Maureen Bush's Blog, page 7

The Five-Year-Old Who Loves Feather Brain

I received a wonderful message from a writer about her five-year-old’s reaction to Feather Brain [edited for privacy and to shorten it slightly]:

Just have to let you know that J. is LOVING Feather Brain. Stegosaurus is of course his new favorite dinosaur. It is so completely the right book at the right time for him.

From J: “Thank you for the book. I like it really much. Please write more books like that.” I told him I know the author so I think he thinks it’s a present. That message was a little distraught because he is currently throwing a mini-tantrum at the chapter being over, and wants me to bring the book to the beach!!! So I have a feeling we’ll be finishing it this morning

later:

Must now report that my mother read him the entire book at the beach this morning while K. and I built sandcastles. She says she has never had such a rapt audience, and that he was laughing uproariously at times, and was completely delighted that Kyle’s mother had run off to VANCOUVER.

And then he asked my mother to start over with chapter 1 on the bus-ride back home. So I’m sure I’m going to get a chance to read it too. A HUGE hit. You and Roald Dahl!!!

later still:

While I pack up picnic supper for beach (it’s a 2-beach day) my mother is reading Feather Brain again to J., because ALL HE WANTS TO DO today is read it, and has been going around whining about it whenever we aren’t reading it to him. Seriously, I thought he would like it, but I had NO IDEA how much.

A couple days later:

We are staying with friends and the 6-year-old girl was telling J. about Harry Potter, her new obsession, to which his rejoinder was, “Well have you read a book called FEATHER BRAIN?”

Me: I love kids’ enthusiasm for favourite stories!

Maureen

 

Marco Polo

A couple of weeks ago I read about someone having a team to help with their creative work. Seperately, I read a blog post by an author who wrote that working as a writer sometimes feels like playing marco polo, writing and calling marco marco marco, waiting for an answer.

And I thought – I want a team, and I loved the idea of playing marco polo. I found myself repeating marco marco marco, calling my team.

In the last two weeks I’ve heard from four different kids who are excited by my books (this is highly unusual, all at the same time).

Maybe the kid universe is better at marco polo. What am I saying? Of course they would be.

Marco. Marco. Marco.

Maureen

Adventures in Jasper

We just returned from a brief trip to Jasper, Alberta.

Day one: For me, the first clear sign of being away is – a sign. 153 km to the next gas. It’s like dropping off the edge of the world.

Where the highway winds up and around a mountain and totally freaks out people who aren’t used to mountain driving, especially if they’re in a rented RV, traffic came to a total stop. When we finally reached the site of the delay, we found three goats hanging around. One was sitting just outside the highway railing, enjoying the view. One was grazing along the side of the road. The third was walking up the road, just having a little fun with those humans, I suspect.

Day two: We drove up to Maligne Lake (after discussing why it was malign, we discovered it’s pronounced ma-leen), and passed three bears, a mama and two cubs. We hiked along the lake just long enough to discover my lungs were not up for much, between the forest fire haze and the high altitude. We forked over for boat tickets, instead, and went on a two-hour trip. It was spectacular.

The lake is 22 km long, and we travelled about 2/3 of the way down, to Spirit Island. The end of the lake is a box canyon, enclosed in a single mountain range that makes two right-angle turns. This blows my mind. How is this possible? But we looked at a 3-D model later, and indeed, the lake is lined with mountains, with one huge one at the end of the lake. and they are all, reportedly, geologically the same range. They also have glaciers, high and glorious. The guide showed us a hanging valley, carved by a glacier, above the Maligne valley, which was carved by a larger glacier, which is a hanging valley above the Athabasca valley, carved by the Athabasca glacier.

Then we went for high tea in a wonderful old building, and heard about Mary Schaffer, lady adventurer, who discovered the lake (well, for white people), from a description she received from a native man based on stories he’d heard (he’d never been there).

High tea: pots of really good tea, a grand selection of savory and sweet treats, including smoked duck and apple salad chopped fine on a wee bit of rye bread, smoked salmon and caviar, and  the best lemon square I’ve ever had. It was exactly the flavour of lemon butter I used to make when I was a teenager, from an old family recipe. Perfection.

Day three: Early morning wolf howls, and then loon calls, and none of this lonely call thing. These loons were chatty. Later we went rowing on Patricia Lake (clunky, but we all love the motion of rowing). It was fabulous being on the water, sunny and clear with the occasional gust. We landed on a sandy spit (after threading in between rocks and fallen trees). We discovered sand with mud that we sunk into, which we didn’t mind. We did back off when we discovered something crawling up Lia’s calf that looked a lot like a leech. Then we discovered the rowboat was leaking. It was a slow leak, but required a little bailing as we headed back.

Day four: A morning canoe trip to the end of the lake, accompanied by dragonflies, two loons and a family of ducks. Then a drive back to Calgary, through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

Maureen

Spirit Island on Maligne Lake

The Joy of Fan Mail

I received an email from a young writer friend:

It has been a while since I last read your book, but I finally got the chance to read The Veil of Magic series cover to cover and I LOVED it!!!  I loved them so much that I wish there were more in the series.

This is exactly what a writer likes to hear!

Maureen

 

 

Moss Soup

Sunday afternoon’s task was making moss soup, to feed the rocks. Well, not exactly. The moss soup is to inoculate the rocks, to start moss growing in the cracks in the shady parts of the new paving. Because we like moss here (not having that much of it).

I was going to wait until cooler weather (moss likes cool and wet), but a crow pulled up bits looking for insects, so I collected them, rehydrated them, blended them with yogurt, and poured the soup where the new bricks meet the old, to help blend the transition, and between the Rundle rock paving stones on the north side of the garden, to start moss growing there, too.

And I took a gazillion pictures of a treasure I found in my garden. I think it belongs in Tim Burton’s garden.

Maureen

A Play Reading

Sunday I was one of the readers at a play reading, so the playright and dramaturge could hear the play out loud. I’ve never done this before, and I had a great time. I love the difference between reading a play on paper, and hearing it. Something shifts, which I don’t experience with novels.

And I loved watching a team at work – the creative support, the jokes, the kindness. A mentor to work with, writer friends, supporters. It’s brilliant. Now I want my own team.

Maureen

The Ettrick Jam

I make gooseberry jam every year, even though I can’t eat it (allergies). The bush is overgrown and prickly, and we have to top and tail every berry. But then – then I get to make The Ettrick Jam.

The recipe comes from Canadian Country Preserves and Wines, by Blanche Pownall Garrett, published in 1974. It’s a collection of old recipes. She writes, “At a craft fair several years ago, one of the exhibitors gave me this recipe from one of her cookbooks, dated 1847.”

For those who know gooseberries, this is for green ones. There’s also a jelly recipe for ripe gooseberries (dull-red), but it’s The Ettrick Jam I adore.

The result is dark and rich and very adult. I love it on crackers, except I shouldn’t really have any. It’s good with meat, too, as a relish, but mostly ­– I like it on crackers, because then I can savour the depth of flavours.

And I ponder, why is it called The Ettrick Jam? What or who or where is Ettrick? And why The? That’s the most important question.

Maureen

 

 

Blooms In The Garden

The garden is thriving, in that early summer explosion of flowers. The peonies, in particular, are huge and outrageous. They are the opera singers of the garden. The scent of mock orange drifts on the wind, reminding me of my childhood. Roses are opening, old favorites in apricot cream and pale pink, and a new deep red. By the gate there’s a perfect little scene of pink roses, green clematis tendrils and chartreuse blooms of ladies mantle. While the garden is beautiful as a whole, it’s often these moments that thrill me the most, a small scene of perfectly balanced colour that makes my heart sing.

Maureen

 

 

Inspiring Kids To Write

When I’m asked to visit a school for a writing workshop, I’ll ask the teachers what they’d like to gain from my visit, and consistently I’m told, “It’s hard to inspire my kids to write.” We’ll plan a workshop to engage the kids, excite them about writing, and then get them going on their own projects.

Invariably, they’re inspired, and write fascinating stories. They never fail to impress me with their wild imaginations and how they can bring really freaky things to life.

So why do teachers find it hard to inspire their kids to write? What do I do differently? I’m not trained as a teacher, and I don’t spend time in the classroom watching teachers. I do remember my own childhood, and watched my kids in school. So here’s my guess, as a writer.

Kids are encouraged to play in nursery school and kindergarten, with sand or water tables and dress up clothes. When they get to grade one they’re told this is not a place to play. School is for work; you play at home. Except creativity is a form of play. So are we telling kids don’t be creative at school?

We tell them to sit down and sit still and be quiet and concentrate and do these math sheets and don’t daydream or look out the window and pay attention!, and they get a little break when they have art or music, if they have art or music, but then they’re back, for a novel study or a grammar lesson or a spelling test.

Kids spend much of their school day doing analytical work. We train them to be very good at being analytical, but we forget to practice creativity, to develop that part of the brain, to know what it is to be inspired.

When I make up a story with the kids, I always pick an absolutely absurd beginning, to give them permission to go wild. Then we dive in and laugh and freak each other out and create something absurd, and they love it. Once their creative juices are flowing, I’ll set them to work on their own projects, like creating a monster. They come up with incredibly inventive creatures, each unique, sometimes scary, always surprising.

But we’re noisy and sometimes inappropriate and really silly and overexcited and all those things many teachers (or their principals) try to avoid. Creativity is that way ­–  silly, noisy, messy and absurd. It’s play and it’s fun, and if we want our kids to be creative, we have to let them be creative.

It’s hard to inspire your kids to write? Make up a crazy story together. Create monsters, and see what happens when you tell them to use all the senses in describing them (just think about that for a moment). Give them permission to play, to go wild, to be absurd. Make it joyful. And don’t ruin it, after, by scrawling across their stories with a red pen, and grading their hearts.

Maureen

Simple Living in a Distracted Life

As much as I meditate and try to simplify my life and live in the present moment, somehow I live in distraction, constantly being pulled away by one thing or another, some of them self-chosen, some handed to me by others.

I fight for my writing time, keeping an hour or two sacrosanct on the tough days (the toughest days consume everything). And my stories limp along, as I pick away at them, longing for chunks of time when I can really concentrate.

The writing is different when I have more time, more silence, more room in my life. This week I was gifted more time, and the novel I’m working on leapt forward, as I took advantage of all the slow, limping work to surge ahead. And I had more time, spare time for not-the-novel, when I played with story ideas, and found a short story that was ready to finish.

Now I’m laid stupid by a stomach bug, but I’m satisfied with my week, replete with creativity, and happy to take a day to rest.

Maureen