Category Archives: Writing

Happy news!

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I am so thrilled to have When the Worst Happens included on the Silver Birch and Golden Oak lists for this year’s Forest of Reading in Ontario.

The Silver Birch is a middle-grade reader’s choice award and thousands (literally thousands) of kids read the books and vote for their favourites.

The Golden Oak is for readers in adult literacy programs. I visited with a few groups when my novel Truth was shortlisted, years ago, and they were some of the most inspiring readers I’ve ever met.

Thank you, Ontario Library Association!

Reading, writing, and absolutely no arithmetic

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I’m a one-project-at-a-time kinda girl, but for the past couple weeks, I’ve been working on so many different things, my head is spinning. I have:

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  • Booked presentations in West Van for November, Maple Ridge for December, and Richmond for February. (I haven’t been this popular since I had a free French-fry connection in high school. I hope all these people don’t expect me to wear my clothes right-side-out and speak in complete sentences.)
  • Finished an index for Extreme Battlefields, then reviewed said index once someone with a logical mind fixed it.

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  • Written a chapter of my newest non-fiction manuscript. (Only two left to go — hurray!)
  • Revised my novel. And… um… switched the gender of the protagonist. I didn’t mention that plan to my agent. Do you think she’ll notice?

One of these days, I’m even going to shower. Because it’s always good to have goals.

Problems caused by my lazy butt

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I often read two books at once purely because I’m lazy. If I have two book on the go, one can live downstairs and one can live upstairs and I never have to wander around the house searching for my book. Makes perfect sense, no?

EXCEPT when the books start mixing in my brain.

At the moment, I’m reading Andrew Smith’s The Alex Crow and Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, both excellent. But in The Alex Crow, there’s a schizophrenic bomber driving around. And in When You Reach Me, there’s a girl receiving mysterious notes. I keep getting really worried as I read, thinking the girl is getting notes from a bomber.

Talk about adding suspense to a middle-grade novel.

The whooshing sound

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I came across this quote from Douglas Adams: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

I never miss deadlines. I’m much to Virgo-esque for that to happen. And in many ways, I like to have a goal and a finish line. But there are all these other things — dentist appointments, kids with colds, and, ahem, the entire summer — that get in the way. And then I panic.

My next manuscript is due on November 15th and I feel so behind I’ve started waking at 5 a.m. to think about how behind I am.

Because that’s helpful.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be the one in the corner, rocking, with her laptop a few inches from her nose.

Extreme Battlefields

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Annick’s Winter/Spring catalogue just arrived in my mailbox, which must mean it’s time to reveal what I’ve been working on this year.

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What am I doing writing about war? I have no idea. I like to think I’ve been writing more about extreme circumstances, action under pressure, and some impressively heroic leaders. These are definitely the most heart-thumping, adrenaline-racing stories I’ve even researched. I had to cut back on my coffee intake just to get through the first draft without having an aneurism.

Here’s the official, more coherent write-up:

The world’s strongest armies discover that Nature can be a secret ally or an unbeatable foe.

Not even the strongest troops can match the power of nature. in each of the ten stories in this volume, well-armed forces set off to battle human enemies but find themselves fighting the environment instead. Sometimes a leader carefully plans the perfect attack, only to find geography in the way. Other times the climate interferes unexpectedly.

• In 119 BCE, General Wei Qing used a sand storm as cover and was able to attack the Xiongnu nomads by surprise.
• Napoleon’s plan to quickly subdue the Russians was foiled by the savage “General Winter.”
• A massive network of underground tunnels gave the Viet Cong guerillas an unbeatable advantage over the much stronger American forces.
• The battle between India and Pakistan over borders has pitted both countries against the inhospitable Siachen Glacier.

Nature’s obstacles have led to crushing defeats, they’ve inspired accidental victories, and they’ve encouraged surprising innovation.

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The book features illustrations by Drew Shannon as well as photos, maps, and a rather dramatic design. I can’t wait for you all to see the real thing!

The dream conference

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Imagine this: a children’s literature conference where Stacey Matson was teaching storytelling and Carrie Mac giving a keynote about heroes, villains, and geeks. James McCann was offering a workshop on story mapping, Maggie de Vries on scene construction, and Jeremy Tankard on turning pictures into stories. Denise Jaden, Grant Lawrence, and Pia Guerra were speaking and mentoring. Would you want to go?

Because I would TOTALLY sign up!

Except… I am not 11 to 16. Damn it.

All last week, my daughter ran off to the VPL’s Writing and Book Camp each day and came home raving about the cool people she’d met and the things she’d discovered.

Then, on Friday, she got up in front of 150 or so people and read an excerpt from her short story. Calmly, clearly, as if it were no big deal.

I am hanging somewhere between immensely proud and insanely jealous.

To the lake and back

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We spent last week in the Kootenays and the Okanagan, getting our lake time for the summer. There’s something about extreme heat that’s so much better when all you have to do is alternate between pool, water park, and lake.

Now I’m back to work. But my return was made a little smoother by this lovely piece of fan mail waiting in my mailbox when I got home:

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Thank you, Senadee!

The countdown

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Three more days.

The school is doing everything in its power to suck me in. There’s an athletics banquet today, and emails desperate for volunteer ice-cream scoopers have been arriving in my in-box. I have ignored them.

There are two scheduled beach trips. More grown-ups are always helpful when adding a hundred kids to an ocean. But I haven’t volunteered.

Instead, I have revised two chapters. I’ve churned partway through a scene list. After two false starts, I’ve managed to properly outline a non-fiction chapter.

My kids have created a list of things they’d like to do this summer. It includes waterslides, berry picking, aquarium visits, movies, beach barbecues, pools, suspension bridges, and waterfalls. Nowhere does it say: “give Mommy writing time.” Somehow, they left that off the list.

But there’s nothing like a deadline to get me working. And I still have three more days to go…

Things that make me say “om”

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I’ve been thinking a lot about storytelling, lately, and about its presence in the wider world.

AND, I spent much of last week being highly entertained by the Om the Bridge fiasco. For those of you who aren’t Vancouverites, Om the Bridge was an attempt to close the Burrard Bridge for a massive yoga gathering on July 21st, International Yoga Day.

However, July 21st also happens to be National Aboriginal Day. That caused a fracas. Then people figured out that the BC government was supporting Om the Bridge with $150,000, at the exact same time they were suggesting that the Vancouver School Board close 19 schools to save money. And finally, the event was being co-sponsored by Liberal donors/yoga/yogawear companies and, for some reason, Atlagas.

There was a massive Twitter uproar, led in part by:

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The event was cancelled.

What I find interesting is the way that, in the space of a few days, the story entirely changed. It was supposed to be (I assume) a story about how fun and quirky we Vancouverites are and about how beautiful Vancouver looks from the Burrard bridge, especially once a bunch of Lululemon-clad bottoms are doing downward dog. Amidst all those bottoms, presumably Christy Clark and Altagas were going to look fun and quirky, too.

But thanks to social media, the story changed. It became a tale of corporate interests vs. respect for First Nations, and public relations funds vs. education spending.

Many times, when we favourite a tweet about a particular cause, or retweet a petition link, we’re succumming to laziness more than we’re actually participating in democracy. But this weekend showed what Twitter can do well. It can act like one of those elementary school writing games, where one kid starts a sentence, then another adds, then a third…

It can take a basic idea, examine it from 974 million angles, and reinvent the story entirely.