What People Should Know About Writers

Currently the rotten economy has made the publishing industry leaner and meaner.  Rejection notes sound curt and dismissive.  So much so that I caught myself telling a relatively new writer the other day that I couldn't believe I could make a living at it all these years (25).  She pondered at how difficult that must be herself.

The truth of the matter is that many writers earn a living besides blockbuster writers such as J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins or Stephanie Meyers.  What even new writers don't understand is that advances and royalties alone rarely make up that liveable income.

Writing-related income does.

So, the moment you write a book, you are often asked to teach others how to do it.  This could be in a community college or university depending on your own educational background. Or it could be a session at a writer conference. Children's writers also instantly become experts on how to make kids read--parents wring their hands as they approach me about advice on this matter--so income can come from family literacy talks.  We also know how to inspire writing in young people.

If you listen to anyone who is passionate about their work, you realize the potential to motivate and inspire students and others.  Income, and book sales, therefore can be derived from school, library, and bookclub visits.

Strangely, I'm often paid to judge writing contests.  Minimally, still usually enough to pay for a full grocery cart.

Looking at, evaluating and/or suggesting changes on a manuscript should pay the mortgage for one month, depending on the size of the home and manuscript.

The expertise required to write a book can lead to the ability to edit others' work.  I love my part time job editing a parenting magazine called Today's Parent Toronto.

Freelance writing opportunities have become less frequent since everyone gives away information, such as what I'm doing right now, on blogs.   But I have, in the past, written for newspapers and magazines.  This month I hired myself to write a feature called Creating a Passion for Pages.

Additionally I have earned my way through being an electronic writer in residence, through writing a proposal for an internet travel journal and even bartered a museum membership by "trying out" to write the (wall) speech balloons for some microbes.

My family vacations have been structured around weeklong readings where the hotel has an amazing waterslide.  

Lately, most of my royalties come from other countries where I guess kids buy more books than in Canada.A windfall gain might be an Ontario Arts or Canada Council Grant.  I have been fortunate in the past.When a writer wins a GG, TD or other major monetary award, don't even ask what they're doing with the money.  They're paying down their VISA and/or personal line of credit.

Two fairly steady streams of income are public lending rights (moneys paid through Canada Council for books available in libraries) and Access Copyright (blanket licensing that charges small fees for small unrecorded photocopying and digital downloading--saves the user time if he/she doesn't have to write me for permissions)  Monday, I'll be flying into Ottawa to try to convince MPs to tighten the educational exception on the copyright bill C11 to protect the AC income.

Grocery cart by grocery cart, the bits of income all add up.

I think every writer longs to be a blockbuster author.  We feel inadequate when we're not, especially when signing a contract in the publisher's office. Or when a government (municipal, provincial or federal) makes cuts to the arts.

But, does the world only want blockbuster hits?  Think of all the wonderful surprising books that have changed your life that weren't best sellers.

I fondly remember a waitress hugging me after serving me my lunch because her child had stayed up reading her first book (mine) the night before.  I've heard that a young victim of parental abuse came to therapy clutching her favourite comfort, one of my books.  I know at least two young women who have fostered many guide dogs after reading my fiction on the topic.  There are many other touching stories I know about that make me realize that blockbusters are not the only important literature out there.
In fact, I often find the bestsellers rather disappointing.

So for the general public, don't begrudge the writer the fees for talks and other writing related activities.  Also buy the book even if you can put it on hold at the library or borrow it from a buddy.
Finally, tell your MP that the arts and a strong copyright bill are important to you.

Warbird, by Jennifer Maruno at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre

This, the new Burlington Performing Arts Centre, makes a great setting to read Burlington's newest children's author, Jennifer Maruno's Warbird.  While the publisher was Napoleon, that press has been digested by Dundurn. I bought the book from my favourite bookseller A Different Drummer and then strolled over to this beautiful new building and read while my husband took photos for his architecture photography classes.  For once I really read the book in the location I picture. (In 1647) 10 year old Etienne swaps places with an orphan in order to escape farm life and explore like his hero Champlain.  His adventures cause him to see and experience things that finally make him turn around and go home.   I remember learning Canadian history in grade 5, fur traders, Indians, Jesuit priests having their hearts eaten by Iroquois (frankly the most exciting part).  How wonderful it would have been to have read Warbird instead of our history texts.  This would be a great book to read before visiting the historic park Sainte-Marie among the Hurons.

TD Canadian Children's Lit Award Gala

The TD and The Canadian Children's Book Centre know how to make an author feel special.  Even if you're not nominated, this year I don't even have a book, out but the speakers always thank all of us for enriching kids' lives and all the spectacular little entrees and drinks and special touches, like this tophat escort helps make me feel celebrated.  I had read the John Spray winner, A Spy in the House.  Congratulations to Y.S. Lee and her beautiful baby. Can't wait to read The Glory Wind by Valerie Sherrard.  She beat out so many spectactular GG winning authors, her book must be fabulous.  I've read some of Susan Hughes animal chapter books so was happy for her win in non-fiction.  I Know Here is the picture book winner--we heard the illustrator Matt James speak at CANSCAIP and he was a riot.  The big win went to Erin Bow's Plain Kate.  I really love her hubbie James writing so I wonder if there will a family talent connection.  Has to be I guess.  Hope they invest the win wisely and yet have tons of fun too.

Inspiring Girls - Visiting Saint Mildred's Lightbourn School

For a long time I've wanted to visit Saint Mildred's Lightbourn School.  Sometimes in co-ed schools I feel like I've let the boys down because I've written female protagonist stories.  Teachers have said to me "Girls read anything, but boys won't read anything with a girl main character."  I don't believe every piece of fiction should be tailored to try to get boys to read. That kind of marginalizes girls. Allow male readers the pleasure of nonfiction if they don't enjoy following a narrative. Invite male authors in one year, and female the next to get a balance. 

  In any case, finally yesterday I had the opportunity to visit. It was a wonderful afternoon with some two hundred young readers and potential writers.  The girls asked some great questions, too.  I hope to visit them again.

500 Show for Burlington Public Library/ Sally Armstrong Event

Thank you Burlington Public Library for hosting, not only another successful literary event:  Sally Armstrong's The Nine Lives of Charlotte Tayler evening, but for all the great programs and support you give writers as well as readers.  I heard BPL's Andrea Gordon say over 500 tickets were issued and the One Book, One Burlington celebratory night needed to move locations from a fairly large venue at Central's auditorium to Port Nelson United Church where the beautiful stained glass windows and subdued lighting created a wonderful atmosphere for Sally's inspiring talk.  Sally spoke about the connections between history and identity and the power of women's stories.  Women can create peace.  Several audience members identified themselves as Charlotte's descendants and Sally said when she approached her computer each morning to write her story, it was as if Charlotte were waiting.  After watching her sign books to her audience, I said goodbye and Congratulations, Charlotte.  Thanks again Burlington Public Library for supplying me with wonderful opportunities that have launched my career as a writer, saved my sanity as a parent, enriched my children as readers and entertained and enlightened my whole family.

The Tiffin by Mahtab Narsimhan on Hamilton Beach

Much of where I think would be a great place to read is not where I actually do.  Here's where I would have liked to have read The Tiffin a very moving story of the lives changed when a message goes astray in one of those large metal lunch buckets used to deliver hot lunch all over Bombay. Kunal is the perseverant orphan who searches for family through the story and ultimately finds it, maybe not exactly in the shape and form that he wanted it.  I fancy myself as an empath which sometimes makes me take on a story too much so I found it hard to handle what beggars go through in India.  I have a 10 year old grandson with some east Indian in his background and I can too easily imagine different circumstances for him.  Pretty sure children can handle the difficult parts better than I did.  This is a powerful story.  And why I wanted to read it here is not just because of the water.  I love to be close to a lake or ocean for ultimate Zen.  But here I am close to the spirit of the girl who is inspiring my next story.  I'm waiting for her to answer my questions.  It's easier if I'm reading a good story.

PS As soon I clean off my desk, I hope to post a close up of The Tiffin.  Or maybe that little girl stole it.

The Yo-Yo Prophet by Karen Krossing on Sugar Beach

Early Saturday morning I was heading to an Access Copyright meeting in the Star Building at the foot of Yonge. At the south end of Lower Jarvis I happened on a location I'd heard about and always wanted to see: Sugar Beach.  And I had the perfect book to read, Karen Krossing's The Yo-Yo Prophet (Orca Book Publishers)  Her main character Calvin actually performs and predicts from the harbourfront not far from here. I show two photos of the location only because it's such an oddity.  You can't swim from this beach and while it's inviting, the setting is quite industrial with that rusty ship docked nearby.  It took all my will power to keep walking and head for One Yonge Street.  Not only could I not stop to enjoy the book at this beach but on the Go Train in I re-read the black binder full of notes for the meeting.  I only hope my sacrifices give writers like Karen MORE MONEY.    

Meetings done, I made the time to read The Yo-Yo Prophet from a more mundane setting, my dining room.I love the characters,  Rozelle especially.  She's such a feisty big-busted girl full of spunk and innovation.  I wish Karen would write a story all about her.  I like the premise and I'm always intrigued by yo-yoing.  Can't get one to return unless I buy a cheater automatic return.  I think I now need a trick book so I can read it again and try to perform the things Calvin did. I like the unpredictability of the story.  Calvin has problems that don't solve themselves sitcom-like.  He acts on them and manages to shift the balance in his favour but in the end...well you'll have to read it yourself.  And by the way, this is not a book Just for Kids.  You don't have to wrack your brains for whom on your shopping list you should get a copy.  Buy it for yourself and enjoy.  There's no reason young adults should always have all the fun.

How Do You Read to a Rabbit by Andrea Wayne von Koningslow

This is my grandaughter Violet's official first book.  I'm sure there were many other board books that she gummed along the way but How Do You Read to a Rabbit is her go-to favourite because she loves the pictures.  She loves animals, anyway, but how can you resist Andrea Wayne's whimsical gentle drawings?  I love her Bing and Chutney characters too and have a portrait of them hanging in my bedroom.  Violet currently likes the dolphin page in her book and has learned the phrase "all wet" from it. Her dad, my son Craig, also enjoyed many Annick picture books.  I remember his favourite used to be Mashed Potato Mountain by Laurel Gugler.  I'm so grateful to Annick for those little handsized picture books that I used to carry around in my purse, the emergency stories that I used to entertain my three children in the waiting rooms of life.  They introduced my kids to reading and to many great Canadian children's writers like Andrea. 

Linwood Barclay and Chevy Stevens' Thrillers on my Ereader in the forest

My e-reader, just like my laptop, closely resembles my favourite childhood toy, my etch a sketch.  Okay, hands down physical books are still better.  I like to know where I'm at in a book, if I'm close to the end in physical page thickness.  My ereader makes me read faster just like SRA did when I went to school.  Who remembers SRA in the late 60s and early 70s?  Scientific Reading Association.  You were tested and put into a colour and then you had to read short stories on that colour of cards while being timed.  Afterwards you answered questions, again timed, and corrected your answers from another card.  Faster and faster, up the ladder of colours. Yes I can speed read now and it can be a blessing and a curse.  I don't savour details like some people.  Instead I gallop through plots which makes me a pretty good concept editor.  Too bad I have to copy edit things too.

I am a big Linwood Barclay fan as I first encountered him as a Star columnist who wrote about his Burlington (my town) home life.  His first mysteries still had that comfortable suburban feel and column humour.  Now they're gone to thriller twists and turns, but still with the great funny characters. I loved The Accident and read it in this copse of trees at Bronte Creek, in their dog park. Now I hate using any Chinese electric products.  Thanks Linwood!

Chevy Stevens is a BC thriller writer whose stories Still Missing and Never Knowing were great reads to gobble up on an Ereader. In the first, the real estate agent is kidnapped and lives a year with her abductor, bears him a child and all things creepy.  In Never Knowing the main character finds out some horrible truths about her birth father.  Twist seekers charge your Ereaders please.

   

L.M. Falcone Ventures into Graphic Novel

Lucy usually writes scary novels like The Mysterious Mummer or Walking with the Dead (a Silver Birch Winner) but here she's collaborating with my daughter Robin McNicoll to touch up some illustrations on a new graphic novel.  It's still in grant proposal stage so I don't want to say too much about it.  I did read the first fifteen pages and it's hilarious. I hope Canada Council juries like having their funny bones tickled.  Still who cares, as long as I can buy and read the whole book soon.  Attracted by the hum of creativity, Hunter sat down to watch the process and in the end, received an autographed first draft, worth millions once Lucy takes over for J.K. Rowling.

Emceeing Discovery Landing's 2011 Sandcastle Competition

Nothing to do with writing or selling books, I just love sandcastles.  For the past couple of years I've been a judge in Burlington's Sandcastle Competition.  I wouldn't say I'm an expert in anything sandy but I just love the sculptures and the beach, watching the sailboats come in.  This year they made all their past winners judges and really didn't need me.  How about I emcee instead?  So same deal, great sandart pirate themed this year, hot hot weather, good beach music and lots of yachts and other boats drifting in.  I intro'd  bands and events into a microphone, something authors are pretty used to doing and enjoyed the day.  Now I said it had nothing to do with writing but as I stood there looking out on the lake, I remembered the scene from Dying to Go Viral. As part of her redo of her last week on earth, 14 year old Jade wants  to go to the beach but has no car or means and can't share with her family that she's only got a week to live either.  So she hops a bus and heads for Burlington Beach and it's a great day even though it's not Hawaii or California or any other exotic beach locale.  Dying along with Jade, taught me to appreciate local sunrises and sunsets and beaches as well as sand pirates like this.

Death on Track Take 2 Learning how to live

This is the second book in a series I'm working on where the main character dies in the first chapter, stupidly, and meets someone dead from her past at the gates of entry into the next life.  The character begs to return to life to address regrets and is granted the last week of her life to do over.  Can she avoid death? Maybe sometimes.

  In Death on Track, Paige evades bullies by taking a shortcut along the rails during a snowstorm.  Working on the second draft (and by second, I really mean about the hundredth, only this one is as a result of feedback from writers) I wanted to find an actual location where this might have occurred.  Here it is in summer, along Dundas Street.  The mall nearby is unfortunately a strip of box stores.  The high school, unbuilt and unnamed as yet.

When visiting schools and conducting writing workshops, I'm often asked to address rewriting but usually in the sense of how hard we work at it and how many times.  It makes it all seem like such a burden.  

Going through this second draft and painting on a second coat of detail was actually a delight.  I visited and interviewed an independent grocer, Mario of Marilu Foods on New Street.  I think I changed 10 words because of this interview but the story become so much more clear and real to me.   Most of the anxiety of writing is gone too as a result of the feedback.  My writing critiquers made me feel the actual plot of the story was a success.  The way it sounds in the creator's head is not always the way the public reads it so this was a huge relief.

Now I'm waiting for a second round of reviewers to write a third draft.

Around the campfire, The Magic Mustache by Gary Barwin

This is my daughter Jen reading to her four year old son William at their campfire at the Pinery Campground.  What amazes me is how intent he is in a story that he's had read to him a hundred times, The Magic Mustache by Gary Barwin.  In it the son who is a nose, is given the task of selling the only family possession left, a set of glasses.  His parents, a set of eyes, expect a good exchange in return.  But the nose settles for a magic beard.  The eyes throw it out and it grows similarly to the magic beanstalk.  The nose climbs it to the castle of a mouth who threatens to eat him. Lots of great rhyme and hilarity ensues.

There's a pretty happy ending about a face coming together and staying like that.   The magic of reading, the magic of a great story.

On my living room couch Soames on the Range by Nancy Belgue

You read about all kinds of non-traditional families but you have to wonder how a child feels when their mom or dad announces something like a sex change or in Soames' case a father declares he's breaking up with Mom and moving in with his guy lover.  Soames lives in a really small town and looks and even moves like his father.  I cringe for him as I read about what he experiences.  That's the beauty of books, you can go through all the emotions and come out stronger without suffering the slings physically.

In the end something really exciting happens to Soames and while that might not be the case for every kid who has to experience a lifestyle change like this, it does feel right to me.  Even if everything goes wrong, wonderful things can happen too.

I read a lot more books than I posted about right here on this couch in my living room where the air conditioning makes it perfectly cool.

Who Goes to Literary Festivals

It had been a blistering hot week but for Imagine in the (Gage)Park, there had been a cooling rain the morning of the July 24th event.  Gary Barwin, Jean Little, Gillian Chan, myself as well as facepainters, voice coaches, puppeteer  and Frontier literacy volunteers were on the site to entertain and delight. 

Who comes out for these events?  You just never know. Ozo the dog came attached by leash to his master on a scooter. He has appeared on the screen in various roles, Ozo, not his owner.  For my audience, some very intense young writers complete with their manuscripts showed wanting to me to share some writing tips.  I read some of their work and know they'll be presenting at a festival some time.

I only wish I could have come to one of these events when I was kids.

In a Lazyboy chair, The Second Trial by Rosemarie Boll

The lazyboy chair makes a very comfortable seat for reading this gripping but uncomfortable story. It's about a boy who is the only member in his family who gets along with his abusive father  and misses him after he, his mom and sister, go into a witness protection plan.  His new life is his second trial and it spirals downward till he engages in abusive behaviour himself.  Here's where I have to burrow into my chair.  I no longer sympathize with him when he stands by and even helps restrain a red haired boy as he is beaten and set on fire for the colour of his hair. Can you enjoy a read where the character sinks below your level of tolerable bad behaviour? Recently a book of mine was rejected because the main character lied and was therefor unsympathetic to the editorial panel.  I think the only rule, really, is for whatever reason if the reader feels compelled to continue, the story succeeds.   The abusive behavior bottomed out there and was the turning point for the character.  The Second Trial  by Rosemarie Boll is a great argument for adults to read young adult.  The books can be just intense as adult novels but are usually shorter with more of a concrete ending.

Mortie, the Jackapoo, reads The Art of Racing in the Rain

You're not supposed to judge a book by its cover but this novel is a Chapters' staff pick fave.  I could have paid way less had I bought it in eversion but then I couldn't have shared it with Mortie.  Honestly, the cover made me smile.  The dog who narrates has an uncanny resemblance to Mortie, my Jackapoo, The story incorporates racing philosophy with life but (spoiler alert) a key person and the dog die in the end. It feels very Marly and Me.  Maybe this is a trick to sell books. So often the cover doesn't match the story but if we stick to favourite dog breeds, maybe the cover can sell the book because the readers, like me, likes pictures of their dogs.

In a stream: The Writer's Life, The Margaret Laurence Lectures

This series on where and what we're reading was started as as kind of personal PR for books.  I think in this fast paced world of technology where you press 1 for English and 2 for French and never get anyone who really wants to speak to you (although the conversation may be recorded for quality ensurance), we're searching for more and more peaceful happy moments. Or is that just me. Yoga, hot and cold, is suddenly popular. Non fiction books that connect to spirituality in a mainstream way get gobbled up: The Book of Awesome for example.

When I speak to my fellow writers, I realize we're all trying to create more to sustain our living when the answer might be to do less and read more. Think of it as both job sharing and job creating. When we go on holidays whether to the tropics or the local beach, we usually most enjoy a quiet read.  And so for my own purposes I slowed down this summer and tried to document my reading.   I still write, edit for Today's Parent Toronto, and work as director on Access Copyright but I am making a point to READ and enjoy it and to document enjoying it in my favourite places.  Planking, writer's style?

Here I am at the Bronte Creek Dog Park Swimming hole reading an appropriate title:  A Writer's Life, the Margaret Laurence Lectures  25th Anniversary of the Lecture Series

I realize that when I invited others to share their reading holes and material how difficult it is to include a photo of themselves with a book.  It requires a photographer, plus a lot of us don't like pictures of ourselves.  So...to make it easier, if you wish to share, send me a photo of your book where you're reading it.

On the Beach (Lake Erie) Winter of Secrets by Vicki Delany

We never stop talking unless it's to read.  Sometimes we discuss our books.  Gisela Sherman's reading one on world war II as research for the novel she's working on. I'm reading a mystery set in the Kootenays, one of my favourite parts of the world, by Vicki Delany a writer who once took a course I taught (Creative Writing Its Realities--not my title). While I'm not a serious mystery buff,  I like to follow her cast of small town characters, including Constable Molly Smith, as they fumble through and solve crimes.

As we strolled the beach, we met a lady enjoying the latest Harry Potter before she gives it to her granddaughter.  Next door to us in a hammock lay a man who read his ebook for about four hours straight. One of the problems with those is the next door neighbors can't tell what you're reading!

Summer is one of the best times to relax with a great story, in whatever format.

Under a tree: Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee

Often in between writing scenes, I will walk the dog but in the summer Mortie gets too hot and must pause for a treat and water break.  I now carry a book on the hike and here I am conveniently doing research for my latest project:  Death on Track.  The main character is a 14 year old adopted Chinese orphan and her best friend Jasmin is an Indian girl nervous her parents will discover her Canadian boyfriend.
Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee gave me lots of insight but I also went out for an Indian buffet lunch with a new friend Beena.  Of course I watched Bend It Like Beckham.

This tree is close to the library so I could get a new book once I'm finished if only they allowed dogs.