Allison Baggio's Blog, page 3

My Bookshelf Has a New Addition...

What a great feeling it is to finally be able to add my own book to my bookshelf among the other books I have loved reading. ECW did a great job: the final book looks fantastic! I also love the way they look lined up in a row...

Alone Again

So here I am writing from my very first solitary retreat since 2005.
I was going to make this a Vlog post, but I've been hanging out here in my
pajamas all day and am not really interested in sharing my current state
through video. This day has been really great. I have realized something really
important about my writing. That even though I get exhausted after an hour or
two of writing, if I take a short break, I am able to go back to it. I'll have
to keep this in mind in case I ever have a chance to do this again.

This writing time has brought to mind the last retreat I took. It
took place shortly before I became pregnant with my son. I think it was late
December 2005—right about the time the tsunami hit South Asia. So anyway, at
that point I was almost through writing the first draft of Girl in Shades (yes, I said 2005). In fact, I had only one major
scene left to write and it was the scene that concluded the story. It was also
a scene that just happened to take place in a cabin in the woods.

So bright idea, I decide that I will myself rent a cabin in the woods
and escape there for a few days to write this final chapter (method writing?).
My husband thought I was crazy (did I mention it was December), but I insisted,
so he put up with me as I rented a car to go and booked a cabin on a little
river near Algonquin Park. I packed some food and my laptop, kissed my husband
good-bye and I was off to spend four days in this cabin alone, writing, and not
speaking.

So when I got there, I quickly realized that this would be less a
writing exercise and more an exercise in survival. I was the only one there who
had rented a cabin in winter. The cabin had no indoor plumbing, and no heat
except a wood burning stove. No worries, I thought. I got the fire roaring,
zipped up my winter jacket and hide my face under my wool scarf. I started
writing right away. The words fell out quickly and before I knew it, the scene
was complete. That was easy, I thought. And it's actually a lot shorter of a
chapter than I was expecting. Then, I realized, I still had four days to spend
in a freezing cold cabin.

I realized something else during that trip—that I am absolutely terrible
at keeping a wood-burning fireplace going. Several times I awakened to a dead
fire and a freezing body, which resulted in me coming back from the owner's
cabin with a flaming log in a bucket that I was supposed to put into the
fireplace to start it up again. It never worked very well, and after three
days, I took my completed chapter and went home early, unwilling to spend one
more night in my sleeping bag, or struggle through the snow drift to reach the
outhouse in the middle of the night.

So this time has been much better for a few reasons. I have much more
work I want to do so I know I will not run out of chapters to write, and it's
warm here where I am, and there's a 3 piece bath, a full sized fridge and a TV.
Turns out in the past six years I have gotten wiser, as well as older.  

Bad Review? No Problem . . .

In
anticipation of my book coming out, and the potential of having to deal with any reviews that may
not be entirely complementary (everyone has a different perspective after all),
I decided to undertake a little de-sensitization exercise. 

I sat down
and wrote up the worst possible review that I could ever imagine receiving. (It is in fact, too horrible to even share with you here.) Then, I
read it over and imagined how I would feel receiving such a review. Turns out,
I was okay. In fact I actually laughed a bit because the stuff I had written
was so cliché and over the top.

Wait,
does that mean the exercise was not successful? Either way, I think I am better
prepared to face whatever opinions may emerge. I will write on!

Slowly Going Crazy?

Author Stacey May Fowles recently had
a column in the National Post about publishing a book for the first time. 

I haven't been able to
forget it. 

Basically, Stacey's piece (which you can read below if you're interested), talked about her experience of being a first-time author and
how it basically crippled her as a person. 

(http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/02/18/stacey-may-fowles-the-first-time/) 

She writes: 

"A bout three months
before the launch of my first book, something broke inside me. That's the only
real way to describe it. My ability to live as a functional human being ...
disappeared … I was ill-prepared for how insane publication would actually make
me – not because it wasn't as enchanting as I had imagined it, but because of
how completely naked it made me feel."

So, here
I am two months before the launch of my own book and wondering if this is the
"calm before the storm" for me. If, even though I feel fine, happy, excited, I
too have the potential to become un-hinged? Truth is, I have already struggled with
anxiety at times in my life. Does this make me more susceptible to what Stacey
is talking about? Or, is it possible for a new author to go through the launch
of her first book (an experience of becoming totally vulnerable to public
opinion), and remain centered, balanced and calm.

I was
recently reading through the 1915-1919 diaries of Virginia Woolf and came
across this explanation for a lapse in Ms Woolf's entries (a time in which she is said to have plunged into an "aggressive and violent period of madness"):

" Virginia 's first novel The
Voyage had been accepted in March 1913; its publication was delayed until March
1915. She only mentions it once, but it would not be wise to suppose that it
was absent from her thought; the knowledge that it was soon to appear may well
have been the cause of her renewed insanity . . ."

Geesh.
Seems like this "first novel syndrome" is something that has been happening 

for
a while. So I'm wondering, does someone have to be mad to begin with, or is
this something that can creep up on you? Perhaps like most issues with your mind,
this kind of break-down can be kept at bay through your keen anticipation and
observation of it, but it's hard to know for sure.

I guess
you just have to take a chance.

All I
can do is work to focus on the good and positive things about my life (the
smiling faces of my kids for example) and hope for the best. If everything goes
as planned, my upcoming book release will not cause me severe anxiety like it
did to Stacey May Fowles, or even worse lead me down a path of madness and
insanity like it did for Virginia Woolf. 

It's realistic to say that there may be
some uncomfortable moments because of the sudden exposure of myself and my writing, but hopefully, that will be the
extent of it. And I have to say that for me, having the chance to do what I've
always wanted to do is totally worth the risk of insanity. I'd be insane if I didn't take the risk, that's for sure. 

Five things . . . .

. . .  I have
learned so far about the publishing process:

1. Things move
slowly, or more accurately, with furious starts and laborious stops.

2. Nothing is for
sure, but there is always a chance. 

3. A book cannot
be finished without the insightful input of caring agents, editors and
copy-editors.

4. An ARC means
Advanced Reading Copy, Co-op means your publisher would strike a deal with the
book store and "blurb" refers to those little words of praise written by famous
people on the back of your book.

5. Most well-known
authors do not want to/do not have time to do a blurb for a first-time author,
but it's no biggie -- life goes on!  

My First Vlog . . . Meet my Neo2!

So I thought that these things were common writing tools for writers.... but judging from people's reactions to mine, I guess not! Here's a link if you want more information about ordering in Canada (and no, I'm not a spokeswoman).

http://www.imagemedia.ca/

A Life in Metaphors …

I
recently had the great pleasure of sitting down and reading through the
Advanced Reading Copy of my novel, Girl
in Shades (these are also called ARCs —  a new acronym for me but I have quickly
picked it up and am dropping it whenever I can).

Anyhow,as I started to read my words in print I experienced a curious sensation. Itwas as if every draft I have written of this story up to this point, all therevisions, discussion, re-writes, tweaks, were all in fact a giant dressrehearsal for my...

Letter to James Frey

Dear James Frey,

After watching you on Oprah for the
third time, I am still not sure what to think of you. You confuse me, but perhaps
that's the persona you are trying to put out there (crafty!). On one side,
there is a part of me that sees you as sneaky and unreliable. On the other
side, you just may be a freak'n creative genius!

I loved what you said about what yourintention was when you wrote A
Little Pieces. I think it is very admirable to not get caught up in formwhen writing, to...

Finally . . .

I am so ecstatic
to see the days getting longer. One of the main reasons is that I can once again watch
the sun set from my desk after I put my kids to bed. No doubt this view is terribly
bad for productivity, but luckily, I usually try to write away from my office.

Here's
what it looks like from my workspace at 8pm this time of year . . . 

Don't Look Away?

So you might remember a few blog posts back when I said that I could never read Robert J. Wiersema's Before I Wake. I came to this decision because of the pure uncomfortable-ness of having a little girl almost the same age as the one who gets so unfortunately smashed by a truck in his book. I felt pretty good about this choice. I was not ready to subject myself to this sort of story at this point in my life.

Then yesterday, I find myself at the Ontario Writers' Conference in a seminar by...