spring

Master Class

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Spring in Ontario—from a humid 29C to a rainy 7C this am.

A Rainy SundayThe burst of growth in May astonishes me, every year. In April I despair of ever seeing the ground again, and here it is, sprouting hosta and Korean lilac and early leaves of daylilies. What a country. The long, ice-riven winter gives way to this glory.

I’ve been working on some technical aspects of my booklaunch.io page for The Child on the Terrace, including adding a trailer. You can check it out at the link above. The trailer was produced by The Book Promoter group in Dublin, Eire.

Next weekend takes me Barbara Kyle’s First Thirty Pages Master Class. Preparation includes reading and critiquing the first 30 pages of all 9 other participants. 80-90 thousand words all together, a good-sized novel. I’m looking forward to spending the weekend with all these talented people and Barbara, who is an excellent teacher.

That’s about it for today. No blog next Sunday as I shall be away.

Blogging and Evernote.

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Sunday, May 10, 2015

A warm, humid morning, more July than May. Another week of unseasonable weather has brought the Baltimore Orioles, white-crowned sparrows, and many more finches—American goldfinch, purple finch, house finch, both red and orange varieties. Tulips, daffodils and spirea are blooming. White blooms on the Serviceberry tell me it’s time to prune the roses.

I’ve finished the latest revision of my WIP. This time through I concentrated on plot, looking for holes and places where I had made it too easy for the protagonist. Tomorrow, I’m going to give description a hard look, to make sure my characters are grounded in time and place.

I’m trying a new piece of software, new to me that is, called Evernote, a way to store pieces of information, images, web-sites etc that come my way into a more coherent arrangement than bookmarks. My bookmark folder is unwieldy at best so I’m looking forward to using Evernote and Evernote Web-clipper.

One of the articles I found this week concerns blogging. The author, Philip Kleudgen, on the site Write to Done, gives 10 suggestions on giving a blog a title that will take it viral. He puts content that shines at number 5 with the following checkpoints:

S – Specificity
H – Helpfulness
I – Immediacy
N – Newsworthiness
E – Entertainment value

Number 1 talks about numbers, in headlines. We’ve all seen them and used them but apparently the numbers 10, 16, 21 and 25 are particularly good at seducing readers.

I suggest those of you who blog or are interested in blogging read the full article. Useful information, from Mr. Leudgen who blogs at  RestaurantCoverings.com. There are useful links in his bio as well and a pdf. of resources.

My garden this week.

My garden this week.

Spring thoughts: Literary devices and Genre fiction

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Spring has been creeping up, ambushing us with thunderstorms and lightning a week after a snowfall, with downpours that filled holding tanks and turned fields of clay to marshland, havens for the ducks. No flowers. Last spring at this time a solitary iris bloomed in the front garden. Spring Iris, 2014

It’s time to rake the leaves and twigs off the garden beds and plan a fresh covering of mulch. The chores of spring, a relief after a long winter of bone-breaking cold and ice and deep snow.

I’ve lost track of which draft of my work-in-progress I’m working on. It may be the 5th or 6th, but it’s growing closer to what I would like it to be.

That’s the problem, of course. What genre is it? Suspense, women’s fiction, commercial fiction, romantic suspense or my personal favourite: cross-genre.

My aim is a tightly-plotted page-turner that also says something about redemption and renewal in a woman’s life. Too lofty a goal, too literary for a novel that includes a brutal killer and guns?

In the U.K. newspaper, The Guardian,  Anita Mason, whose The Illusionist was shortlisted for the 1983 Booker prize, in an article that was adapted from an Oxford Literary Festival debate said:

So: of course there is a difference between literary and genre fiction. Our experience as readers tells us so, commercial practice says so. But it is not the difference between two continents separated by ocean. It is the difference between the two ends of a continuum. Between those two points is an infinity of fruitful positions.

In the Oxford Literary Festival debate, she spoke against the motion “Genre fiction is no different from literary fiction”. The article is worth the read and can be found here.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/apr/22/genre-fiction-literary-centre-anita-mason

That’s where I aim to be with this work-in-progress, on the continuum, moving a little closer to the hub where literary fiction lives.

Themes, symbols, literary devices of all types: all tools in crafting a novel.

Three Sites to Improve your Writing

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

8:42 on Sunday morning. A big flock of robins came back yesterday, to feast on the fermenting tiny crabapples on the trees out front. And red-winged blackbirds. Now, they are reliable. Spring must be coming, even though it’s still -8C with the windchill this morning.

Sarah Selecky is a writer and teacher of writing. At the link, among other resources, you can sign up for daily writing prompts. As it happens, I like writing prompts and had some of my first success at Wynter Blue Publishing. They ran a monthly contest—24 hours to write a short story including three provided words.

Sarah asks that you write longhand for 10 minutes, daily, in a notebook, in response to a prompt which may be a word or a writing style or a pov. When I signed up, I wasn’t sure about spending those 10 minutes on a creative exercise. However, it turns out it’s not only a good way to jump-start a writing day, but fun. The prompts drag up long-buried memories and ideas. Today’s reminded me of the head nurse of the ICU in one of my training hospitals, more than forty years ago and her vendetta against orange peel in her wastebasket.

I was scrolling through my saved articles again today and came across one titled 5 Key questions to Ask as You Write your Novel. The author was C.S. Lakin, another writer and teacher. Good advice, worth posting on a sticky at your desk.

Ten Literary Devices and where to Find Them in Science Fiction, a post by Annalee Newitz on iO9 makes the devices clear by referencing popular movies and television. I especially liked onomatopoeia, demonstrated by the entire Klingon language, from Star Trek.

That’s about it for today. I’m about a third of the way through a revision of my work in progress and must get back to it.

2 Books on Writing and more revision

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

A gorgeous winter morning here in the Kawartha Lakes. Yes, I know it’s spring but somehow the weather forgot and sent us -20C temperatures(with the windchill) and 5 cm of snow, but a lovely day, none-the-less.

March, 2015

 

Lately I’ve been reading books on writing again, besides continuing to follow Janice Hardy’s 31 day novel revision. Today, her topic was “Sharpening the hooks and tightening the pacing. http://blog.janicehardy.com. Lots of useful information on her website. I recommend it.

Noah Lukeman’s respected The First Five Pages has a chapter on the sound of prose. I had one of those “oh no” moments after reading it last night and I’ve been struggling with the first 6 sentences of the 1st paragraph of my work-in-progress all morning as a consequence. It’s difficult to evaluate the sound of prose without reading it aloud. My computer will read the work to me, but what I need is a computer that will listen while I read to it. Or a patient friend.

I’ve started Margaret Atwood’s book on writing Negotiating with the Dead. I love her conversational, funny style.

My preferred writing programme is Scrivener, which is great, and during revision allows me to move scenes around. However, that can lead to further problems especially with the time line. Today, it meant dissecting, dismembering, destroying a favourite scene. There, alliteration again!

Back to work…

 

 

 

 

Signs of Spring amidst Revision and Marketing

/ ginny200 / 2 Comments

Ides of March. For Americans, the taxman cometh. We’re waiting for spring, a spring the weather gurus tell us is going to be delayed. No one told the buds on the chestnut trees out front. They started to swell before the deep freeze ended.

Work goes on. Marketing and revision of my work-in-progress. In June, I’m joining Barbara Kyle’s Master class for revision of my first thirty pages.

The Child on the Terrace is still in advanced copy mode but soon I must send the final changes to the publisher. Most of my  reviewers, busy people all, have yet to get back to me.

Revision is difficult work, akin to juggling multiple objects rather than a simple set of coloured rubber balls. I’ve been following a blogger, Janice Hardy who calls her site Fiction University. She is half-way through a month of blogs on the process and very useful they are. Today’s is here, http://blog.janicehardy.com/2015/03/day-fifteen-clean-up-description-and.html#more but all the previous blogs plus a great deal more is available on her site. Well worth multiple visits.

This week I attended a dinner and lecture at the Canadian Club. The speaker mentioned a local artist, long-deceased, named W.A. Goodwin. As it happens we have one of his watercolours. When I bought it, I investigated him and found a lengthy newspaper record. He lived to almost 100 years old and was a well-know citizen. I did some of his family genealogy as well. Magpie that I am, I kept it all.

After the meeting, the manager of the local museum called me and asked to see it. The museum is mounting an extensive show from an archive of material the researchers acquired on loan from the family. I was pleased to contribute our painting and some of the information I’d gathered to their archive. Find the museum here: http://www.oldegaolmuseum.ca/exhibits.html

The museum created a Facebook page for W.A. with pictures, paintings, diary entries and more. An interesting and charming page.

https://www.facebook.com/W.A.Goodwin

 

Buds on chestnut trees, March, 2015

Buds on chestnut trees, March, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

Four Writing Resources

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

It’s March 1, St. David’s day, patron saint of Wales. Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant. Here in Kawartha Lakes it’s a bit warmer than it has been. -6C rather than -25C, but we’re going to get a bit more snow. But it’s the first of March with twenty more days until Spring arrives, we hope.March, 2014March, 2013March, 2013March, 2013

Wild Turkeys at Elora, March, 2014Wild Turkeys at Elora, March, 2014(photo Anne Simpson)

And yet Spring still came each year.

I attended a workshop at University of Guelph on Friday, March 20, to hear Barbara Kyle talk about the writing process. She is a generous teacher and at the end of the workshop session gave each of us access to a tutorial series online that she recorded some years ago. It is an excellent review of everything from Style to Getting Published. I’ve been listening to one tutorial a day before beginning the day’s work of revision. Invaluable.

If you haven’t heard her speak or visited her website, I recommend it. Barbara Kyle.

Writing resources can be anything from excellent teachers to books on grammar, from programmes like Scrivener to a friend who’s willing to read revisions. Over the years, I’ve found all of these and more.

1. Writescape

2. Barbara Kyle

3. Writers Digest

4. Scrivener and Scapple at Literature and Latte.

And then there’s marketing. I’m still searching for reviewers and will send copies either e-book or trade paperback on request.

Check out my booklaunch page for information about The Child on the Terrace.

A May Morning

/ ginny200 / 2 Comments

Spring: the leaves popped on the Manitoba Maples along the creek back; serviceberry bushes bloomed white together with the spirea;  daffodils, mine at any rate, ended yesterday; the hummingbird returned last weekend, a few days early; the red-breasted grosbeaks returned to the feeder.

A long, harsh winter left some ornamental bushes bereft of leaves. My gorgeous Vibernum “Shasta” has growth only at the base, but the branches are green when I scrape them so I have hope. No hope for the Purple Smokebush and the Blue Mallow, I’m afraid.

Most of the roses and clematis have survived except for a little beauty—Blue Sprite clematis—that appears to be gone. But one’s never sure with clematis and it was buried deep so it may come along.

At the local nursery—Hills—I found two hybrid tea roses on their own root! I couldn’t resist and bought four: 2 dark red Royal William and  2 pink Royal Kate. They are supposed to be disease resistant and have a strong fragrance.

Writing: I’m within sight of the end of my first draft of my new Dangerous Journeys mystery with Anne McPail. This time she’s in Spain, her life endangered by her concern for a mysterious little girl.

Ontario is in the midst of an election. I see the Conservative Party is trying to position itself as the party of hope. Hope, as demonstrated by planning to eliminate 100,000 civil service jobs. A mythical number, neatly dissected by an editorial in the Globe and Mail. Hudak appears to pull these numbers from an imaginary hat. How many civil servants do you know? I can count at least three, not including the teachers, hospital workers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, police and whomever else the party fears to cut. That leaves social service, and labour and the environment, all unnecessary from its collective point of view. The ones I know are not at the top, not even managers, but workers who are on the wrong side of senior and likely to be cut first. Hope? Not too much. Read the editorial here. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/can-tim-hudak-win-election-by-100000-job-cuts/article18629579/#dashboard/follows

That’s about it for this Sunday in May.

 

 

Eight signs of spring

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Signs of spring.

1. A miniature iris is blooming, freckled purple beside the brown sticks of a miniature rose

2. Our landscaper dropped by.

3.The lawn has reappeared sporting mounds and trails created by moles, the entrances to their tunnels as big as holes at the golf course.

4.The river below our house, a stopping-off spot for migrating birds, has welcomed baffle-head ducks, loons, Canada geese, a Great Blue Heron, the returning ospreys and many gulls.

5. Returnees to the feeder include blue jays, cardinals, finches-yellow, purple and the orange variety of house finch, chickadees, woodpeckers.

6. Dogs of all descriptions and their humans have taken to slow ambles along the streets, instead of the head-long rush to get the business done before noses and tails freeze.

7. Ice has left the river.

8 The wild turkeys have left for their home in the bush.Image

 

Spring and Writing

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Spring. Planted three roses today, deadheaded the daffodils, revised my talk for tomorrow night at the City of Kawartha Lakes Library, Lindsay branch, and continued revision of my work in progress.

On Saturday I attended the Ontario Writers Conference, and I must say the workshops and lectures were very useful. I especially appreciated the session on grammar by Cathy Witlox, who teaches at Ryerson and is the only grammar enthusiast I’ve ever met. She discussed an error I’d been making for years(unbeknownst to me) and how to correct it. I had been creating run-on sentences such as this. “He braked, then skidded off the road.” instead of He braked and then skidded off the road.” I didn’t always leave out the conjunction, but often enough.

I also appreciated a talk by Annette McLeod on characters and the role of archetypes in fiction.

I’ve sent a book out to be considered by a traditional publisher, without an agent, but after listening to Kobo executive and novelist Mark Lefebvre on self-publishing, I’m giving that more thought.

A great conference—lots to learn, old friends to meet and new ones to make. I’ll be going next year.

What’s next in the garden? I have hardy cyclamen to plant and one hundred summer bulbs that came free with my cyclamen order and a gift of a dinner plate dahlia. I haven’t grown dahlias, but I’ll give it a try. Haven’t even looked at annuals yet.

It’s difficult to focus on writing in the mornings, with the birds singing outside the window and the bulbs yelling from the garage that they want to go in the ground, but I keep trying.