Category Archives: Writing

New arrival!

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Look what the stork dropped off! A brand, spankin’ new copy of 50 Underwear Questions. This one arrived in Canada by plane, in a box of advance samples. The rest are still on a ship somewhere between here and China. But they’re on the way!

After looking first at manuscript pages for months, then at illustration roughs, then at page proofs, there’s nothing like holding a real book in your hands.

Just so you can share the advance-copy fun, this is a highly scientific glimpse of ancient undies:

Rattlesnakes and me

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Here’s my favourite new writer’s studio. I was all set to completely fall in love when I read this line:

Rattlesnakes, lizards, coyotes and ravens, are frequent visitors, and most days red-tailed hawks can be sighted circling overhead.

Um… rattlesnakes? Now, rattlesnakes and I have a personal history. They could have killed me in utero, and they chose not to. You see, my dad and my very pregnant mom were out boating on Kalamalka Lake, when they found a perfectly deserted hillside and settled in for a picnic. When they got back to civilization later that day, the locals said, “Hey, we saw you across the lake. What were you doing on Rattlesnake Hill?”

True story. I’m here today because of the kindness of rattlesnakes.

Plus, if you’ve read 50 Poisonous Questions, you’ll know that humans are way, way, way, way (way!) more dangerous to rattlesnakes than rattlesnakes are to humans.

But still. “Frequent visitors”? I’m just not sure I could concentrate.

Working from home: the checklist

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My friend Liisa just got a new job. She’ll be working from home a couple days a week, and she asked if I had any secrets. Why, yes I do! Here’s my survival checklist:

  1. Place your desk far from the kitchen. It’s true, you’ll forget that you made tea until you find it cold on the counter a few hours later. This is a small price to pay for not eating the entire bag of cookies, “just one more” at a time.
  2. Do not keep chocolate in the house. If you must have chocolate available — your children’s Easter candy, for example — have another family member hide it from you.
  3. Keep busy. If you have one thing to do, it will take you until dinnertime to get motivated. If you have ten things on the to-do list, the sense of urgency will drive you forward. If you have to, create your own deadlines. But don’t tell yourself they’re fake.
  4. Take your laundry out of the dryer and dump it in your office area. You’re bound to procrastinate, and you may as well get something useful done.
  5. Get call display, and do not answer the phone when Aunt Marge calls during your work hours.
  6. People will invariably call you about work issues when you are not officially working. If all children are like my children, they will immediately begin leaping off bookshelves and playing musical instruments (wait… that was Min), as soon as you answer such a call. You can put your other family members outside, but I find it most useful to leave them inside, and lock yourself on the deck.
  7. Working from home does not have to mean staying at home. If you start to feel as if the apocalypse could happen and you would be the last to know, then work from a coffee shop, the library, or the park down the street. Take your cell and your laptop. Technology is a wonderful thing.
  8. Get some exercise. If you don’t, your family members will arrive home from their days, ready to relax, and you will be jumping up and down at the door like a jack russell terrier.
  9. Do not book lunch dates in advance. If you’re busy, you’ll need that time. If you’re not… well, it’s amazing how many friends will jump at the chance to leave the office and meet you for sushi.
  10. Shower. Despite the rumours, working in your pyjamas is not productive. Plus, it scares the FedEx man.

That’s my advice! I was working from home for years before these rugrats trapped me here, and I think it might kill me to go back to my old windowless office. And how would my laundry get done?

Good luck, Liisa!

On writing…

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I’ve been reading Stephen King’s On Writing this week, a book I’ve been meaning to buy for… years. So far, the memoir section has been highly entertaining. One of the things that always strikes me about writers’ personal stories is how hard they’ve worked. They didn’t just scribble a first novel in the back of their high school math book, realize its brilliance, and sell it for millions. No, they worked their arses off.

Oh, and they had wives. The type that cared for the children, did the laundry, and cooked nightly dinners.

Hmmmm… where can I get one of those?

On etiquette

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Min has suggested — somewhat diplomatically — that my letters to government officials be less sarcastic and more respectful.

I’m torn on this, personally. I don’t believe anyone will thoroughly read the letter, so I see no reason to be overly respectful. If someone actually does read it, it will probably be a co-op student. In which case, my letter serves a dual purpose. It counts on whatever scorecard the politician’s office keeps for these sorts of things, AND it keeps just one young civil servant from dropping into a boredom-related coma.

What do you think? I’m theoretically capable of writing a more serious letter (though I find the idea less than motivating). Is sarcasm disrespectful? Do elected officials deserve respect simply because they’re elected officials?

Or does any of it matter?

Random thoughts for a new week

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  • Saturday was World Naked Gardening Day! (I know. I should have told you earlier. I’m so sorry you missed it, but it fit in nicely with my plans to stand in the backyard naked and wait for Google Earth to photograph me.)
  • Only a few more days to comment on this post, and enter to win Jacquie Pearce‘s wonderful new chapter book! Incidentally, I just bought another Jacquie Pearce title for a small friend in Britain. It’s called Discovering Emily.
  • My friend Deryn — awesome — wrote a post about being influenced by Sandra Gulland — uber awesome (no offence, Deryn) — and then Sandra Gulland wrote a post about Deryn. How cool is that? Sandra Gulland, if you’d like to write a post about me, you can. You can even check Google Earth for photos.
  • For research purposes, I’ve been carrying around a book called Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I’m already married, because this is not a way to make new male friends.

From the vault

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To prove that talent has nothing to do with the pursuit of a professional writing career, here’s a sample of my grade four storytelling abilities, courtesy of my dad.

The Secret Formula

One day Professor Pete comes running by you and thrusts a strange bottle of liquid in your hand.

1) The colour of the liquid in the bottle is:
purple and green

2) The smell of the liquid is like:
roten egg or sometimes a rose

3) One very strange thing about this secret liquid is:
every 60 minutes it changes color and smell like a rose

4) Quite by accident the bottle drops to the floor with a crash. The liquid is spilled all over. All of a sudden the most unusual thing begins to happen:
I open my bedroom door and my room is full of hats. I find a crab in the sink

Use the facts you have just completed and finish this story which is started for you…

My strange discovery of the secret formula came quite by accident. It all happened the day I dropped the bottle containing the mysterious liquid. Then right before my eyes…
it dissapered along with all the maps in the world. The children taght the teachers, everyone forgot the metric system & space. when I went to bed the light wouldn’t turn off. I finale got to sleep at 11:36 p.m. When I got up I went to see Proffesser Pete.
He said the liquid (whith was called oh-oh)”whore off in 48 hours”. “Oh no” I said,”I have to put up with this another day”! When i went home a crab was in the sink. I wathed T.V.for a hour. when I turned off the T.V. everything was normall again.

Hmmm… what kind of drugs was I taking in grade four? Thank goodness the liquid “whore off” when it did!

When Skype goes bad

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After a telephone meeting earlier this week, I received this e-mail from my publisher:

I was asked to send you the link to download Skype (not that you wouldn’t be able to find it on your own, but here it is): https://login.skype.com/account/signup-form?application=download&return_url=http://www.skype.com/go/downloading-page&intcmp=join. It would be great if you could sign up for an account. And we could see you on video, to make sure you’re not rolling your eyes while we’re talking. (Just kidding, we don’t normally use video. But if we wanted to see what you’re wearing, we could!)

Well, let’s not even talk about what I’m wearing some days and just hope Google Earth isn’t looking into my living room window. But here’s a bigger problem. During the impromptu telephone meeting, I was frantically scribbling revision notes and forgot to take the chocolate chip cookies out of the oven, which caused some silent cursing and oven mitt waving. AND, as soon as I answered the phone and appeared distracted for oh… a nanosecond… my son decided that it would be a good time to pull out the splatter paint kit from Christmas and do some self-supervised painting in the kitchen.

Whenever I complain about something like this to my mom, she says, “Oh, you’re just lucky you have cordless phones nowadays.” Yes. It’s true that it would be more difficult to control splatter painting had I been attached to the wall by my ear. But… Skype? I’m just not sure how this cookie-crisping, splatter-paint controlling, revision-scribbling fashion nightmare would go, should it be broadcast live over the internet.

I think I’ll just go outside naked and wait for the satellite to spot me.