Maureen Bush's Blog, page 18

Teaching About Writing For Children

I’ll be teaching an 8 week course on Writing for Children, Tuesday nights starting April 16, at the Alexandra Writers Centre in Calgary. Here’s the blurb: How does writing for children differ from other forms of writing? We’ll discuss children’s books by age and genre, and focus on what is particular about writing for children, through discussion, examples and exercises. We’ll set aside time to critique one short story or chapter per student. And, as the course is about kids, I’ll introduce a little whimsy, read stories out loud and make sure some of the exercises are absurd.

http://www.alexandrawriters.org/what-we-offer/courses/

Maureen

Boots, Everyone

It must be spring – Calgary is awash. We have deep piles of snow, getting heavy and thick in the top layers, roads covered in running water, and oozy slush everywhere. Crossing the street is a hazard, between the piles of snow, the pools of water, and the ooze in between.

But it’s spring. It’s warm, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and everywhere is the sound of water – dripping, running, splashing. Any snow that falls now must surely be spring snow.

Maureen

The Gifts of Illness

I’m finally emerging from a lovely shared family experience of what’s probably noro virus.

I’ve done no writing for days, but a few ideas started to bubble up as I recovered, and I started to play with a story idea. This consistently happens, when I’m frustrated from not writing because I’ve been ill. As soon as I have enough energy to feel frustration, I also start to feel creative energy bubbling – and I feel renewed, hopeful that I will write again.

And I’ve discovered another lovely book. I tried reading, and found most things simply too hard to follow, but then I started the YA novel Graceling, by Kristin Cashore, and I’m charmed by it. Finding a new favorite book is always a delight.

Maureen

Boy Protagonists/Girl Protagonists

There’s a common belief that girls will read books with boy protagonists, but boys will not read books with girl protagonists.

When I was a child, I read adventure and fantasy and science fiction stories with boy heroes because there were none with girl heroes. Not a single one, that I remember, except Nancy Drew, which my mother hated and even I recognized as rather pathetic. So I read stories about boys, and I didn’t care. I was happy reading great adventure and fantasy and science fiction stories, regardless of who the hero was.

But I think it did matter to some writers, because when they grew up they began to write great adventure stories with girl heroes. My favorite is Tamora Pierce, who has been writing for years about kick-ass girls.

Now, I think boys are starting to read adventure stories with girl protagonists. I haven’t heard anyone describe The Golden Compass or The Hunger Games as girl stories, and no one has threatened to clothe them in Barbie-doll pink.

I suspect that boys want to read really great stories, just as I did when I was a child. As long as it’s adventurous, and doesn’t venture too far into romance, perhaps the gender of the protagonist really doesn’t matter.

Maureen

Winter Play

I just spent three days in the mountains – skating on Lake Louise, snowshoeing around Baker Creek and at Pipestone, some delicious meals out. I came home feeling that winter’s pretty good, especially when I was greeted by daffodil tips peeking out of the soil in my garden.

I worked, too, in between playing on ice and snow, developing an outline for an eight-week course I’ll be teaching this spring at the Alexandra’s Writers Centre, in Calgary. The best part? coming up with writing exercises appropriate for writing for kids. Mwahaha.

Maureen

Cranky Without Writing

Last week filled with family needs, a school visit, and three days in bed with a bug. When I emerged, I was cranky from too much time away from writing, twitchy and irritable. But a little editing time and a really good book cured it. I wasn’t feeling well enough to have a serious writing session, but I managed a little editing, and then lost myself in a new story – Cinder, by Marissa Meyer.

It’s a first novel, and blew me away with how accomplished it is. It’s YA science fiction, I guess, but with a fantasy feel (rather like Tamora Pierce with a sci-fi twist).

I would have loved this when I was a teenager, when I could only read about guys having adventures, because there were no kick-ass girls in the stories I read. And it inspired me to get back into my own stories, reminding me of how great stories are, and how much I love writing for kids.

Next week: Family day, a school visit, and a winter holiday in the mountains. And, somehow, I’ll fit writing in.

Maureen

Writing and Meditation

I’m living in silence, after a meditation retreat in early winter. I find myself returning to silence in my head, over and over. It’s oddly comforting, and hugely creative, like a giant white canvas where stories can emerge.

I was trying to explain how meditation helps my writing, one day, and totally failed. I was at a discussion session for writers, and I’d said something about quieting the mind. One writer responded that she didn’t want her mind quiet, because she wanted the story in her mind (well, she said something much more coherent than that, but this catches the essence).

Here’s my better explanation. Meditation helps quiet the fussing in the mind – the thinking about what happened yesterday, or might happen tomorrow. It quiets the anxiety and the stories from our own lives we get wrapped up in. All the worries and anxieties and the stories we make out of them quiet a little, settle and calm.

Then there’s space for the stories we want to focus on ­– the stories we write. It’s like wanting to go star gazing and finding the sky covered in clouds. If we could clear away the clouds, even for just a little while, we could see the stars.

And that’s meditation.

Maureen

The Buffalo Are Singing

Finally, finally, when we’d conquered our endless to-do list and had a little break after Christmas, and my husband got a cold that lowered his voice an octave, he recorded himself singing, and then worked on the recording until we could pretend it was buffalo singing.

It took a while to set up (complications with compatibility with various systems), and it doesn’t work for Internet Explorer, but otherwise… take a look. It’s on the Veil Weavers page of my website ­– click on the buffalo below Josh and Maddy’s map.

http://www.maureenbush.com/_book_theveilweavers/

Maureen

The Recording Studio

 

 

 

Dreaming In Color

I’ve been immersing myself in Kaffe Fassett’s Autobiography Dreaming in Color. He’s an artist and textile designer who plays with colour the way I’d like to be able to. I’m bathing in the lusciousness of his images and language, a wonderful winter dive into garden colours.

When a friend he was working with asked for a pat on the back, Kaffe wrote, about his need for reassurance, “…I realized at once that I needed the same…. I forgot how lost we creative-flow people can get if we don’t have constant reassurance. Mind you, we can work against someone else’s doubts, and often have to, but the team of believers is a very necessary part of what makes us able to produce so much and as quickly as we do.”

I realize that I need that team of believers, too. I suspect we all do. I try to be there for my daughters, and for writer friends. I have people who are there for me ­– and some of you know who you are. I want to add a couple to my team, in supportive working relationships, and I hope that will come to pass over the next few years. I need my team.

Maureen

Spinning My Wheels

I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels for the last few months, working between innumerable distractions and interruptions and slow days. I soldiered on, working anyway, but I’ve been frustrated and dissatisfied with my lack of progress.

Well, I completely made up for it this week. I’ve completed a whole wack of things – something major every day – and I feel incredibly satisfied. Ha!

Next week will be, in essence, my new year, as I begin on a whole new round of projects.

Maureen