Nudge, Nudge.

Completing a project is always very satisfying, isn't it? Even though you sometimes have to nudge yourself along. I just completed what is probably the tenth edit of the long version of one of my stories. Oh yes, there's a short version and a long version. I've never done that before. Crazy as it may seem I'm actually sending both versions to a publisher. They might not like either version, of course, but that's just one of the prices a writer pays for all the hard slog. I've decided that all will not be lost. I'm going to leave my unpublished writings to a university library special collections department, so one day a dedicated (or desperate) PhD student can plow through every scrap of paper and perhaps write a thesis on me.
Obviously MY final edit is not THE final edit. But a final something is better than an unfinished something, and I should know, because there's way too much unfinished stuff around here.
Yes, it's all slow going, but never give up, my friends. Remember the musical I wrote? The one that's in rehearsal right now? A brilliant musician recently set to music the lyrics of one of my songs. He did an amazing job. I hope I can do it justice. Yes, I'm the one singing it! The pressure is on, but sometimes that's a good thing. It makes a person feel alive. Of course if it happens all the time - pressure I mean - then it can be stressful. But the odd bit of pressure is like a nudge to get on with it. If no one is around to say to you, 'Come on, you can do it,' then look in the mirror and say it to yourself.
Remember what I told you about talking to yourself? You're not crazy, you're a writer.

I'm Back in Vancouver.

When last heard of I was full of trepidation - and a sinus infection. Yes, I chewed gum at take off and on landing, and swallowed two Tylenols a couple of hours before we hit the tarmac. Well, we didn't hit it, thank goodness. We landed smoothly. My ears are still not 100%, but you don't want to read about my health, nor do you want to read a travelogue. This is about turning life into art. Or art into art. I saw a lot of art in London, in the North of England, and in Malta. And I had adventures. Most adventures are daring escapades, or things that go wrong, and are not especially funny while they're happening, but are hilarious when you tell about them later, adding a bit more colour with each telling.
Every day I wrote in my little notebook - the one my friend Joyce gave me. The top half of every page is blank and the bottom half is lined, and even though I am about as far from being an artist as it is possibe to get, I 'sketched' and wrote little bits of information, captions and remarks (coming out of the mouths of my stick people). This helped me remember a lot of the events, impressions and adventures without my spending hours handwriting. Yes, yes, I know. I really should get a laptop or small electronic notebook or something. I'm very out of touch with technology, but I do realize that a)my handwriting is awful and b)because I tire quickly when writing by hand, I don't do my best work that way. ("Please sir, can I be excused from in class-essays? I tire so easily." "No, you can't. However, these are modern times and you may use a laptop.") No laptops in the 1950s, alas. Consider yourselves lucky to be going to school in 2010. If you are going to school, that is.
So for those of you who enjoy doing funny sketches and cartoons with captions, I hope you took my advice and carried a notebook along on your recent travels.
I promised you this would not be a travelogue, so I'll keep it brief.
Malta is a very colourful country, full of history, interesting streets and beautiful doors and door knockers. Also, lots of underground tunnels and hillside caves where you can escape from the 34 degrees Celsius heat.
London has layers of history but still seems new and vibrant.
The North of England has lovely gardens and rugged coastline.
And when I come back home I see Vancouver with fresh eyes.
I hope you have similar experiences. Store them up. One day they'll come in handy.

London Here I Come

I'm trying to look on the bright side. Surely I shall wake up on Saturday morning fit and well and ready to take on the world - or at least parts of it. It's been over two weeks now and my sinus infection has not totally disappeared. My ears feel as if they have been stuffed with cotton wool, and when I lie down at night there are sounds inside my left ear that make me think there's a bug inside doing a soft shoe shuffle. I've been told that if I want to avoid a burst ear drum as my plane leaves the tarmac (I do, I do) I should chew like crazy (lucky for me I've become addicted to Glee gum), drink water or suck cough candies. Just to be on the safe side, I think I'll do all three at once.
So, if all goes well, or as near to well as possible, on Sunday I shall be schlepping my one suitcase to a hotel in Bloomsbury (that's right, home of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Set, the literati etc.)ready for a week of CULTURE. I'm taking my pen and a little notebook on the plane (the old fashioned kind of notebook that you write in) and my musical script (to learn, even though I wrote it) and a novel (to amuse and entertain me when I get sick of looking at cloud formations). I've also got a rather interesting little travel reading lamp which I'm hoping doesn't get confiscated at the airport and blown up by the security guards. It does look a little James Bond-ish.
Are any of you going somewhere different? Don't forget to take a notebook. If you can sketch why not do that instead of only relying on a camera? I'm a terrible artist but I still give it a try, just to get up close and personal and notice details.
Things to think about. What's different or the same about the new place? Does it smell or sound a bit different from your home town? Do people speak a different language or have a different way of speaking English. Do they use their hands more when they speak? And don't forget to mention any little adventures you might have while in the new location.
Bon voyage and remember, 'It's ALL material.'

There's No Business Like Show Business, etc.

We had the first read through for the musical that I wrote. What a lovely feeling. We all sat around and read the script, and of course it became clear to me that I needed to make yet more changes - but still, it sounded so good! I have a great cast and two amazing directors (my talented husband, bless him, and a professional actor, dancer, director who has a way of getting her actors to do all kinds of inventive things). You can't imagine how gratifying it is to have my words come to life and then have people make the characters their own! It's as if I've passed the ball to someone and they've run with it. For those of you who are dabbling with playwriting I have to say that even though you create characters, the actors and directors flesh them out in ways you might not have thought possible. I'm surprised at the way I'm willing to let that happen, but it might be because I didn't flesh out the characters as much as I might have when I wrote the show. In this particular show I wanted the actors to help more than usual with the creative process. If I write another play it might not work quite that way, but this is a little like workshopping, even though I've written the entire show already. Oh yes, and yesterday I even wrote another song. Well, not the music, but some rather witty lyrics which I hope will be set to music very soon. And in my key. Because the song is for me. There's a dance rehearsal this weekend and I plan to go, though I'll stay on the back row, because I don't want to distract the real dancers. I'm not very good at following other people's choreography. I'm sure it's because choreography is probably learned on the math side of the brain, and that's the side I don't have.
Anyway, if any of you are toying with the idea of writing for the stage, simply do what I did and take one of your unpublished stories and work it into a one act play. It's worth a try. Oh yes, and write a few songs to go with it. Or find a friend who can and will.
In other news, I've seen some more sketches for my upcoming picture book. They're terrific. I love what the artist is doing. That's a great feeling. Sometimes publishers match up writers and illustrators who seem to be on the same wavelength, and thank goodness it happened with this book. To celebrate I went to Vancouver Kidsbooks and bought an expensive, plush and cuddly puppet to use when I read the book to children. You'll have to wait until next year to see a photo of me with the book and the puppet, but I can assure you it will be well worth the wait.

Not Another Falcon! And Yet ...

I think I have created a monster. No, not my son - my friend Pam. I love both monsters (son and friend) so it's not as bad as it sounds. I'm not Mary Shelley or Rabbi Loew of Prague, and if you don't know the references you'll just have to look them up! In case I haven't told you, I'm off to Malta, all being well, in July. If I've told you all this (and as usual I'm not going to scroll down and double check, because it's midnight and I'm tired)then you can press the little x in the corner. If not, prepare to be astonished and amazed.
I invited myself to my friend's home in Malta and said, very casually, 'Who knows, I might be inspired to write a story set there.' After all there's a ton of history just begging to be fictionalized. So Pam rolled up her sleeves and set to work as my unofficial research assistant. Now don't forget I'm not only in the middle of working on my Musical, I also have a back-burner on which there are the following short novels on simmer: The dog story, the smuggler story, the highwayman story, the Canadian history story, Harold the Hero, a murder mystery (written under a pen name so none of my friends will read it and recognize themselves)and the medieval French doctor story. Also a few picture book stories. I'm 63. You do the math. Time is not my friend.
I sent the dinosaur story away this week AGAIN. Nothing ventured nothing gained, as my mother would say. Harold the Hero has now grown to 6,000+ words. He'll be going somewhere soon, and I hope he doesn't come back until he's printed and bound and there's a cheque in the mail. One can dream.
I don't want to disappoint Pam. She's sent me enough book titles and information website links to choke a horse. I feel I cannot live up to her high expectations. But I must try. I owe her that much. And once I'm actually in Malta, slathered in sunblock, rushing from museum to church to synagogue to art gallery (with breaks for lunch and cups of strong tea) to mosque to historical site and back again, I'm sure I'll experience an epiphany. And with luck maybe Pam will have created a monster - ME!

With a Bit of Power Comes a Lot of Responsibility

A couple of weeks ago we held auditions for my Musical-Fit-For-The-Whole-Family. My husband is experienced in this process because he's directed many times before. I'm not a director and I doubt I ever will be. The only audition experience I have is as an actor, so I'm aware of the stress and panic involved in trying to convince a director that you can do ANYTHING! So, the director (said husband) the producer, the dance director and I sat behind a table, just like Michael Douglas in Chorus Line, while performers read, sang and danced for us. I'm not accustomed to having so much power, Spiderman. What do I do?
I'm a bit of a disorganized person, so I was handing out script pages to people willy-nilly and getting them to read just anything. After a while my poor husband had to take over. Despite my chaotic handling of the situation one thing was clear - all the performers had talent! What do you do in a situation like that? There was no choice, I'm afraid. I'm creating more roles and writing more dialogue. This is, after all, community theatre, not Hollywood, Bollywood or Broadway. Not yet, anyway. Another happy outcome is that a professional composer is re-writing my songs - with my blessing.
Heady days, but my size five and half feet are planted firmly on the ground. Keep on writing out there. You never know!

The Roller Coaster of the Creative - and everyday - Life

The creative life is a roller coaster. Well, I suppose all of life is a roller coaster, unless you're living in a cave high up a mountain. Then it would be just cold.
And talking of cold, I've had a nasty cough lately and am spending more time than usual at home, wrapped in a lovely wool shawl. I bought the shawl in December 1974 from a street vendor in Mexico City. That probably seems like many years ago to you young folk, but to me it seems like the day before yesterday. Whenever I wear this shawl I wonder if the woman who sold it to me eventually made enough money to stop selling things on the street. Was she able to send her children to school? Did they go on to university? I hope so. The shawl cost me $20 then. In fact I bought two shawls, one for me and one for a friend. Nowadays, in Vancouver, shawls like this would probably cost about $250 apiece. The shawl was made with great skill and the woman who made it deserved to be paid more money than she was asking, and more than I could afford.
So I wear this shawl as I sit at the computer in my office, or when I read my murder mystery in the window seat. I did mention, did I not, that I call my new house Drafty Corners Cottage? You see, I can clearly recall what I was doing in Mexico City in 1974, but I can't remember most of my past blogs. I'm not saying everyone has this problem when they get older, but obviously I do! So, because it's been windy lately, I wear the shawl mainly to stay warm.
Maybe I also wear this shawl to remind myself of the vagaries of the creative life. Whether you weave shawls for so many hours a day that your fingers are callused, and tourists examine your wares without a clue as to how much trouble went into the making of them, or whether you weave stories in a lovable but drafty house, so that publishers can examine your wares without a clue as to how much blood, sweat and tears went into the writing, there is still the compulsion to create - regardless of the financial rewards or lack of. Though, of course, financial rewards are more than welcome. They pay the mortgage and buy the groceries. Weavers have to weave and writers have to write, just as singers have to sing and doctors have to heal. Sometimes there is financial gain, often there is none.
So back to the roller coaster. Up it goes: My musical appears to be a 'go,' though I'm girding my loins for pages of re-writing, and a lot of hard work. There's no money in this, just the thrill of perhaps seeing something I wrote performed by talented people who love to perform. Auditions are in May.
Down it goes: My beloved story 'Harold the Hero' is still much loved by publishers - but not enough for them to publish it (or 'him'). I'm expanding the story, against the odds of 'him' ever being accepted, because I love Harold and the story in which I've placed him. He's wickedly funny and there's just not enough funny these days. Publishers don't always accept that children - some children - are like some adults. They have a sharp, sometimes gritty, sense of humour.
Up goes the roller coaster again: I've been mentoring a rather brilliant and creative grade ten student. Her project is to write and illustrate a picture book. At first she had a rather good idea for a story, but after a while it seemed as if it would be better as a chapter book or early reader. What to do? Cut it down, make lots of changes? I didn't want to discourage her, because I know only too well that life is full of discouragement. Then, all by herself, she came up with another idea. An idea so simple and yet so perfect. The kind of simple idea that we all too frequently dismiss, because we don't always recognize genius, even in ourselves. But it has all the makings of a wonderful book. And she's lucky to be a talented artist, so she can illustrate it. Whilst the first story was becoming very wordy and a bit forced, this one will - we hope - be a perfect blend of spare text and funny illustrations. I have no doubt she'll eventually get it to a stage where she can send it to a publisher. After she'd come up with the new idea, all it took to get things on track was a bit of brainstorming. (My husband thinks that she should be mentoring me!)
So I'll end with an upturn of the roller coaster, and after some hot tea I'll get back to 'Harold the Hero,' because his story must be told, and who knows, one day you might be reading it. May all our roller coasters swoop upwards.*
*And may the wind stop rattling the windows of Drafty Corners Cottage.
p.s If Cindy Heinrichs (gifted editor, writer, teacher and friend) is reading this, tooth comb to hand, I checked the dictionary, and it can be spelled 'callus' or 'callous.'