Catherine Austen's Blog, page 16

Friday Fable: The Writer and the Busy Life

You may know the old story, The Child and the Brook:

One day an old man was out walking when he noticed a child standing by the side of a stream. The boy stood there for over an hour, shifting from leg to leg, fidgeting, sighing, and staring��at the water.

“Why do you gaze so long and so impatiently on this stream, child?” the old man asked.

“I want to get across it but I don’t want to get my feet wet,” the child said. “So I’m waiting till the water runs��off and the ground dries up.”

This stream never stops.

The old man (who quickly realized the child was a dimwit and took pity upon him), said kindly, “You’ll be waiting your whole life then, child, for this stream never stops. Unless you want to follow it out to the sea, you’re going to have to wade.”

And the moral is: Don’t wait for the impossible.

That is a good old tale. But if Aesop were a modern slave to the written word, he might have called his fable, The Writer and the Busy Life:

One day an editor��was in a cafe��when he overheard an aspiring writer tell her friend��about her latest idea for a children’s novel.

“It’s about a lovestruck pygmy shrew who eats a magic root that turns him into a handsome human prince,” the writer said. “He��scorns the vacuous world of humanity’s��rich and famous because all he wants to do is get back to his tiny shrewish bride-to-be.” The writer was giddy with excitement as she added,��“I’ve got all the characters figured out and all the��scenes planned. It feels like the whole book is alive in my head!”

The pygmy shrew. (Way cuter than a human prince.)

“Why don’t you start writing?” the editor asked. (Being an editor, he felt that butting into the conversations of aspiring writers was not the least bit rude.)

“I need��a few months of free��time to devote myself to the project,” the writer said. “I don’t want to jump into it and then have to jump back out to go to work or taxi the kids somewhere. And of course there’s Christmas baking to get started, plus��I’ve got my mother coming for a visit and I’ve started a new pilates session on Saturdays. I’m way too busy. It’s better to wait��till I have a��big chunk of��free time without interruptions��and then I’ll be able to write a really great book.”

This stream never stops, either.

The editor��(who quickly realized the writer��was an optimist and took pity upon her), said kindly, “You’ll be waiting your whole life then, child, for this stream��never stops. If it’s not work or family, it’s vet appointments and emails. Unless you want to watch��your��story��wash out to sea, you’re going to have to set aside at least three hours a week for this book and defend that scheduled time from all the forces that’ll try to take it over. Good luck.”

And the moral is: Time to write cannot be found; it must be taken.��

And that’s my Friday fable. Now go ahead and��get your feet wet. Start writing your story today.

Or you could procrastinate by reading about pygmy shrews and how to help them on the Wildscreen ARKive website (where that adorable shrew picture is found).

Have a great weekend.

Filed under: Friday Fables, writing Tagged: aesop's fables, child and the brook, creative process, fables, inspiration, procrastination

Cool Reads for Cool Kids

My latest middle grade novel, 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6, is featured in this month’s issue of Middle Shelf Magazine, in their “Cool Reads for Cool Kids” section (under the “Humor” category, natch – you’ll find my excerpt on page 22.)

Check it out at this link to the current issue.

(I don’t have an image of the current cover but here are some cool images of past covers.)

After checking out this month’s Middle Shelf, be sure to subscribe to the magazine so you can check out all the other months, too. It’s free. And it’s cool. Pass it on to all the kids you know – cool and un-cool alike. (I tend to like the un-cool ones.)

If you want to read more of 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6, you can read the first chapter on my website. (That goes for all my books. You can check out all my first chapters at www.catherineausten.com.)

Then buy a copy for a kid on your Christmas list who could use a good laugh. You won’t regret it. This comedy been called “funny, wise, fast-paced and engaging” (National Reading Campaign) with “well-timed humour…and delightful plot twists” (CM Magazine) and “enough laughs and overall good feelings to satisfy readers aged 11 to 111″ (Montreal Review of Books) that is “sure to attract and engage both strong and reluctant readers.” (Canadian Children’s Book News). And that’s pretty cool, too.

You can find copies of my books at a store near me (in the National Capital Region of Canada), including Michabou, Kaleidoscope Kids Books, and Indigo Barrhaven, where I’ll be signing books later this month.

If you can’t find copies at a store near you, you can order one at the counter of your local independent bookstore and they’ll call you when it arrives a week or two later. Easy peasy. (That goes for any book in the world. If you can’t find it on the shelf, just ask your local bookstore to order it for you and they will be happy to do so.) Don’t know of a local bookstore? Find one at Indie Store Finder. Or you can purchase copies online from Chapters in Canada, from Amazon in the US, or directly from the publisher, Lorimer.

Have a great weekend.

Filed under: authors, books, children's books, What's New Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, book excerpts, book stores, children's novels, comedy, middle grade novel, middle shelf magazine

Yesterday’s News and Tomorrow’s Talks

KidLit Cafe 2014 Authors and Illustrators

I was at this year’s KidLit Cafe, an annual celebration of local children’s authors and illustrators hosted by the Ottawa Public Library and the Ottawa Children’s Literature Round Table. (That’s old news but it’s all I’ve got at hand.)

If you didn’t catch all the authors at left – Alan Neal, me (Catherine Austen), Don Cummer, Cécile Beaulieu Brousseau, Betty Large, Mike Stewart, Rachel Eugster, Brenda Chapman, and Frances Itani – back in October, you missed your chance. (But you can still check out our book links on the library website.)

If you did catch us there, thanks for coming out in the rain. It was a fun day. I always love the opportunity to read in a devil voice from 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6. (Which is not about the devil. At all. Really, it’s not a scary book. But yeah, there’s a devil voice. It’s funny, trust me. You had to be there.)

Me as Mary P.

There was a lot of fun stuff going on in the Ottawa area last month. For instance, I got to dress up like Mary Poppins and that’s always fun.

But there’s plenty of literary happenings in the National Capital Region in November, too.

The Ottawa Public Library has several FREE drop-in author visits for kids, teens and adults. (Okay, several of the November talks are over, yesterday’s news already, but several are still to come and you could go to them:

November 8: Sonia Tilson (The Monkey Puzzle Tree)
November 12: Barbara Fradkin (memoir writing workshop)
November 15: Monia Mazigh (Mirrors and Mirages)
November 17: E. Lockhart + Sara Mlynowski (Author of the Ruby Oliver books) + (Author of Whatever after series)

Check out the details on the OPL website. (I particularly like the awesome double-bill on November 17th with best-selling teen fiction authors E. Lockhart sand Sara Mylnowski.)

If you don’t live in Ottawa, check out what’s going on at your own local library. Even if there are no visiting authors, there are bound to be books.

Also coming up this month at various venues in Ottawa (but not for free, so I probably won’t be going), the Ottawa International Writers Festival is hosting talks by the likes of John Ralston Saul, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Denise Chong, Conrad Black, and the wonderful author for all ages, Cary Fagan.

No, it’s not the International Writers’ Festival – that was in October, it’s over, old news – but the Festival does literary stuff year-round. Check out the complete listing for November on the Festival website.

As for me, I will not be speaking anywhere in November. I won’t be going out in public dressed as Mary Poppins, either. I won’t be going out much this month at all. Instead, I’ll be holed up in my jammies piecing together the last bits of a literary thriller that I’ve been writing for, oh, three years, for which I finally figured out the ending. Hurrah! (I’ll talk all about it next year. You won’t be able to shut me up.)

Have a wonderful weekend.

 

 

 

Filed under: author talks, authors Tagged: author visits, book promotion, children's books, kidlit cafe, ottawa international writers festival, Ottawa Public Library

Friday Fable: Belling Oprah

Dore’s mice in council.

You may know the old story, “Belling the Cat:”

One day the house mice grew sick and tired of losing their loved ones to the house cat, so they held a council to discuss the problem. Some said this and some said that, and eventually a young mouse rose to its hind feet and shouted:

“The solution is simple! The real problem isn’t that the cat is faster than us; it’s that she sneaks up on us so silently. Right?” Everyone agreed. “If we had some warning of her approach, we could flee in time, right?”

All the other mice nodded their heads. “So what I propose,” the young mouse continued, “is that we take a small bell, thread a ribbon through it, and tie it around the cat’s neck. Then we’ll hear the bell tinkle every time the cat moves.”

Oh my goodness, there was great cheering in response to that clever idea. Everyone was on their feet nodding and clapping and slapping the young mouse’s back. Their spirits were uplifted and they could almost taste the days of freedom and longevity ahead of them.

Cat belled (by humans, not mice).

Then an old mouse stood upon a spool of thread and waved his cane around until he got everyone’s attention. “That is a fine idea,” the old mouse said. “But who is going to bell the cat?”

At that, nobody spoke, nobody nodded, and nobody felt so cheerful anymore. The young mouse muttered something about wet blankets and the crowd soon dispersed.

And the moral is: It’s easy to propose impossible remedies.

That is a fine old tale (and probably one that Aesop didn’t make up himself, but since it’s often included in his collections, I’m running with it), but if Aesop were a modern slave to the written word, he might have called his tale, “Belling Oprah:”

One day a writer went to a family gathering where everyone asked about his advances and royalties and copies sold, and he ended up letting it slip that his recent award-winning collection of short fiction had netted him the equivalent of 12 cents an hour. “I guess I should promote my books more,” he said sadly.

His family had many ideas about how to do that. Some said blog tours and bookstore signings, and some said Facebook pages and Goodreads giveaways (all of which the writer had already done), and eventually one young niece, who happened to be working on her own first novel, stood up and announced:

“The solution is simple. The problem isn’t the quality of your book; the problem is that readers can’t find your wonderful book because it’s lost in a sea of new releases. Right?” Everyone agreed. “If you could get people to hear about your book, they’d all read it and love it and buy it for their friends, right?”

All the other family members nodded their heads. “So what I propose,” the young niece continued, “is that you send your book to Oprah and have her include it in her book club. Then millions of people will hear about it and they’ll all love it and it’ll become a best-seller.”

Oh my goodness, there was great cheering in response to that clever idea. Everyone was on their feet nodding and clapping and slapping the young niece’s back. Their spirits were uplifted and they could almost taste the days of fame and fortune ahead.

Then the writer stood up and waved his pen around until he got everyone’s attention. “That is a fine idea,” he said. “But who’s going to convince Oprah to add it to her book club?”

At that, nobody spoke, nobody nodded, and nobody felt so cheerful anymore. The niece muttered something about “well maybe you could get Disney to make a movie of it,” and the crowd soon began talking about Aunt Daisy’s new quilt.

And the moral is: Do you really think it’s that easy?

Anyone who has ever written a good book has probably heard the advice to get famous people to promote it and make it into a movie, just as anyone who wants to get rich in the stock market has heard, “Buy low, sell high,” and anyone who wants to lose weight has heard, “Burn more calories than you consume.” Okay, yeah, great advice, I’ll just go do that.

When I published my first book, Walking Backward, many people told me it was right up Oprah’s alley (but five years later, alas, Oprah hasn’t shared her thoughts on it). When I published my dystopian YA novel, All Good Children, many people told me it would make a great movie (but, alas, the film rights have not sold).

It used to be that getting published was the hard part of writing (after the writing itself, of course). Now the hard part is getting noticed among the thousands of novels published every week. (Yeah, thousands every week. Maybe every day. I don’t know the latest stats.) It sure would be nice if Oprah could lift your book out of the crowd. But, alas, that woman has a lot of books on her plate.

So cherish the creative process, because who knows how your book will fare in the marketplace. And keep in mind that things could be worse: we could be mice, getting tormented and eaten by cats. (But looking on the bright side is another fable for another Friday.)

Have a great weekend.

 

Filed under: Friday Fables, writing Tagged: aesop's fables, book promotion, mice in council, oprah's book club, publishing, writers

Children’s Authors and Illustrators all over Ottawa

October in Ottawa is the perfect time and place to meet local authors and illustrators of books for children and teens (without bothering us at home).

On October 25th, head out to the 14th annual KidLit Cafe from the Ottawa Public Library and the Ottawa Children’s Literature Roundtable. Come out to the Greenboro Branch (363 Lorry Greenburg) from 2:00-4:00 p.m. for an interactive and family-friendly celebration of books. There’ll be crafts, refreshments, stories, author workshops and a book sale (thanks to Kaleidoscope Kids’ Books). It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s full of authors and illustrators, including these guys:

Frances Itani, Cecile Beulieu Brousseau, Rachel Eugster, Betty Large, Don Cummer, Kate Jaimet, Mike Stewart, Brenda Chapman, and me, Catherine Austen. Workshops hosted by local author and CBC Radio personality Alan Neal.

For more information, check out the Ottawa Public Library website.

Can’t wait till the 25th? Then come out to Indigo Barrhaven (125 Riocan Ave.) on Thursday, October 16th from 6:00-9:00 p.m. to meet almost a dozen authors and illustrators in advance of the weekend’s SCBWI conference “The Art of Story.” Again, it’s free, it’s fun and it’s full of authors and illustrators, including these guys:

Alma Fullerton, Caroline Pignat, Kari-Lynn Winters, Kate Jaimet, Angela Graham, Katherine Battersby, Rachna Gilmore, Lisa Darymple, Rachel Eugster, Jennifer Perlin, and me (Catherine Austen – in case you weren’t paying attention last paragraph).

Bring the kids or send the teens out to meet us, browse the shelves, and get some books signed.

Hope to see you there. Or there.  :-)

Filed under: authors, children's books Tagged: author visits, book promotion, book signings, book stores, kidlit cafe, ottawa writers, writers

Further Education for Writers

Me talking books at the local library.

I’ve been writing fiction all my life, though it has only been at the centre of my life for the past few years (nestled between the kids and the dog, just left of my spouse, right of the cats, and smothered on all sides by art and nature.)

I have always written well. I had my first short stories published in literary journals when I was a university student. I began to write for children in my thirties and I got my first picture book contract after five years of submitting to slush piles. I have since published four novels for children and teens and my books have brought me four awards, lots of nominations, plenty of great reviews and some charming fan mail. I now spend a few hours of every day writing fiction.

I am not a well-known writer. I’m not one of Canada’s seasoned greats. I am not a master. But I know a thing or two about writing fiction.

So it’s about time I took a writing course.

I signed up for this massive online open course.

Like many authors who studied and worked in a field other than literature (for me it was political science and environmental studies), I’ve always wondered if I missed out on a proper writer’s education. I’ve read a good chunk of the canon, and I’ve even made notes while reading it, but I’m nagged by the idea that maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe my self-taught path has wandered right past the very best thing out there in the literary world.

A seriously tough self-directed course of study.

I occasionally peruse the websites of universities wondering, if I swept together the crumbs of my three English electives and my shaky French and my writing credits plus six years of university classes in other fields, would I have enough prerequisites to start a Masters in English Lit? (Or an MFA if the second-language requirement is more lax.)

I promptly second-guess this urge: universities are pricey and we need to pay for the kids’ education first, besides which I’ve been-there-done-that, plus there are too many tedious forms  to apply to the faculty, and if I was to start my life over what I’d really like to do is spend a few years in the woods studying wildlife and, really, I could be teaching writing instead of studying it. This is how the “should I take a writing course” idea goes round in my head and leads nowhere.

But when I read about the massive online open course, “How Writers Write Fiction,” offered through the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, I signed up. What the hell. It’s a middle ground: a bit of guidance, a bit of self-direction. Plus it’s free. And you can attend class in your jammies. And even if I get nothing else out of it, it’s bound to teach me how other writers write fiction – that’s the name of the course, after all – so I can stop wondering if I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.

If you are a writer or have writerly leanings and you’re curious about courses but a bit of a tightwad and a loner, you might want to check it out, too. (Here are the course details.) Could be useful. You never know.

I’m going to this, too. Bases covered.

(If you want something a little more face-to-face that only lasts a weekend, sign up for “The Art of Story,” the SCBWI conference in Ottawa coming up in October. It’s not free, and you probably shouldn’t come in your jammies, but it will be fun and it might satisfy more than curiosity.)

 

 

Filed under: authors, What's New, writing, writing conference Tagged: creative process, creative writing course, how writers write fiction, writing workshops

Friday Fable: The Inspired Writer

You may know the old story of “The Mule:”

Mule photo by Juan Gnecco at FreeDigitalPhotos.com

A mule who was used to lazing around munching grass for months on end, began to jump and gambol about one sunny day. It felt so good to stretch and move! “I feel invincible,” the mule thought. “I bet I could run for miles without tiring. My mother was a racehorse, after all. Speed and agility are in my blood. I’ll show the world the awesomeness that is me.”

Drunk on sunshine and endorphins, the mule took off down the dirt road. Her hooves pounded the ground, her blood coursed through her veins, her heart drummed in her chest and filled her mind with an undeniable beat of “I. Am. Awesome!”

She kept running for just as long as the awesomeness coursed through her, which was, oh, about three minutes, at which point she stumbled to a halt. “Oh my god, I’m so tired, I must have run halfway around the world,” she thought. She looked back, expecting the farm to be a distant glimmer on the horizon, but there it was just half a kilometre back, and looking pretty darn inviting with its troughs and haystacks and furry friends.

My photo (but not my ass).

The mule trotted home on sore feet and aching legs, thankful that she hadn’t said that bit about showing the world her awesomeness out loud. “Oh well,” she thought. “My mom may have been a racehorse, but my dad was just an ass.”

And the moral is: There are two sides to every truth, so think of both before you head off down the road.

That is a good old tale, but if Aesop were a modern slave to the written word, he might have called his fable, “The Inspired (and Possibly Drunken) Writer:”

(I have no photos of drunken writers.)

A writer who’d grown soft and lazy over summer vacation had a glass of wine with lunch and began to create a story. It felt so good to use her brain, to play with words, to let her imagination roam! An image popped into her mind of a key that could open a secret scroll on which was written the name of God, the meaning of life, the location of the fountain of youth, and the theory of everything. “That could be a good YA novel,” the writer thought.

She began to pace and gesticulate wildly. It felt so good to be creative! She poured another glass of wine and turned on her computer. She sat for hours, typing 80 wpm, on fire with her ideas. Her novel turned into a prose poem about a girl who’d been born with a magical key hanging from her neck but she’d lost the key when she was bitten by a gorgeous vampire on her 16th birthday and now she had to find the key to break the vampire’s curse and save the universe. “Genius,” the writer thought, pouring more wine.

She set her story in post-armageddon Africa and made her hero the daughter of an outcast who was aided in her quest by a fallen angel, a baboon, and a suicidal priest who turned out to be the girl’s biological father. “No one’s ever done that character combo before,” the writer thought. “Especially not as an epic poem. This is so inspired, it must be the divine speaking through me. I must finish this masterpiece tonight. Where did I put the Jack Daniels Honey Liqueur?”

The writer churned out pages for just as long as she felt inspired, which was, oh, about three hours, at which point she ran out of booze and began to doze off at the kitchen table. “God, I’m exhausted,” she thought. “I bet Milton took years to do what I did in one night. I’ll just have a read-through.”

She printed out her epic masterpiece but was shocked to discover it was 67 pages of mostly boring scenes of a guy thinking to himself or walking around yelling at his father while his pet baboon cheered him on with platitudes, interrupted by flashbacks of vampire battle scenes and clunky confessions of love. The whole thing was choppy and senseless and boring and, worst of all, it rhymed.

It may be best to compose your awesome epic while inspired and sober.

“But it was awesome in my head,” the writer thought. She stuffed the pages in a drawer and went up to bed, her breath rancid, her skull aching, her eyeballs itching. “It’s not so easy getting it on the page.”

And the moral is: Just because the creative process feels great doesn’t mean you’re creating something great. Alas.  

And that’s my Friday Fable. Have a great weekend. Why not go for a run or write an epic? Really, who cares if they turn out less than perfect? Doing it will feel great. And there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Filed under: Fables, Friday Fables, writing, young adult novel Tagged: aesop's fables, creative process, inspiration, mule

Three Cheers for the Big Yellow Bus

writing schedule

I am on Vacation

See you next Friday.

 

 

Filed under: writing

When Good Ideas go Bad

Fun time-wasting newsclipping generator from http://www.fodey.com.

I keep a writing journal in which I write scenes by hand, work out plots, explore characters, make note of submissions, and – most important of all – jot down ideas for new books.

I’ve kept writing journals for years and they contain some wonderful work that I’ve used in my books or plan to use in future books.

But they also contain a lot of junk, which I have excerpted in quotes below (but only in tiny excerpts,  just a tip of the iceberg of idiocy you could find in my writing journals if I let you read them, which will never happen). The junk seems to be of two kinds:

1. Dumb Ideas

“Rhyming anatomy ABC book” OMG why aren’t the stores crammed with these? K is for Kidney; L is for Lungs.

The dumbest of my dumb ideas are for dumb picture books, e.g.:

“Food ABC w/ recipes – non-Eng alphabet – inc recipes?” This gem of a note suggests that I write an A-B-C book about food following an alphabet that isn’t A-B-C (making it a language I do not speak). I clearly thought this picture book would be greatly enhanced with recipes, since I wrote that note twice. Who doesn’t like recipes in their picture books?

On thankfully rare occasions my dumb ideas express themselves as crappy poetry:

I am smitten with this kitten.

She is sweeter than the rest.

She is tiny, she is spiny

and at midnight she gets whiny

but I’m smitten with this kitten nonetheless.

(That little ditty is followed by the note, “up about pup? funny over bunny?” As if it might be the start of something really good.)

Okay, we all have dumb ideas. If  you have a lot of ideas, the chances of having a lot of dumb ones increase proportionately. So never be bothered by your dumb ideas. They are good for a laugh once you give up all hope of ever actually using them.

In certain moods this can look like an awesome shirt – from http://www.bentbanini.com.

(NB that is not as easy as you’d think. Dumb ideas can seem fabulous. In fact, the stupider the idea, the easier it is to mistake it for incredibly brilliant. Dumb ideas are like bold fabrics that look stunning in the store but then you get them home and realize they’re hideous. Not just unattractive but absolutely hideous, like who in their right mind would ever buy such a hideous thing? Well, you would apparently. Ideas are just like that. The really stupid ones can seem boldly awesome. But they’re not, they’re just really stupid. Move on.)

It’s the second category of junk notes that bothers me most:

2. Things that must have once meant something.

“The int mother says, ‘Of course I didn’t kill those mice!’ Close-up on daughter, leaving house.”

This note is scribbled on a page from the spring, not even dated, let alone expanded upon. It might relate to something I’m already working on or something new. I have no idea. (I’m guessing “int” means “interesting” but it could mean “international” or “interviewed” or “intelligent.” Ad hoc abbreviations abound in my journal. Alas.)

Here’s one I wrote just last month:

“A new PB about something whispered that brings joy.“

I remember feeling really excited about that idea when I wrote it down. Hmm. Right. So when an editor asks me, “What are you working on, Catherine?” I’ll say, “A picture book.” “What’s it about?” “It’s about something whispered that brings joy.” “Really? We’ve been looking everywhere for a picture book about something whispered that brings joy.” “Awesome. I’ll send it right over.”

Something whispered that brought me joy in the 80s – surely not what I meant.

My journal also includes baffling notes for revising my teen novel in progress, such as:

“Keep 2 lines of suspense: chapter 2 should not follow chapter 1.”

I have no idea what I meant by that. You really shouldn’t take a vacation between reviewing your draft and revising it.

There was a moment when all the notes in all my writing journals felt like good ideas clearly explained. But a lot of them are just dumb ideas that wafted through my brain on a breeze. And a good chunk of notes are simply mystifying. I’m guessing they’re dumb ideas, too, but maybe they were brilliant. You never know for sure till you get home and try them on. Oh well, too late now. Their essence is lost between the lines of my journal.

Since I already have more ideas than days left in my lifetime, I’ll  just say goodbye to all those ideas that were so brilliant I couldn’t describe them on the page or keep them in my head for more than half an hour.

I’m not the only one who can’t understand her own handwriting, am I? Please reassure me.

Filed under: writing Tagged: books, creative process, ideas, inspiration, journals, writers