Janice MacDonald's Blog: Notes on writing - Posts Tagged "writing-life"

Once upon a time, an overly tall, inelegant, self-conscious girl backed away from the world of theatre because the lure of writing prose seemed so much safer and less judgmental. For months and indeed years, she pecked away in sublime anonymity at her keyboard, unbothered by the need for eyeliner or beauty balm or retinol. Exercise could be embarked on for the sake of her arteries and chosen on the basis of whether it was fun, instead of working ten extra pounds off for a camera or to get into a slinky, one-digit size. Shopping could be a glorious Value Village adventure; the basilisks of the boutique shops could be avoided.

Books were published, radio interviews were welcomed, the occasional signing appearance was endured. Panels and conferences where she met readers or other authors were even rather fun. Every now and then, though, a newspaper photo or television segment reminded her of the reasons why the solitary writing life was such a blessing.

So, imagine her horror to discover a relatively new phenomenon... the book trailer. For those of you even less in the loop than our solitary scribbler, I am not referring to a mobile library van. A book trailer, mimicking a movie trailer, is a filmed commercial promoting a newly published or upcoming book. Who thought these were a good idea? Gore Vidal? Naomi Wolf? Tori Spelling?

In this world of music videos, YouTube and television supremacy, I can understand the impulse to sell books through visual means, but surely just this once, we can avoid the audio-visual sales technique? After all, people are already trained to "wait for the movie." Shilling the world of the fabricating imagination through the medium which replaces it with presupposed parameters cannot be a healthy fit. And before I get any backlash from auteur filmmakers, let me see you getting on the other side of the clapboard first.

My children will remind me that in the past I have ridiculed cellphone texting, snowblowers and mechanical pencils. They are likely right and for all I know you will likely see me one of these days, through the magic of YouTube, promoting my latest mystery. It's a new world; I get it. However, if I'm going to have to start competing with the literary equivalent of Christina Aguilera, I'm going to have to invest in a different moisturizer and get cracking on those upper arm exercises. Because it seems like aspiring to be the literary equivalent of Rosemary Clooney just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

And for what it's worth, I still buy wooden pencils.

April is a month of endings in the university world. The academic year comes to a shuddering halt, with students desperately trying to hold it together over final exams and instructors equally desperate, trying to get marking done and grades in within-five-calendar-days. It is the month when most people walk down the sidewalks, dodging puddles and making sure they don't meet anyone else's eye in order not to see or show the crazy person in there behind the iris.

April is also a month of beginnings, at least in my family. My grandparents were married in April, as were my great-aunt and uncle — the first double wedding in the Peace Country. My parents were married in April. I was married (twice) in April, and the second one stuck. Even William and Kate were married in April, not that they are actual members of our family. Pip Pippa. William Shakespeare, Hans Christian Anderson and Samuel Beckett were all born in April. The trees in Edmonton begin to bud in April and if you clear the mulch and leaf mould away, there are tulips shooting through right around now. Bunnies turn brown. Lambs frolic. It's no wonder people indulge in redecorating and massive cleaning projects at this time of year — everyone wants in on the regenerative process.

Unless, that is, you're already in the middle of the first draft of a book, a book that is decidedly not set in the springtime. Which I am. Having learned the hard way from the great editor, Jennifer Glossop, I always write with a calendar firmly in mind as the story goes along. So, this April, I spent two days with a kerchief on my head and dustcloths exploding out of my pockets, deep cleaning and rearranging the living room furniture. It looks great, I think, and no doubt appears to be a sacrifice to new beginnings. But this time it's not.

The reason behind all that sweeping and shifting and stevedoring and sneezing was so that on weekend mornings before the family wakes up, when I tiptoe down the stairs to write, I can sit with my back to the window that looks out on the apple tree and the bird feeder. I can pretend I'm lodged, along with my characters, in the darkening days of Hallowe'en and that new beginnings aren't busting out all over. That way, I figure I can keep my mind on the task and my eyes on the prize... a tidy ending.