On the list of things that should have been added to 50 Underwear Questions (along with spacesuits sewn by Playtex seamstresses):
Safety Shorts! Designed to protect your lap from electromagnetic radiation.
At this rate, I’m going to have to do a second edition.
I received an e-mail from an old friend last week. He’s hoping to publish some of his poetry, and wondering how to begin. Well, let’s be honest here. I know approximately nothing about publishing poetry. Here’s what I told him. Does anyone have other ideas?
It’s certainly a hard market to break into, but it’s not impossible. Traditionally, the best method is to submit to journals. Then, once you have some publication credits, you gather up your work and start submitting it as a book.
Two of the best known journals in our area are the Malahat Review and Prism International. I’m sure there are many more, though. You should probably invest in a copy of the Canadian Writer’s Market. It includes listings and submission guidelines for each magazine and publisher.
As you say, my genre is quite different, but one of the things I find most helpful is a critique group of other writers. These can be tricky to find. One of the best ways is to sign up for a course or workshop, and hit on some of the other participants… find out if anyone’s in a writing group, or interested in starting one. It can be nerve-wracking for the first few meetings, having other people talk over your writing in front of you, but groups are usually highly supportive. It’s nice not to work in a vacuum!
An alternative to in-person writing groups is a good on-line one. I took a really helpful workshop one season through the Vancouver-based WritersWebWorkshop and I think I’ve seen poetry classes on their list sometimes.
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. More advice welcome!
The panel topic at Celebrate Science this weekend was “Is Science Everywhere?” Here’s a list I prepared as part of my contribution to the day:
Ten highly scientific things you might not know about your ginch, from 50 Underwear Questions:
I think we can definitely say that science is everywhere… even in your underpants.
Conversation #1: How to alienate your children’s minister
I went to a stagette Saturday night, then had to volunteer at Sunday school in the morning, in a room of 38 four- and five-year-olds. Not something I would recommend.
Minister: Did it go okay in here?
Me: It was an insane asylum.
Daughter: Mommy, what’s an insane asylum?
Me: Where they put crazy people.
Not my most politically correct moment. It’s possible I won’t be invited back.
Crazy Conversation #2: Are they in Oz?
I went to see Jacquie Pearce at Word on the Street, but I couldn’t find the right tent and I had to ask at the information booth.
Me: I was looking for the kids’ tent…
Woman at desk: It blew away. With all the kids still inside.
Me: Seriously?
Woman: They retrieved the kids. But not the tent.
Conversation #3: Overheard at Starbucks
This is so going into my next novel.
Barrista A: I just saw a documentary about it. They absorb energy from the sun.
Barrista B: From the sun?
Barrista A: There was this one man in the movie? He hadn’t eaten food in six years. He got all his nutrients from the sun.
Barrista B: But you can’t get, like, calcium and iron from the sun.
Barrista A: He did. It was a kind of meditation, and he just stared at the sun and he, like, absorbed it all.
That’s my plan for today. Skip lunch. Stare at the sun.
I’m writing this from the second floor of a mansion. There are wooden balustrades all around me, dark wood beams across the ceiling, and stained glass behind me. This is Aberthau House, a manor-turned-community-center. It’s five minutes from my house, where I’ve lived for eight years, but I came for the first time last week.
Because — glory, halleluiah — I have both kids signed up for activities AT THE SAME TIME! You would think this sort of thing would happen naturally, but no. It basically takes a miracle to find two classes for two age groups that begin in the same place at the same time. That miracle has occurred, though, and I now have an entire hour to sit on this plush couch in a bay window and write.
There’s only one problem… I’m supposed to be writing contemporary YA, and in this place, I feel as if I should be writing a Victorian romance.
If you one day see words like “perchance” and “visage” in a novel of mine, you’ll know why.
Startling admission from a former English major: I am not a critical reader.
If I have to comment intelligently on a piece of writing, I have to read it twice: the first time for enjoyment, and the second time for thought. Because reading is a pleasure, an escape. And who wants to pause, while in another world, and think, “my, what a nice piece of symbolism the author has incorporated here”? Not me. I’m all about the suspension of disbelief.
So, I was highly offended the first time a note appeared on my new Kindle, saying something like: “1,077 people have highlighted this sentence.” What were all those other people doing in my book, pointing at something that I was supposed to then see as profound!?! Get out of my book, you strangers!
And I thought… if I highlight a passage, this machine is going to know which sentence I found particularly moving, and it’s going to broadcast that information to a pack of voyeurs.
(You can click somewhere and turn off this sort of highlighting notification, but I didn’t do so. I left it on a while, so I could maintain my righteous indignation.)
Then, just last night, I remembered something. I took a John Green novel out of the library recently and inside the front cover was a post-it note. It read: “Hello Fellow Nerdfighter! I LOVED this book. I laughed, I cried, it changed my life. I hope you love it, too.”
How wonderful that John Green has a secret society of fans, communicating through post-it notes and united in their love of insightful novels.
Next, I started thinking about this blog. About the way I write whatever springs into my mind, but there are sometimes friends, and even strangers, who stop by to comment on my latest random thoughts.
It seems that writing and reading are growing closer. And reading (highlighted paragraphs and all) is becoming less of a solitary activity. You read, you tweet your read, you blog your review. And already, in the reading, you’ve absorbed some of the thoughts of those who read before you.
I am reading Mockingjay right now, by the way. And 1,977 people have marked this passage: “I don’t want anyone with me today. Not even him. Some walks you have to take alone.”
Or do you? Because apparently, 1,977 people are watching.
Hark! Is that my own horn blowing? Why, yes it is. Annick’s marketing diva just sent me these two blurbs about 50 Poisonous Questions.
“Out of a score of 10, I would give this book a 10. It was awesome!”
–YES Mag, June 2011
“…just the thing to entice readers seeking intriguing facts.”
—School Library Journal, September 2011
I’m squeezing every last drop of downtime out of this last week of summer vacation, but I’ll be back with regular posts next week. In the meantime, if you’re one of those three people who appreciate my sense of humour, you can check out my guest post over at Canadian Bookshelf. It’s about my tenuous understanding of pop culture.
To reward (punish?) my regular readers, here’s a little bonus content. A picture of my hair, circa 1991. Enjoy.
This is a chart I made while revising my novel. It encompasses the first two-thirds of the book. Along the top of the page are chapter numbers, and each post-it note represents one or two scenes. You’ll notice that I cleverly placed them along an incline, thus indicating rising action.
Yup. I’m liking it. Because even when there are chapters with absolutely NO tension, conflict, or general reason for existence, they still appear — on this particular chart — to be increasing the stakes. It’s a nice trick, no?
Next time, I think I’ll take a shortcut, and simply write my scenes on a slant.
Grant writing season approacheth. The blue-faced narrator from here and here is being reborn, hopefully in more coherent form.
I was thinking it must be easier for film-makers to prepare grant applications. They can always slip subliminal messages between frames. You’re getting very sleepy. You love this protagonist. You don’t care about plot. Send money…
As a writer, I have to rely on my grammatical knowledge and sense of humor. And as there are only three or four people in the world who think I’m funny, this could be a problem.