Erin Thomas

My eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, is a ferocious reader. I think that’s normally ‘voracious,’ but given the way she snarls when interrupted, ‘ferocious’ is more of a fit. And I’m glad of it — I love that she loves to read.

She’s also my best, pickiest test audience. If a scene is boring, she has no hesitation about letting me know it. Of course, she’ll try to spare my feelings. It’ll go something like this: we’re curled up together on the couch and I’m reading my chapter to her. She puts her hand on mine and very gently asks, “Mommy? Is it okay if you read me something else?”

Or, we get to the end of the chapter and she asks me to explain what happened and what parts are important, because the scene wasn’t holding her attention. I don’t feel so bad, though, because sometimes this happens with other people’s books, too, even the shiny published ones with nice award stickers on the front.

So you see, she is an avid reader, but a discerning one.

I’m in the planning stages for a couple of books right now. One, though it’s for reluctant readers, is targeted at kids Sarah’s age and a bit older. And I’m going to write it for her.

It’s something I’ve seen other writers talk about — how their ideal audience, the one they have in mind when making editorial decisions, is just one person. Because trying to write something that will please everyone is counter-intuitive; we all know that’s impossible. But writing something for a specific person, when you know what they like and what makes them laugh, what keeps them turning pages and coming back for more, that’s easier. And the beautiful thing about it is, in writing for that one person, you can actually create something that will appeal to a lot more people.

So in planning this story, I’m asking myself what Sarah would want to read. The kids have to solve their own problems, of course. That’s a given. And the main character probably needs to be a girl this time, or at least there needs to be a girl in it that plays a major role. No lessons or spelled-out morals; she hates it when books do that. So those are reasonable guidelines, but they’re very general.

Where I think this approach will really make a difference, though, is when I’m building the character — what sort of person would Sarah want to read about? How will that person think/talk/act/move? And when I’m in scenes, letting characters make decisions — which decisions will lead to the more interesting story? And what’s the best thing, the funniest or most shocking or most thought-provoking thing that the character could say?

I’ve written for “kids” before, but I’ve never tried writing a particular book with one particular child in mind. So I hope that this works out. At the very least, I’ll have written a story my daughter enjoys, I hope. Even if I have to re-draft for the publisher, that’s worth the experiment, right there!

At the Niagara conference, one of the concepts that came up over and over again was the idea of a great character. Someone with spunk, someone readers want to spend time with. Someone strong enough and interesting enough to sustain a whole book, or even a series.

And then, last week, I heard about this girl: Martha Payne, a nine-year-old girl in western Scotland, who started a blog called Never Seconds, about the food at her school. She would take pictures of her school lunches and post them. Kids from around the world started taking pictures of their school lunches, and sending them to her for her blog.

And then the school council tried to shut her down. You can read about it in this Wired article.

It seems to have worked out in Martha’s favour. The school backed down and is letting her bring her camera to school again. There was enough public outcry (even Neil Gaiman, whose Twitterverse clout has brought down servers around the world, Tweeted about it) to ensure that Martha will be able to keep her blog going. So this story has happy ending, except, of course, that if it were really a story we’d insist that the main character solved her own problem. I’m not sure to what extent she was involved, or how that all played out.

I keep thinking about this little girl, though. She’s not much older than my daughter. She’s articulate, and she had a great idea. Her blog got people interested; it engaged them. And according to the Wired article, she tried to use the attention from her blog to do some good in the world by encouraging her followers to contribute to a charity that funds schools in Africa. Now that’s inspiring.

She has spunk: she saw a bad situation  and tried to do something about it. Other people responded to her in a positive way, if the global response to her blog says anything. She obviously has a good heart, since she wanted to use the blog’s popularity to raise money for charity, not for herself. And she was up against a more powerful force: a nine-year-old girl versus the combined powers of the school board? Really?

It seems to me that, as I work my way through another manuscript revision and try to inch closer and closer to my character, I could do a lot worse than be inspired by Martha Payne. No, my character isn’t going to start a food blog. But I’m going to look for the spark in him that would inspire others. I’m going to find what’s best about him, and bring it out. And I’m probably going to pit him against forces that are more powerful than he is, and see how he deals with that.

And in the real world, I’m going to continue to be very, very happy that there are kids like Martha Payne out there. It gives me faith in the future.

First, a smile for the day: check out this video shared with my writing group by friend and author Bill Swan: All You Need to Know About Fonts.

This past weekend was the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in Niagara Falls, Canada. It was a horizon-expanding experience. Presenters included Kathleen Duey, Lesley Livingston, Nancy Conescu of Penguin U.S. (Dial Books for Young Readers), Tracey Adams of Adams Literary, and Emma Dryden of Dryden Books.

I take a lot of writing courses, and read a lot of books on writing. But at this conference, not only did I meet wonderful people, I learned to think about writing in a new way. I can see, sort of, what I need to do to grow as a writer. It’s going to mean taking risks, and maybe even trying things that (gasp!) didn’t come from a how-to book.

I feel good about the skills that I have. And excited about the things I’m going to try.

Okay, enough gushing. Here’s what will be more helpful: some ideas from the conference.

From Lesley Livingston, who spoke on writing a series:  Make sure the world of your novel is a big enough sandbox that you’ll want to play in it for a while. Know your setting, beyond the borders of your story. Pay attention to even minor characters, and know that they all have quirks and desire and backstories. Know what those are, even if they never appear in your book.

To my way of thinking, even if I don’t write a series, this approach will make for a better standalone novel.

From Kathleen Duey, who gave the keynote talk and a seminar on world-building:  place comes from character. If you start with character, and ask your character questions, and answer those in an honest way, your place will grow out of that. How was the place they grew up in, or their early childhood home, different from where they are now? Why did they leave one for the other? Now you have two settings and a feeling about each. What experiences shaped your character? Where did those experiences take place?

One of the most wonderful things she said was that she doesn’t believe anyone can become a writer, and learn to think about people the way a writer must, without doing some good in the world.

From Nancy Conescu, who discussed her role as an editor and what makes work stand out: Voice is what makes you care about the writing, what gets you invested. It’s your connection with the characters. Characters need to feel authentic. They need to be strong and special; they need to have spunk. There needs to be a reason for the reader to care about them. The best series books are those that come about as a result of readers wanting to spend more time with the character, rather than being artificially planned as a series from the beginning.

It was great to find out that editors become as invested in their books as writers do. The books are their babies, too, and they care about them.

There was more. Tracey Adams shared examples of queries that had worked and explained what was good about them. Emma Dryden spoke about the changing face of publishing and the ‘digital landscape.’ She encouraged us not to take notes, because things are changing so quickly! But she reassured us that whatever the medium, the point of story hasn’t changed.

And Jackie Pynaert, one of the conference organizers, gave us hope and encouraged us all to keep trying with her talk about ‘when pigs fly.’ She even brought along a statue of a pig with wings. Tiny wings. Her pig’s wings are still growing, she explained.

Mine, too. And I’m loving every minute of it.

If you’re interested in writing for children, the SCBWI Niagara conference (May 3-5 next year) needs to be on your calendar. It’s a small conference, with lots of chances to interact with everyone. It’s held in Niagara Falls, in a haunted monastery! (A haunted monastery that serves great food, by the way.) And it’s magic.

I hope to see you there.

WCSC Group: Back row, WCSC exec Noelle Bickle, Elizabeth Young, Dan Mansfield, Deepam Wadds, Gavy Swan. Front row, panelists Erin Thomas, Bill Swan, Karleen Bradford, Cheryl Rainfield, Tom Earle

One of the perks of having my daughter go to school on a modified calendar is more breaks through the year. It’s good for us as a family. Sometimes not so productive for me as a writer, though, so with Sarah just getting back to school now after a week off, I’m still clearing the cobwebs from the writing bits of my brain.

Luckily, I was at a writerly event yesterday that gave me lots of advice to share here. I was invited to speak to the Writers’ Community of Simcoe County as part of a panel on Young Adult writing. Other panelists included Cheryl Rainfield, Bill Swan, Tom Earle and Karleen Bradford. Can you blame me for taking notes while the others shared their stories?

Here are some of my favourite parts.

Cheryl Rainfield shared a definition she likes, that a published author is just a writer who hasn’t given up. Her GG-nominated novel, Scars, had a ten-year journey to publication. Many publishers and agents were scared off by the darker aspects of the book, but Cheryl kept trying. Her persistence paid off. Now she’s inspired by the readers who write to her, telling her how the book has changed their lives and made them feel less alone.

Bill Swan advised the new writers in the group that once you have a manuscript accepted by a publisher, that’s just the beginning. Lorimer accepted his first manuscript and wanted just two things changed: one was the tense the novel was written in, one was the gender of the main character. It took a lot of research, a complete rewrite and a lot of edits before the book was ready for publication.

Bill’s in my writing group, and he’s the source of one of my favourite similes about writing and editing. He says a novel is like a house of cards: You’ve built it up so very carefully, and then someone comes along and says it would be a lot better if just one card were removed. Except that one card is at the bottom, in the middle. It makes me smile because I’ve knocked down many a house of cards, including my current work-in-progress. But the thing to do is rebuild and make it stronger.

Karleen Bradford shared a story about a student asking her if, as a writer, she was easily squashed. “Yes,” she said. “All writers are.” She remembered a teacher, when Karleen was 13 years old, tearing apart one of her stories. It made her feel she wasn’t good enough to be writing; she didn’t write fiction again for nearly twenty years. Hearing this made me feel grateful for my writing group and for the classes I’ve attended where the critique offered has been constructive rather than discouraging.

Karleen talked about her growth as a writer, and suggested that short stories can be the best training ground–writing a story in a confined space requires you to hone your craft. And, like Cheryl, she advised all aspiring writers to be stubborn.

Tom Earle grew up around boats and hockey. “If it’s hard, you skate on it. If it’s wet, you put a boat in it.” He identifies himself as a teacher more than a writer, but following the advice to write what you know, he wrote a book about hockey players. More than that, he wrote a book just for the sake of writing it. He was watching a Leafs game when one player was knocked out in a fight. Seeing that stayed with him. He started thinking about what would happen if a hockey player were killed during a fight. What would it be like to live with that? What would happen? He scribbled his novel in stapled composition notebooks, the same kind his students use, and then forgot about it until he came across one of the notebooks again and decided there was something in there worth pursuing. He wrote a story for himself, and it got published.

It’s harder for me to remember what I talked about. I had my notes (on colour-coded index cards, of course), but I didn’t take notes while I was talking. I think the main thing I wanted to get across was the importance of community in writing, and how belonging to groups like CANSCAIP and the Writers’ Community of Durham Region (or Simcoe County, or anywhere) can make a difference. How having a small critique group of writers you trust can keep you on track and help you improve.

I also wanted to encourage people to write now, rather than waiting. If there’s a story you want to tell, tell it.

I felt honoured to be on that panel. Karleen Bradford is someone whose books I loved when I was a kid. The WCSC people were wonderful and welcoming, and I hope that they enjoyed the talks and learned a lot — I know that I did!

Last Friday, I attended the Whitby Forest of Reading celebration with my daughter. Kathy Stinson was one of the invited authors and we had plans to have tea together after the ceremony. I didn’t realize until later that another friend of mine, author Anna Kerz, was also going to be there.

Sarah and I showed up early. Hours early, as it turned out. Ms. Lauren Flattery, teacher-librarian at Cadarackque school and Master of Ceremonies, was gracious enough to allow us to attend, when it became clear that the event wasn’t quite as open-to-the-public as we had hoped. She even invited us to sit with her school. (I think that warrants a thank-you note and some donated copies of my books, don’t you? At the very least.)

This was my first time attending a Forest of Reading event. It was wonderful to see so many kids, so excited about books! There were students there from over sixty Durham schools. And the authors in attendance — Kathy Stinson, Anna Kerz, Jan Andrews and David Skuy — all had autograph line-ups that stretched halfway around the arena.

Jan Andrews was the first speaker. She talked about how books and stories give us things to keep alive in our hearts. Her book, When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew: Tales of Ti-Jean, had won the Silver Birch Express (reluctant readers) award. She said the reason the award meant so much to her was that most awards are chosen by adults, but this one is chosen by the people who are her readers. We write books because we have something we want to give to the world. In reading the stories of Ti-Jean, readers become part of a legacy of French-Canadian folk tales being passed down generation after generation, all the way back to campfire tales. Jan thanked the students for becoming part of that tradition, and letting her share the stories with them.

Kathy Stinson, whose book Highway of Heroes was nominated for the Silver Birch non-fiction award, said that it was an honour for her to be nominated, but that the real honours belong to the heroes and to their families, and to all those who stand on the bridges as they pass by in order to say, “Thank you for what you did to help make the world a better place.” She was happy to attend the Whitby event because, as she said, Whitby is located right along the Highway of Heroes. Some of the people in the room might have been among those standing on the bridges.

Anna Kerz talked about where ideas come from. Sometimes they’re big and ripe like a tomato, she said, and smack you in the head. Sometimes they’re fine like a cobweb and you have to go looking for them. Writing Better Than Weird was a challenge for her, because she knew that in order to tell Aaron’s story, she’d have to really understand him. And Aaron isn’t the easiest kid in the world to understand. She asked the kids in the room to look for the “Aarons” of the world in their schools and in their classes, and to take the chance to get to know them, and learn their stories.

Better Than Weird was nominated for the Silver Birch fiction award.

David Skuy, author of Silver Birch fiction award winner Undergrounders, said that he likes to write sports books — the kind of thing he liked to read when he was a kid. As much as Undergrounders is a story about a street kid, it’s also a story about a hockey player. It can be tough to read about a homeless kid, but he’s been impressed by the fact that his readers are kids who care about people who are having a hard time in life. And the most important thing about the Forest of Reading awards for him is that it’s a celebration of reading. He told the students in the room that it wasn’t about winning. Whichever book they liked best was the Silver Birch winner for them. That was their book.

It was a fun day for everyone there. Ms. Lauren Flattery had made a Silver Birch hat (visible in the first picture) out of some paper plates and a branch, with tissue-paper leaves and silver mirrors and a tiny red bird hiding in the leaves. It rivalled anything we saw on television from the royal wedding. There was a virtual choir, with kids from different schools singing Gordon Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy together through video. There was cool music playing. I know it was cool because Sarah recognized the songs and I didn’t. There was pizza and there was ice cream with those little wooden spoons that look like band-aids, and best of all, there was an arena full of kids all excited about books and reading.

It was a high-energy day. Kathy and Anna came back to my house afterwards for tea, and for me, that was the nicest part. It’s great to see writers treated like rock stars, but let’s face it, most of us aren’t rock stars by nature. It’s always lovely to have the chance to share and celebrate with other writers who are friends, though, and so I’m grateful that Sarah and I were given the chance to attend.

Any day that celebrates writing is a good day in my books. (Groan.)

Happy long weekend!

Two hour-long workshops this Saturday — one on editing, one on writing for reluctant readers!

“Edit like you Mean it” workshop will be after the WCDR breakfast meeting this Saturday. We’ll look at tackling the big-picture revisions, and playing with index cards and highlighters and things like that. We’ll cover ways to get all five senses involved in revising, and how to see your manuscript through new eyes. Should be fun.

“Writing for Reluctant Readers” is part of the Port Hope library’s Writer Next Door program. Ted Staunton will be there as well!

Okay… back to my bristol board.

There’s a workshop course in Toronto, run by George Brown College, but actually tucked away in a cozy corner of Mabel’s Fables children’s bookstore. It’s colourful there, and bright, and filled with books. The bookshelves are pink and the walls are warm yellow. All the writers who have visited Mabel’s over the years have written or drawn on the walls in permanent marker; for me, sitting in class each week, it’s a kind of graffiti of inspiration. I’ve learned a lot in the class, over the nine or so years I’ve been attending. Not least among those things is how to take feedback.

There’s a rule in the class, you see. One person reads their work aloud, and everyone listens. Then it’s the reader’s turn to listen while everyone else in class discusses the work. Listen quietly, mind you: after you’ve read, you’re not allowed to talk until after the discussion is over, when you can reply and thank the class or ask questions.

It’s a relief, really, not being allowed to talk. It takes away the pressure to defend or explain your work, and leaves you free to try and absorb the comments, or write them down to look at later. (Some weeks, I can barely scribble down the feedback fast enough.)

My writing group works slightly differently. The person whose work is being discussed is free to talk, although they tend not to. I find it enough just to try to take in the feedback and write it down so I can use it later, although I will ask questions to clarify, or explain something if I’m asked. But the thing is, if I’m being asked to explain something in the book, that tells me my manuscript isn’t clear enough.

I’m grateful for my writing group. Last Tuesday was my turn to be critiqued, and they did a great job. They told me what was good, and what wasn’t. And they asked questions. I’m grateful for the time they spent reading my unpolished manuscript, and for the questions they asked, and for the things they gave me to think about. Some of the questions they asked, I had no answer for. Some I did, and a couple of those, I’ve since reflected on and decided that changing the answer will strengthen the book.

Nothing is set in stone, you see. I’m editing. That’s why I wanted their help.

I had another experience this week. A writer approached me about editing a work-in-progress. In this case, after an email exchange, the writer and I both decided that the partnership would not be a good fit.

In that email exchange, I asked questions. The kinds of questions that I ask when editing my own work: why is it like this? Does it need to be this way? What does this character want, and why? Is the reason good enough? For me, questions like these take time and reflection. In this case, I was asking them for a couple of reasons. One was to give the writer a taste of my editing style. Another was to give me a taste of how this writer would take feedback.

I don’t always come around to feedback right away, but I do work with it, and consider it, and think about what the questions and comments tell me about my story and how to make it stronger. What I try not to do, and what this writer did, is defend.

It happens sometimes, in the Mabel’s Fables class. A writer reads her work aloud, and then just can’t keep from interrupting the discussion to explain or disagree. Or a writer listens to the feedback, and then when it’s time to reply, tells the class we all got it wrong, and explains everything about the story, from the germ of an idea it started from through to what all those images we were questioning really mean.

When that happens, my estimation of the writer’s professionalism tends to drop a notch. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been there! I know what it’s like. But bit by bit, I’m learning.

Questions from listeners and readers should open doors, not close them. That’s what feedback is for. The questions asked tell you what’s unclear in the manuscript; after all, you can’t stand over the shoulder of every reader, explaining what you really meant. The questions asked can also show you possibilities, ways that your story can be developed. Ways that it can be more.

You might not agree with all suggestions made. That’s okay. But please, do take the time to consider them. And pay particular attention to the things your readers or listeners ask you about.

I’ve given myself the next two weeks to work through my writing group’s comments. I want to go through them carefully, and build a revision plan. There are little things to address, and big things, and giant, story-changing, scary things that will take a lot of work to fix. And I’m going to look at all of them, because the people in my writing group thought they were worth pointing out to me. They spent their time on these issues, so I’m going to spend my time on them, too.

I hope that, by the end of the two weeks, I’ll have a better idea of how to unfold the story. And then I’ll tackle a new draft. And another one after that.

Feedback is an opportunity, and a gift. I hope that, by listening to the feedback and questions from my critique partners, I manage to bring each draft a little closer to where the story needs to be. And with each experience, I want to get a little closer to where I need to be as a writer, too.

Yesterday was the book launch for Haze at Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge. It went wonderfully! Thank you so much, all those of you who came out and who sent good wishes. It means a lot.

Writer friends Susan Blakeney, Cheryl Rainfield and Lena Coakley were there even before the official start of the launch, which was lovely. Some of the morning’s stress-knots untied themselves once there were friends to talk to. They were forgiving of the fact that I was stuffing my face with pizza as we hugged.

As 2:00 approached, people started to fill the store and then there wasn’t time to be nervous anymore. It was all signing books, and visiting with people, and feeling overwhelmed and happy that so many familiar, friendly faces were there.

And then came the program part. After I had introduced the book and thanked some of the people who helped me bring it to life, some brilliant guest speakers took the stage.

Two teenaged competitive swimmers from the local swim team, Victoria and Cameron, did a great job of telling everyone about a day in the life of a swimmer. I think it was the 4:30-in-the-morning start time that got the most reaction. Victoria spoke about what the sport means to her and how it has helped her to grow as a person. They answered questions including one about what swimmers eat: “The same as you, except twice as much.” They were well-spoken and professional, and their dedication to their sport came through.

And then Scott Cannata spoke to the crowd. He’s a remarkable young man I met through my daughter’s school; he graduated from there years ago, and recently completed a run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. Scott and I have been in touch because I want to write a children’s non-fiction book about his journey. I think a story like that needs to be shared with as many people as possible.

Anyhow, a book launch for a sports-themed book seemed like a good chance for him to tell his story and talk about active living; he recently founded an organization, Active Ambassadors, to promote activity in schools. Scott’s a great speaker and an inspirational person, and my family and friends very much enjoyed hearing from him.

After Scott answered some questions from the crowd (“Why did you bring the dog along?” “She’s my baby! Of course she had to come.”), I read a brief piece from Haze. That was the end of the formal part — and then it was time to visit with family and friends, which is always the best bit.

I’ve heard good things from people who were there; it seems like everyone had fun. There was great food, including my husband’s delicious banana bread and the awesome Haze cake my mom made — cherry chip, of course. We also had lots of wonderful door prizes, including books donated by Orca and by Shelley Macbeth of Blue Heron. Since it was Earth Day, we also had plants as prizes, and embroidered book bags that my mom made — those went over really well. The guest speakers were incredible, and the kids who attended seemed to enjoy the beading and colouring pages.

In honour of Earth Day, of course, the colouring pages were printed on the back of pages from a rough draft of my manuscript. (Sorry about the bottled water, Earth Day. I normally try to avoid it, but I just couldn’t risk open drinks in a crowded bookstore.)

I was left feeling a little overwhelmed and very, very grateful. There was lots of family there, including some who drove all the way from Hamilton and Burlington. And lots of friends, even some who drove a long way to get there, and people from the local writing community, and some people I hadn’t expected to see there at all — it was wonderful.

Thank you, Shelley, for hosting the event, and thank you to everyone who came out and helped to make the day a success!

Aside: Book launch is this Sunday! Exciting! 🙂 I hope some of you will be able to make it. There will be yummy banana bread.

I passed what feels like a major milestone this past weekend — I finished my current draft of Tyler’s Intergalactic Spy School. The story was born three years ago, at the Muskoka Novel Marathon. That original story has changed a lot, but the heart of it is still the same. Anyhow, poor Tyler has been wandering around, ending-less, for about two years now while I tried to sort through all the feedback and story possibilities and tried on various beginnings to see what fit.

Enough was enough. I was going to get to the end. Even if it wasn’t perfect, it would be something to work with. It would be a complete manuscript again, not bits and pieces and maybe-nots.

My friend Jocelyne Stone and I headed up to my parents’ cottage for a long weekend of heads-down writing. It’s obvious that Jocelyne’s a true writer, because when I mentioned that there would be no running water and that the cottage can be a bit of an unknown at this time of year (some years mousies move in over the winter, some years they don’t), she didn’t even blink. Time away from life? Time to just write? She was in. The mice were welcome to keep us company, so long as they didn’t mind the lack of showers on our part, and so long as they didn’t interrupt.

We stocked up on some basic groceries (beans-on-toast, obligatory veggies, lots of chocolate) and reached the cottage around dinner time Friday. The good news? No sign of mice in the cottage. The bad? A dead mouse in the garage, inside the only bucket I could find that was large enough to use to carry the water for flushing the toilet.

The mouse was quite dead. Indisputably dead. And there had been water or oil or something nasty in the  bucket in the first place. I’m no pathologist, but I suspect it contributed to the poor mouse’s demise.

I buried the mouse, put a rock over the site, and cleaned the bucket. Believe me, you don’t want the details.

In the meantime, lovely Jocelyne had been moving us in and unpacking the foodstuffs. I brought water from the lake and scrubbed my hands raw. We plugged in the fridge, started some water to boil, and got organized. And then, while there was still some light in the sky, I went to check the outhouse.

The first trip to the outhouse is always the source of some trepidation. As with the cottage, you never know what has moved in over the winter. For me, the worst-case scenario would probably be a snake. We were spared that, but there were a couple of Godzilla-sized dock spiders in the… you know. The business part of the outhouse.

Now, there is spider spray in the outhouse for just such occasions, but I couldn’t bring myself to inflict chemical death on them. Especially after what happened to poor mousie. I swept the outhouse, looked in on the spiders a couple of times just in case I had imagined them (no luck), and headed back to make my report. Crouching, Jocelyne and I decided, was the better part of valour.

Moving-in and housekeeping duties complete, we set down to work. And that was when I made the nastiest discovery of all… I had forgotten my power cord. My PowerBook has pretty decent battery life for a trip to the coffee shop, but four or five hours wasn’t going to do much for a weekend of intensive writing.

Oops.

Four-hour return trip home? Not realistic. Writing by hand? Intriguing, but probably not as productive as I wanted. Besides, I hadn’t brought all that much paper. Meeting husband and daughter halfway for a quick power cord hand-off? Not a good use of time or gas, either.

Fortunately, I have a techie-romantic for a husband. He likes to demonstrate his affection, on such occasions as Christmas and birthdays, with gifts that involve electronics. A back-up drive saved seemed like a weird Valentine’s Day present one year early in our marriage, but it saved my life a few weeks later when my hard drive died. Since then, I have never questioned his penchant for technology instead of roses.  I’m not really a roses kind of girl, anyhow.

When it comes to things technological, I am spoiled rotten. This year’s Christmas gift was a bluetooth keyboard, to use with my iPad (you guessed it–anniversary present, a few years back). I nearly always carry them with me. And the iPad’s charger, unlike the computer’s power cord, was in my bag. Solution!

Sadly, my pet writing software, Scrivener, is not yet available for iPad. That meant I couldn’t edit old material, but in a way, this was the best thing that could have happened. I had to write new scenes, since I couldn’t get to the old ones. So Friday night I played with my index cards and plotted out an ending, and Saturday and Sunday I wrote. And wrote. By the end of the first day, of course, my index cards were wrong, and I had a crisis-of-scene on Sunday that required a long walk around the lake (Jocelyne was kind enough to come along and poke holes in my plot), but by Sunday night, I was typing “the end.”

It’s nothing close to done, of course, but now I know the shape of the story, and that’s a shift. It’s a different kind of work now; it’s sleeves-up editing, which will start with the big-picture stuff and then ripple through finer and finer until I get down to the scene and line level.

I’m looking forward to it.

Sometimes getting away is the best thing you can do. It means time with your head in the story, focused, nothing else going on. Jocelyne and I both finished drafts of the projects we were working on — that’s a great feeling. And if you can manage a packing screw-up that forces you to work on new material rather than old, that can be a perk, too. (Jocelyne, apparently, didn’t need to resort to this. She’s working at a more advanced level.)

And, of course, we went swimming in the icy April water. Here is a picture of the lake the morning we went in. I’m not including the pictures of us in our bathing suits, because it’s not that kind of blog. Also, by then my hands were shaking.

We are both going to apply to Peter Carver and Kathy Stinson’s seaside writing retreat this summer. I don’t know if we’ll get in, but we’re crossing our fingers. I’m hoping for Jocelyne more than for me, and for my friend Heather who’s also applying, because I’ve gone before, twice. It’s an incredible experience. Sometimes the best type of getting away to focus on your writing is when other people are doing the same thing, right along with you.

And besides, Peter and Kathy have running water.

Remember that puzzle from last week’s blog post? Here’s what it looked like this morning. Actually, it looked a lot worse than this at one point. Like Jaws took a bite out of the top.

Lots more has been filled in, yes. But then I hit the hard part, all that plain blue near the top. And the pieces weren’t fitting. I had to go back and tear out some stuff that I thought was done — the frame. And believe me, when you think you’re that close to done, the last thing you want to do is go taking apart stuff you thought you had finished with ages ago. But sometimes you have to, in order to make it better.

The parallel to writing here is obvious. It’s a lot easier to work scene by scene, or line by line, and find the small changes that need to be made. And that will make the story better, yes, but maybe not as good as it could be.

I’m overhauling (editing isn’t a strong enough word) a juvenile novel that I’ve been working on for a couple of years. My cousin saw an early draft, since it borrows from a place that was important to us as kids. She liked it very much, and wants to know when that book will come out.

I doubt she’d recognize much of the current version. There are new characters. Some old characters are gone. Some play vastly different roles now, and much of the premise of the story has changed.

And yet, it’s closer to the story I wanted to write in the first place. The facts in the story might have changed, but I’m getting closer to what I wanted to say. In Darcy Pattison’s book on editing, Novel Metamorphosis, she suggests writing down the one thing that the story is about for you — the one thing that can’t change. And then you have to accept that nearly everything else is up for grabs.

I’m okay with that.

I hope it’s better. There were parts of the early drafts that just didn’t hang together, and I never did come up with an ending that felt right. If the roof won’t fit, sometimes you need to look at the foundation. (That may or may not be true; I don’t know that much about building houses. But bear with me anyhow.) So now I’m happier with the general structure of the story… I can see where it all needs to go, and its leading to a better ending than any of the previous versions have had. But in many ways, I’ve started from scratch. Some of those nice scenes that I edited and polished? Gone. I’m back to rough draft stage in a lot of places. Most of the book, in fact.

That’s all right. I’m willing to build it again from the ground up, to get it closer to where it needs to be. And I think I’ve learned enough about writing over the past three years that the new scenes, even in their rough form, read better than the old ones did.

It might have looked closer to “done” before, but when I got to that top row, the hard part, the pieces just weren’t fitting.

This time, I hope more of them will.

* * *

This week, I was going to blog about another bookstore-visiting trip. My friend Susan Blakeney helped me navigate the TTC to three more bookstores. But she has already blogged about it here, and I don’t have that much to add, really. (Except for one small correction —  I was pretty happy when we were given a referral from the first Type Books location. To my way of thinking, that’s a good outcome and something to follow up on. My reaction may have been slightly overridden by the how-the-heck-do-you-use-a-streetcar nerves, though, so I can understand why she thought that.)

Anyhow, for those of you who read to the end, here’s a picture of Sue and I on our day out.