Maureen Bush's Blog, page 21

Winter

Winter has arrived, in a sudden shift from a lovely fall. It came with a little warning, so I was able to take a few last flower photos, before cutting the flowers for indoor bouquets.

Maureen

About Wordfest

Most of the time, being a writer means being alone in a room. I don’t feel lonely, because I’m hanging out with my characters, but it is a delight to hang out with real people, sometimes.

Wordfest is all about hanging out, with people who love books and writing and story. First, the audiences: the kids in the sessions in Calgary, the grade 12 creative writing class that drove to Banff from Kamloops, the 10 year old girl at the Mentoring session who came up from Calgary with her dad, because she wants to be a writer.

And after five Wordfest days in Calgary and another five in Banff, I’ve gotta say, it’s such a pleasure to hang out with writers. To talk about books and writing, and to discover I’m not the only idiot-writer who manages to be without a pen far too often.

I’ve met writers of every kind of book, from all over. Most are Canadians, but I met Anne Perry (mystery writer) and became good friends with her biography, Joanne Drayton (from New Zealand). Joanne and I drove out to Lake Louise with another new friend, Julie Watson (author of Seen Reading, voyeur of what other people read). They were thrilled by the lake, the rock slide, the snow and hot drinks after our chilly walk, and the little squeaky animal that followed us along the rocks.

I brought home a stack of new books; I had to restrain myself to buy only seven.

And, once again, I realized how special the Banff Centre is. It’s a remarkable setting for writers, a writerly place, somehow, and it inspired us all to write and to talk about books and story and the act of writing. It’s brilliant, and it was a delight to be there again.

Maureen

From the Banff Centre

Wordfest Readings

I’ve finished my three Wordfest sessions, and did them all without losing my voice to a hovering cold. The first was at Vertigo Theatre with Cyndi Sand-Eveland, followed by two school visits. It was fun meeting Cyndi and seeing how we played off each other in our session – and  I was even more pleased to get into the schools the next day.

I like to really connect with the kids (I couldn’t even see them at Vertigo, because of the stage lights.) It’s one of the joys of meeting with kids, for me. And at the schools, we had enough time to invent crazy stories, which the kids love as much as I do.

Tomorrow I’m off to Banff, to hang out with writers and have some quiet writing time. At least, writing is what I’m planning for, but I’ve heard there’s a lot of partying…

Maureen

Writing Through Interruptions

Somehow I keep getting pulled away from writing. Wordfest is next week, so I’m preparing for that: 9 days between Calgary and Banff, with some awkwardness in town because I’m not staying at the hotel that’s the staging ground for the events.

There’s all the prep for Wordfest itself, and clearing the time to be busy with it, and then to be out of town, plus all the usual details of life: hosting a large family dinner for Thanksgiving, harvesting apples and pears, putting the garden to bed. The periodic things, like appointments for me and for others. The emergencies, like my printer dying just as I was scanning my Wordfest contract (a reboot fixed that). My laptop going in for a diagnostic and requiring a heart transplant – I’m hoping I’ll have it back in time for Wordfest.

Writing gets tucked into the corners, which sometimes can be successful, but is never satisfying. I feel like I’m not doing ‘my work’ – just burning up time with all the other stuff that needs to be done.

For me, writing is the work, always, and everything else becomes an interruption. Fun, important, necessary… all kinds of interruptions, but the core of work is always about writing. Perhaps I’m obsessed; perhaps I just really love to write.

Maureen

Whiplash Weather

We have a new season in Calgary: summer-fall-winter. Yesterday was a beautiful summer day, today a raw and wet fall, and there’s snow forecast for tonight.

I’m glad we picked the tomatoes, in spite of the heat this weekend. This may be one of my last flower shots this fall, of a late-blooming Japanese Anemone.

Maureen

Monarda in Bloom

I’m not sure why my monarda (bee balm) decided to bloom in late September, but it’s gorgeous, so I’m not complaining.

Maureen

 

I Survived John Truby’s Class

I just spent three very long days sitting in a large theatre, listening, absorbing, struggling to understand, typing frantically on a laptop on the desk in front of me until my forearm was bruised by the edge of the computer, and then spending two days with it in my lap, typing nonstop until both hands hurt.

It was an intense three days on story structure in scriptwriting. No, I don’t write movie scripts, and I don’t intend to, but movies and novels are both about storytelling.

John Truby teaches how to put together a story structure (or to analyze an existing story), and this is what I came for. Structure structure structure.

I like the discovery that comes from letting a story go where it will, but I hate the structural mess I have to sort out later, so I shift back and forth between creative and analytical work. This will add to my analytical toolbox.

All I have to do is figure out how to apply this to novels, how to apply it to writing for kids, and how to rebalance my dance between the analytical and the creative.

Maureen

John Truby Master Class

Friday to Sunday I’ll be at the John Truby’s Anatomy of Story Master Class. Here’s how it’s advertised:

“John Truby is Hollywood’s premier screenwriting instructor and story consultant. Over the last 25 years, more than 30,000 writers have attended his sold-out seminars around the world. From Los Angeles to New York to Paris, London, Vancouver, Sydney, Mexico City, Tel Aviv and other film capitals around the world, Truby regularly gives his seminars to packed houses around the world.

“Pixar, Disney, Sony Pictures, Fox, HBO, the BBC, Universal and MTV are only some of the companies that regularly send their top writers and producers to Truby’s class. Called “the best script doctor in the movie industry,” Truby serves as a story consultant for major studios and production companies worldwide, and has been a script doctor on more than 1,800 movies, sitcoms and television dramas. The American Film Institute declared that Truby’s course “allows a writer to succeed in the fiercely competitive climate of Hollywood.”

“Truby’s principles and methods are the most modern, exciting approach to screenwriting and storytelling to be developed in a generation, which is why his classes regularly attract everyone from Oscar winners to first-time writers.”

As a writer for kids, I’m all about story, and I’ve found books on screenwriting really useful, perhaps because I’m visual as a writer. Truby’s classes tend to be in major cities (LA, New York and London are his other locations this fall), so I jumped at the chance to take the course in Calgary. Still, that’s a lot of hype…  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Maureen

Fall flowers

Fall flowers

Singing Buffalo

My website has been adorned by a couple of buffalo (characters in The Veil Weavers) http://www.maureenbush.com/. If you run the cursor over them they’ll stand and sing (see photo below). Mine, in the story, don’t stand and sing. They just sing as they walk along.

The artwork was created by my webguy and children’s illustrator Derek Mah http://attoboy.com/_atto/. He says his buffalo are Robert Plant and Janis Joplin.

Maureen