me wonders if it isn't that our attention span is suffering ( I Capture the Castle was published in 1949). Books now have to compete with television, with the internet, with the endless click click click on to something else as soon as your attention wanders a bit. I wonder if we read differently now - if a book really has to hook a reader and not let go in order to keep them. I Capture the Castle is a slow and quite "literary" book (and in a sense I just mean that the characters themselves are very literary-minded; there are long scenes of Cassandra taking walks with other characters and talking about books and poems - it assumes a well-read reader, though it does not require one). I wonder if a book like this could be published in its current form, now, and it makes me sad to think perhaps not. But maybe I am just being a grumpy pessimist. I do love page-turners, too, but reading this I was startled to realize just how slow it seemed, in a good way.
3. I've sometimes wondered (and I know my parents did) why I was such a train wreck in my teens. I came from a sane and happy home with two parents who loved us and each other and didn't even yell. The awful conclusion I've come to is that I was bored and wanted something exciting to write about in my journal. Cassandra's "journal" was full of angst and event. I wanted my story to be A Story, too. I succeeded in that, in any case - my journal does become much more interesting in my teens. I was not, of course, modeling myself on Cassandra, an incredibly sensible, kind, bookish virgin in unusual and interesting circumstances. I just modeled my writing on hers (via Dodie Smith). For a teenager leading a very conventional life and trying to create her own "interesting circumstances," the options are limited and certain kinds of misbehavior are an easy (rather unimaginative) way to stir things up. My journal turns very Cassandra Mortmain just as I start to experiment with being a Bad Apple. There, I've said it: I blame Dodie Smith for all the worry I caused my parents!
Well. Another post perhaps, on whether books can really be Bad Influences (we'll see where that post ends up but for now I'll say I think no, but it's a complicated no, and depends a bit on what you mean by influence, and what you mean by bad).
Yours, blaming-beloved-authors-for-my-mistakes,
Catherine
I have two large boxes in our basement filled with the journals I kept from age 10 until my mid-twenties. When I moved back to North America several years ago and retrieved this box from my parents' attic, I spent a long afternoon reading over my childhood and adolescence, rolling my eyes, laughing, and shuddering at me-of-the-past. There are three years of little hardcover notebooks filled with snarky observations in an ugly ballpoint scrawl. When I turned thirteen I started using big fat spiral notebooks and writing nicely with a fountain pen, so the journals become much easier to read. My style changed, too, becoming suddenly quite flowery and British-sounding. I was writing longer entries, trying to "capture" people and places and give events a fictionalized feel. The reason for the change was obvious and I laughed aloud in the attic realizing what it was: I had read Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle for the first time.
This was by far my favourite book in my early teens (also a great read for adults, like any really good YA). It is presented as the journal of Cassandra Mortmain, middle child of the eccentric Mortmain family, who live in destitution in a Victorian house attached to a castle in the countryside near London. It tells the story of their changing fortunes when their rich, young American landlord moves to England to claim his estate after his grandfather's death. The beautiful oldest child, Rose, who cannot bear their poverty any longer, sets her sights on marrying him. The story starts out (as Cassandra notes) a sort of cross between Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, but carries on past the engagement and what might have been the "happy ever after" in a very different sort of story (for example, a Jane Austen / Charlotte Bronte book) to explore all the complications of real life and real love.
Here is Cassandra on happy endings, which this book is far too good to offer up in any pat way:
Oh, I'd love the clothes and the wedding. I am not sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, and one obviously has to try them sooner or later. What I'd really hate would be the settled feeling, with nothing but happiness to look forward to. Of course no life is perfectly happy - Rose's children will probably get ill, the servants may be difficult, perhaps dear Mrs. Cotton will prove to be the teeniest fly in the ointment. (I should like to know what fly was originally in what ointment.) There are hundreds of worries and even sorrows that may come along, but - I think what I really mean is that Rose won't be wanting things to happen. She will want things to stay just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exciting may be just round the corner.
It made me think about wanting, and how differently we want and hope when we are young and every door is still open (or, many of them, if we are lucky). I used to take long walks in my teens and early twenties imagining the places I would go and the life I would have - it was different every time of course. I still have a long list of places I want to go and I still want things for myself - mainly time to write and money to travel - but something has shifted and now most of my wants, the really big wants, are for my children. Hopes and dreams for my own life are narrower and more practical. I've closed so many doors. And one has to, eventually (or maybe one doesn't - but the desire for children and perhaps the connected desire to stop thinking / dreaming about myself is a whole other post for another time). In any case, the book deals beautifully with dissatisfaction and wanting and the sense of anything-is-possible that (can) characterize youth. In a way, Cassandra is content in their dire straits and enjoys entertaining hopes for the future, until she falls in love and wanting becomes something altogether different for her. It is as authentic and painful and powerful a depiction of first love as I've ever read, and Cassandra is one of the most likable, enjoyable narrators in any book anywhere ever.
Three more observations about I Capture The Castle :
1. I am really interested in the way different authors write about children and teenagers wrestling with and questioning religion. Dodie Smith writes wonderfully about Cassandra's own faith / lack of faith. Cassandra is not quite an atheist - she goes to church on occasion, and she prays, but she has no certain and definite faith. Her prayers are a bit like wishing on a possibility. The vicar in the book talks very beautifully to Cassandra about faith, about religion as an art form, perhaps the greatest art, "an extension of the communion all other arts attempt." Later, considering this, Cassandra writes: I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretence that things are real, due to one's longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art - and then I had a glimpse of how religion really can cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful.
It's an interesting passage (I think) and made an impression on me as a teen, because it seemed to separate religion from real faith in a way. It was sort of like the way an atheist might choose to be religious. And in fact Cassandra does not convert, but her thoughts on religion (and the vicar's too) are worth reading and beautifully expressed.
2. I have been reading a lot of YA lately and was struck but just how slow this book is, comparatively. Not that there isn't narrative tension - Dodie Smith is a master of it. But she takes her time. She is not constantly driving the plot forwards. She takes us on long journeys inside Cassandra's thoughts. She "captures" the Castle and the countryside and the village and the characters vividly and at length. When Cassandra rides her bike to the train station, we get the whole bike ride: her thoughts, the weather, the scenery. YA books in particular tend to be page-turners these days. It is rare to get such a long and languid book. I'm not sure exactly what I want to say about that. The old fogey in me wonders if it isn't that our attention span is suffering ( I Capture the Castle was published in 1949). Books now have to compete with television, with the internet, with the endless click click click on to something else as soon as your attention wanders a bit. I wonder if we read differently now - if a book really has to hook a reader and not let go in order to keep them. I Capture the Castle is a slow and quite "literary" book (and in a sense I just mean that the characters themselves are very literary-minded; there are long scenes of Cassandra taking walks with other characters and talking about books and poems - it assumes a well-read reader, though it does not require one). I wonder if a book like this could be published in its current form, now, and it makes me sad to think perhaps not. But maybe I am just being a grumpy pessimist. I do love page-turners, too, but reading this I was startled to realize just how slow it seemed, in a good way.
3. I've sometimes wondered (and I know my parents did) why I was such a train wreck in my teens. I came from a sane and happy home with two parents who loved us and each other and didn't even yell. The awful conclusion I've come to is that I was bored and wanted something exciting to write about in my journal. Cassandra's "journal" was full of angst and event. I wanted my story to be A Story, too. I succeeded in that, in any case - my journal does become much more interesting in my teens. I was not, of course, modeling myself on Cassandra, an incredibly sensible, kind, bookish virgin in unusual and interesting circumstances. I just modeled my writing on hers (via Dodie Smith). For a teenager leading a very conventional life and trying to create her own "interesting circumstances," the options are limited and certain kinds of misbehavior are an easy (rather unimaginative) way to stir things up. My journal turns very Cassandra Mortmain just as I start to experiment with being a Bad Apple. There, I've said it: I blame Dodie Smith for all the worry I caused my parents!
Well. Another post perhaps, on whether books can really be Bad Influences (we'll see where that post ends up but for now I'll say I think no, but it's a complicated no, and depends a bit on what you mean by influence, and what you mean by bad).
Yours, blaming-beloved-authors-for-my-mistakes,
Catherine
March 18, 2013
Sunsets and Bilgewater
Dear Blog,
When I was fifteen years old I was walking down the street with a boy, the sun setting over the trees and the rooftops, and he said: "That sunset would look so amazing if we were on acid." At the time I thought, how sad that he's done so many drugs even a sunset is dreary without them. I sort of knew what he meant: Math class was a bizarre adventure if I was high, dull and exhausting if not. Still, there was a difference between math class and a sunset and I thought I understood that he'd crossed some awful threshold and that I had not. I still loved the sunset. I was OK.
Well, maybe. I wasn't all that OK but I was more OK than he was and I think about him sometimes and wonder what became of him. He was young - so young, when I think about it now, heartbreakingly young to be so jaded and so damaged inside and out, and for him the sunset was as dreary as math class, the world pointless and without pleasure unless a little tab on his tongue brought back the color and vibrancy - the carpet swirling, raccoons whispering secrets, your tongue a hunk of meat you are afraid you might eat, wonder and terror, all that. I hope he is all right. He was not a kind person back then and I have no reason to feel kindly towards him, except that it made me so sad, that comment about the sunset.
Later, when I was rereading Jane Gardam's Bilgewater , something I did fairly frequently in my teens, I thought about what he'd said and understood him a bit better. I read it for the first time when I was 12. That time, and every time thereafter, I found the world made new through the farsighted eyes of Marigold Green (known to all as Bilgewater), strange and brilliant misfit, prone to falling in love and self-loathing. There is a remarkable physicality to the book. People are like giant flailing puppets, grotesque or too beautiful to be true. Clothes are important, in the way that costumes are. The settings are so vivid they hurt. For a twelve-year-old, the hints of sex were fascinating, full of hilarity and horror, so much more interesting than the explicit incestuous carnality of Flowers in the Attic, which my friends and I all devoured in sixth grade. The writing style was clever and quirky and breezy and totally unlike anything I'd read before. Bilgewater gave me a weird kind of high, one that did not impair me or leave me ill and furious as I came down. It lasted for days, sometimes weeks: my senses heightened, the world changed. The worst of my high school days, the most tedious and pointless and painful, felt so Bilgewater - like the book was rewriting the world for me in its own style. The world on Bilgewater was stranger, more interesting, more. Like a sunset on acid.
It is sad, it should not be so, but I think we all find the world losing its color and wonder sometimes. It often starts at school - being bored, I mean. All those hours. My kids are nearing school-age and my stomach clenches up thinking about it. I hated school. That Guy loved it and I desperately hope they will be like him. I don't know if it depends on the school or the person, but I don't want to think they will be like me, sitting in a desk and wishing I was anywhere anywhere anywhere but there for hours of every day, for day after day after day of my childhood. It is hard to hold on to the magic of just being, at school. Or it was for me, anyway. And then we grow up and the days roll by and we look at the sunset and think "oh pretty" as we hurry along, and we half-attend to the conversations we have and the work we have to do and we are never quite who we want to be and where the hell did I put the grocery list and the car is out of gas and ow i just sliced my thumb open on this can. So it goes and I know nothing better than a book to startle me out of this kind of funk and make the world new again. No book did it better for me, in my teens, than Bilgewater.
Here's a wee tiny taste of Marigold accidentally stumbling upon a garden party:
What was worse, there on the croquet lawn, at some little distance were some graceful, laughing people. They were moving over the lawn towards me in a way that was confident and amused and which scared me to death. They came on. They swung mallets, one wore a great romantic hat. They moved easily inside their clothes, cheerful, languid.
Experienced.
Older than me, younger than Hastings-Benson, but filled with blessed self-respect. On they came, four or five of them, across the lawn, laughing like what Paula calls County, smiling, enjoying themselves.
Water-snakes, I suddenly thought. Like Coleridge's water-snakes. "Slimy things that crawled with legs" - but phosphorescent, adapted, cheerful. I envied them. "I blessed them unaware." They scared me stiff but I blessed them unaware.
"And who is this?" asked water-snake one (The Headmaster), mellifluous and kind.
"Why, Marigold!" said water-snake two (Mrs. Gathering) and I took to my awful high heels and fled.
See?
Yours, still loving sunsets and fleeing garden parties in the wrong shoes,
Catherine
When I was fifteen years old I was walking down the street with a boy, the sun setting over the trees and the rooftops, and he said: "That sunset would look so amazing if we were on acid." At the time I thought, how sad that he's done so many drugs even a sunset is dreary without them. I sort of knew what he meant: Math class was a bizarre adventure if I was high, dull and exhausting if not. Still, there was a difference between math class and a sunset and I thought I understood that he'd crossed some awful threshold and that I had not. I still loved the sunset. I was OK.
Well, maybe. I wasn't all that OK but I was more OK than he was and I think about him sometimes and wonder what became of him. He was young - so young, when I think about it now, heartbreakingly young to be so jaded and so damaged inside and out, and for him the sunset was as dreary as math class, the world pointless and without pleasure unless a little tab on his tongue brought back the color and vibrancy - the carpet swirling, raccoons whispering secrets, your tongue a hunk of meat you are afraid you might eat, wonder and terror, all that. I hope he is all right. He was not a kind person back then and I have no reason to feel kindly towards him, except that it made me so sad, that comment about the sunset.
Later, when I was rereading Jane Gardam's Bilgewater , something I did fairly frequently in my teens, I thought about what he'd said and understood him a bit better. I read it for the first time when I was 12. That time, and every time thereafter, I found the world made new through the farsighted eyes of Marigold Green (known to all as Bilgewater), strange and brilliant misfit, prone to falling in love and self-loathing. There is a remarkable physicality to the book. People are like giant flailing puppets, grotesque or too beautiful to be true. Clothes are important, in the way that costumes are. The settings are so vivid they hurt. For a twelve-year-old, the hints of sex were fascinating, full of hilarity and horror, so much more interesting than the explicit incestuous carnality of Flowers in the Attic, which my friends and I all devoured in sixth grade. The writing style was clever and quirky and breezy and totally unlike anything I'd read before. Bilgewater gave me a weird kind of high, one that did not impair me or leave me ill and furious as I came down. It lasted for days, sometimes weeks: my senses heightened, the world changed. The worst of my high school days, the most tedious and pointless and painful, felt so Bilgewater - like the book was rewriting the world for me in its own style. The world on Bilgewater was stranger, more interesting, more. Like a sunset on acid.
It is sad, it should not be so, but I think we all find the world losing its color and wonder sometimes. It often starts at school - being bored, I mean. All those hours. My kids are nearing school-age and my stomach clenches up thinking about it. I hated school. That Guy loved it and I desperately hope they will be like him. I don't know if it depends on the school or the person, but I don't want to think they will be like me, sitting in a desk and wishing I was anywhere anywhere anywhere but there for hours of every day, for day after day after day of my childhood. It is hard to hold on to the magic of just being, at school. Or it was for me, anyway. And then we grow up and the days roll by and we look at the sunset and think "oh pretty" as we hurry along, and we half-attend to the conversations we have and the work we have to do and we are never quite who we want to be and where the hell did I put the grocery list and the car is out of gas and ow i just sliced my thumb open on this can. So it goes and I know nothing better than a book to startle me out of this kind of funk and make the world new again. No book did it better for me, in my teens, than Bilgewater.
Here's a wee tiny taste of Marigold accidentally stumbling upon a garden party:
What was worse, there on the croquet lawn, at some little distance were some graceful, laughing people. They were moving over the lawn towards me in a way that was confident and amused and which scared me to death. They came on. They swung mallets, one wore a great romantic hat. They moved easily inside their clothes, cheerful, languid.
Experienced.
Older than me, younger than Hastings-Benson, but filled with blessed self-respect. On they came, four or five of them, across the lawn, laughing like what Paula calls County, smiling, enjoying themselves.
Water-snakes, I suddenly thought. Like Coleridge's water-snakes. "Slimy things that crawled with legs" - but phosphorescent, adapted, cheerful. I envied them. "I blessed them unaware." They scared me stiff but I blessed them unaware.
"And who is this?" asked water-snake one (The Headmaster), mellifluous and kind.
"Why, Marigold!" said water-snake two (Mrs. Gathering) and I took to my awful high heels and fled.
See?
Yours, still loving sunsets and fleeing garden parties in the wrong shoes,
Catherine
