My Beautiful Day

I’ve had a strangely lovely day. First, downtown for a Wordfest session with Arthur Slade and Scott Chantler. Scott writes graphic novels, and for his reading read from the script he’d written before starting on the images, while he projected the finished images. It was a really interesting look into the making of a graphic novel. Art read from his latest (he has the perfect deep voice for reading). Then Art and I went out for lunch.

I groused about the many years of construction projects around my house, and came home to a new one – sewer line clearing, involving pumping steam into the line, and venting it at the corner near my house, with the wind blowing it straight in. It smelled like cement dust (luckily), and I thought I could just ignore it and the noise, until the nausea hit (allergies).

I checked with them to see how long they’d be, and headed into the park for a walk. It’s a classic Alberta fall day, with a clear, deep blue sky, warm sun, and just enough bite to the wind to keep people in light jackets (although I saw one guy in shorts).

When I walked out of the park and saw the steam still billowing, I lay down in the leaves on the grass and switched my new ipod (a teeny tiny nano) from Mozart’s Requiem to KD Lang singing Hallelujah. Now, what can be better than that?

Maureen

Shane Peacock on Plot

After the course at the Banff Centre, I’ve been thinking about what makes great kids books. I think this quote from Shane Peacock defines it really well:

“Plot is of utmost imporance in YA Lit and yet, if you want your YA novel to be a work of value, it ALSO has to do all those wonderful things great adult novels do in terms of meaning and interesting structure and style. Authors writing for adults should try that sometime – write a novel that never once, not for even a single paragraph, sways from the plot, and yet is as layered and insightful as it would be if they put their plot on hold in order to explore their subtext. They would find such writing, I think, quite a difficult exercise, perhaps almost an impossible one for even the greatest of them to pull off.”

http://www.openbooktoronto.com/speacock/blog/kids_lit_vs_adult_lit

The trick, of course, is to do it.

Maureen

Editing The Veil Weavers

I’ve just finished another round of editing for The Veil Weavers, and my brain is fried.

Following Art Slade’s suggestion, part of my edit involved reviewing it by reading the chapters in reverse order. This is painful and strange, something I wish I’d never heard of (thanks, Art) – and yet it’s really effective. It helped me see the story with fresh eyes, even though I’ve been immersed in editing it for a week.

I could follow threads backwards, from the end to the beginning. It also gave me a different sense of the pacing and rhythm of the story.

My last pass before sending it back to Coteau was to read it out loud. I find this remarkably useful for hearing the rhythm of the words, and catching any awkward bumps.

Now I’ve sent it off, and I’m glad to have it off my desk. I need to wade through all the debris there I’ve been ignoring, and then I can get back to my true love, writing something new.

Maureen