Janice MacDonald's Blog: Notes on writing, page 2
November 3, 2012
The Calm Before the Storm
I have one weekend to go. I intend to get in the car with my husband, drive out of town to our friends' house for a relaxing evening of good food, wine and board games. We may play a bit of music together. I know we'll laugh a lot. And I will enjoy every minute. And boy, will I need it.
Because next week, I am getting my manuscript back from my editor. It will be accompanied by about 24 pages of close, single-spaced notes. They will be prefaced with a paragraph telling me how much she enjoyed the story. Because she is a very nice person, she has in fact already written me two short emails to that effect.
It's what comes after that paragraph that will take a whole lot of energy to get through, and then a whole lot of work to deal with. Because it is never much fun dealing with critiques of your work — even critiques meant to make your work the best it can be. I am and have always been a carrot responder. Sticks hurt my feelings and leave me feeling completely deflated.
However, I will read through all of her notes, and I will set my alarm to ungodly-thirty A.M. each Friday night, and I will resign my weekends for the foreseeable future to rewrites and nail-biting and swearing under my breath. I will work my way through all 24 pages, shifting and changing the words I sweated over, moving situations and plot lines about and even cutting the occasional beloved character. I will also craft tortured paragraphs of justification for every phrase I cannot bear to lose, worrying that it won't be enough of an argument to sway my editor, who will have grown to resemble Grendel's mother in my mind's eye (she's actually a very attractive young woman with shiny hair and great shoulders).
The book, which my publisher paid me an advance on, and liked so much that he entrusted it to a gifted, qualified, expensive editor, will at various points in these next few weeks seem like both the best thing I have ever written and the worst pile of verbiage anyone scraped off their shoe. I will wonder why it is I ever thought I could write. I will cry a bit and be an enormous irritant to my husband. I will be distracted while commuting. I may burn dinner.
I will also dance about a bit when I laugh anew at the funny bits I cannot wait for people to read, I'll thrill to the exciting bits that pop, and I will thank my editor for making the suggestions I needed to tighten, to tauten, to clear away the dross. (What little there was, of course.)
And I will be so happy when spring arrives and the books come off the press and I hold one in my hand and whisper, "Thank you, Sharon."
Because next week, I am getting my manuscript back from my editor. It will be accompanied by about 24 pages of close, single-spaced notes. They will be prefaced with a paragraph telling me how much she enjoyed the story. Because she is a very nice person, she has in fact already written me two short emails to that effect.
It's what comes after that paragraph that will take a whole lot of energy to get through, and then a whole lot of work to deal with. Because it is never much fun dealing with critiques of your work — even critiques meant to make your work the best it can be. I am and have always been a carrot responder. Sticks hurt my feelings and leave me feeling completely deflated.
However, I will read through all of her notes, and I will set my alarm to ungodly-thirty A.M. each Friday night, and I will resign my weekends for the foreseeable future to rewrites and nail-biting and swearing under my breath. I will work my way through all 24 pages, shifting and changing the words I sweated over, moving situations and plot lines about and even cutting the occasional beloved character. I will also craft tortured paragraphs of justification for every phrase I cannot bear to lose, worrying that it won't be enough of an argument to sway my editor, who will have grown to resemble Grendel's mother in my mind's eye (she's actually a very attractive young woman with shiny hair and great shoulders).
The book, which my publisher paid me an advance on, and liked so much that he entrusted it to a gifted, qualified, expensive editor, will at various points in these next few weeks seem like both the best thing I have ever written and the worst pile of verbiage anyone scraped off their shoe. I will wonder why it is I ever thought I could write. I will cry a bit and be an enormous irritant to my husband. I will be distracted while commuting. I may burn dinner.
I will also dance about a bit when I laugh anew at the funny bits I cannot wait for people to read, I'll thrill to the exciting bits that pop, and I will thank my editor for making the suggestions I needed to tighten, to tauten, to clear away the dross. (What little there was, of course.)
And I will be so happy when spring arrives and the books come off the press and I hold one in my hand and whisper, "Thank you, Sharon."
July 4, 2012
This Magic Moment
Why do writers write? It's certainly not for a chance at immediate response, though when it does come — like it did today, in the form of a colleague popping over to my cubicle to say, "I just finished your latest and loved it. I'm starting on the one about computers now" — it's lovely. It's not for the money, either, though I am pretty sure most writers make more money than I do. And it's certainly not for glory or respect; after all, one of my own children has never read any of my books.
But I'll let you in on a moment that explains why writing is the whole reason, in and of itself.
Looking for a setting that made sense for the mystery novel storyline I'm presently working on, I recalled a place my mother once taught back in the days of teacherages and one-room schoolhouses. I knew the original site was no longer there, but needed to know what was along that road, so that I could fabricate with impunity (loose translation: make shit up) and then pop in one of those nice little poetic licence commentaries at the end about how I'd made everything up. My husband and I made plans to take a drive out that way to look around.
While waiting for my husband to wake up on the holiday Monday, I decided to write the passage the way I wanted it to be, figuring it would be easier to edit later than waste time. I decided that as well as inventing a standing schoolhouse that would now be a museum/meeting hall, I needed a historic marker on the highway, one of those pullover sites that contain a garbage pail and a sign detailing the important event that took place in the vicinity — perhaps even a map. My mom used to make a point of stopping to read these markers, all over the country, and it's become a habit with me, too. I decided I would have Randy Craig and her friend Denise pull into the layby to get away from a tractor pulling a huge load of hay bales and find something important. Randy would read the map on the sign, and things would come clearer by the minute. I got eight pages written in the silence of the early morning.
Around 9:30, after a quick breakfast, we headed out and drove into the blue Alberta day. It took us just over an hour to get to the highway we were aiming for. I grinned when we passed MacDonald Road, thinking that if I was someone who believed in omens, this would be a good one. A little later on, near where the school would have stood, had it still been there, we noticed a small historic marker arrow. We pulled off the road, and there it was: the historic marker sign — with a map. It wasn't quite as I had described earlier in my imagination. And there was no garbage can. But as I stood there, taking photos and trying to quell the shivers I get when my worlds mesh, a tractor hauling a truckload of hay bales drove slowly by.
That's the magic of writing.
But I'll let you in on a moment that explains why writing is the whole reason, in and of itself.
Looking for a setting that made sense for the mystery novel storyline I'm presently working on, I recalled a place my mother once taught back in the days of teacherages and one-room schoolhouses. I knew the original site was no longer there, but needed to know what was along that road, so that I could fabricate with impunity (loose translation: make shit up) and then pop in one of those nice little poetic licence commentaries at the end about how I'd made everything up. My husband and I made plans to take a drive out that way to look around.
While waiting for my husband to wake up on the holiday Monday, I decided to write the passage the way I wanted it to be, figuring it would be easier to edit later than waste time. I decided that as well as inventing a standing schoolhouse that would now be a museum/meeting hall, I needed a historic marker on the highway, one of those pullover sites that contain a garbage pail and a sign detailing the important event that took place in the vicinity — perhaps even a map. My mom used to make a point of stopping to read these markers, all over the country, and it's become a habit with me, too. I decided I would have Randy Craig and her friend Denise pull into the layby to get away from a tractor pulling a huge load of hay bales and find something important. Randy would read the map on the sign, and things would come clearer by the minute. I got eight pages written in the silence of the early morning.
Around 9:30, after a quick breakfast, we headed out and drove into the blue Alberta day. It took us just over an hour to get to the highway we were aiming for. I grinned when we passed MacDonald Road, thinking that if I was someone who believed in omens, this would be a good one. A little later on, near where the school would have stood, had it still been there, we noticed a small historic marker arrow. We pulled off the road, and there it was: the historic marker sign — with a map. It wasn't quite as I had described earlier in my imagination. And there was no garbage can. But as I stood there, taking photos and trying to quell the shivers I get when my worlds mesh, a tractor hauling a truckload of hay bales drove slowly by.
That's the magic of writing.
April 20, 2012
April: The C(r)oolest Month for Writing
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.
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.
April 3, 2012
The Ominous Rise of the Book Trailer
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.
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.
February 27, 2012
The Perils of Book Promotion
The easiest part of writing a book is actually writing the book. Once it has winged its way to the publisher, been edited back and forth several times, received a cover, been printed and sent to bookstores, you are suddenly required to become what most writers became writers to avoid in he first place: social.
Sometimes you are asked to read a passage from your book — which can be tricky for mystery writers, as you don't want to give too much away. Sometimes you appear on a panel that has marginal ties to the themes in your book, where you have to deliver expert opinions and vacillate between hoping you are not ignored by questions from the audience, and wondering if you actually can come up with any answers. Mostly, you are asked to appear and sign books, which can be very nice when you run across people who have liked your other books and are pleased at the chance to speak with you. When no one knows who you are, it is best to have an idea of where the self-help section in the bookstore is, and whether or not there is a public washroom, as those are the only questions you may be asked.
Whatever the case, public situations call for a great deal of thought and preparation. As my friend and mentor, Cora Taylor, once summed it up, "What to wear, what to wear, what to wear?" Although most of us schlub about in old university sweatpants and comfy, oversized flannel shirts when at home writing, the public assumes that we will appear exotic and interesting. Only some of us can pull that off with any sort of consistency.
Shirley, a poet friend of mine, has a great store of "writerly earrings" which I drool over. Cora, queen of Young Adult novels, sweeps in with various layers of silks and leathers. Candas, my speculative fiction-writing bestie, has a crazy mock fur coat that only she could pull off. Conni, the playwright, does scarves better than anyone I know. And me? Well, I guess you're just going to have to come out and see!
Please visit my official website for information about upcoming appearances and more details about my latest book, Hang Down Your Head: A Randy Craig Mystery.
Sometimes you are asked to read a passage from your book — which can be tricky for mystery writers, as you don't want to give too much away. Sometimes you appear on a panel that has marginal ties to the themes in your book, where you have to deliver expert opinions and vacillate between hoping you are not ignored by questions from the audience, and wondering if you actually can come up with any answers. Mostly, you are asked to appear and sign books, which can be very nice when you run across people who have liked your other books and are pleased at the chance to speak with you. When no one knows who you are, it is best to have an idea of where the self-help section in the bookstore is, and whether or not there is a public washroom, as those are the only questions you may be asked.
Whatever the case, public situations call for a great deal of thought and preparation. As my friend and mentor, Cora Taylor, once summed it up, "What to wear, what to wear, what to wear?" Although most of us schlub about in old university sweatpants and comfy, oversized flannel shirts when at home writing, the public assumes that we will appear exotic and interesting. Only some of us can pull that off with any sort of consistency.
Shirley, a poet friend of mine, has a great store of "writerly earrings" which I drool over. Cora, queen of Young Adult novels, sweeps in with various layers of silks and leathers. Candas, my speculative fiction-writing bestie, has a crazy mock fur coat that only she could pull off. Conni, the playwright, does scarves better than anyone I know. And me? Well, I guess you're just going to have to come out and see!
Please visit my official website for information about upcoming appearances and more details about my latest book, Hang Down Your Head: A Randy Craig Mystery.
Notes on writing
Watch this space for notes from author Janice MacDonald — on the road, dashing off to another appearance, or working her way through the writing of the next Randy Craig Mystery.
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