Author: Paula

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Four writers, four questions #3 Deborah Griffiths

Here’s the third in­stall­ment of Four Writers, Four Questions. Installment #4 will be pos­ted next week.

What are you work­ing on right now? 

I have a com­bin­a­tion of light and in­tense work on the daily writ­ing menu right now. I’ve just fin­ished co-au­thor­ing Watershed Moments‑A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District. It was a great ex­per­i­ence work­ing with my co-au­thors  and the ed­it­ors at Harbour Publishing.

This pro­cess in­spired me to go back to my second nov­el, Snow on the Monashee and clean it up. This is light work and gives me a view of how my ap­proach to writ­ing- and the world- has changed since I wrote it in 2014.

My more in­tense work is cre­at­ing an out­line for a new his­tor­ic non-fic­tion book. I love re­search and dis­cov­ery so this is ex­cit­ing and I en­joy put­ting pieces of a puzzle to­geth­er and cre­at­ing an out­line. The nice thing about out­lines is that they’re so flu­id. The ba­sic bones re­main the same as I move along; but the flow around them changes as I progress.

Why is this mean­ing­ful to you? 

Right now, be­ing able to move back and forth between fic­tion and non-fic­tion is mean­ing­ful to me. Until re­cently, I’ve put them into two cat­egor­ies, as though I had to choose between one friend and an­oth­er. Non-fic­tion has al­ways been my “work” as a cur­at­or and con­tract­or. It’s en­joy­able, but I use dif­fer­ent pro­cesses for it than I do for fic­tion. I’m learn­ing that cre­at­ing both im­proves my writing.

DebWhen work­ing on Watershed and talk­ing to Paula about it, she gave me some great ad­vice about present­ing his­tory in a pleas­ur­able read­ing style. Seeing the re­sponse to the book and work­ing with the oth­er au­thors’ styles has been an eye-open­er. I’ve be­gun to worry less about what read­ers think about my writ­ing and to fo­cus more on what I bring to life and the read­ers’ enjoyment.

I’ve also re­cently been read­ing books like In Fact: The Best of Creative Non-Fiction by Lee Gutkind. This has helped me re­move my self-im­posed style bound­ar­ies between fic­tion and non-fiction.

What is your process? 

My pro­cess in­volves tak­ing my curi­os­ity and wrap­ping that up with a love of work, daily routine and fo­cus. Pair this with in­ter­mit­tent pro­cras­tin­a­tion, in­sec­ur­ity and second-guess­ing and it’s a typ­ic­al week.

For on­go­ing learn­ing, I read a lot. I also sub­scribe to a couple of blogs that delve into the nitty-gritty of writ­ing and push me. One is Daphne Grey Grant’s Publication Coach (Vancouver) blog. Her take is that writ­ing is open to the pub­lic and it’s not a high­er mys­tery. It re­quires or­gan­iz­a­tion, work, strategy and in­spir­a­tion from read­ing, listen­ing and all as­pects of life.

Finally, I have won­der­ful friends and fam­ily who are pa­tient with my rough drafts and pro­jects. My fam­ily tends to see plain-old-every­day writ­ing as a fine means of ex­pres­sion. The more hu­mour the bet­ter. Growing up, my fath­er wrote poems and put them into our brown-bag lunches. My moth­er was a cross­word afi­cion­ado and more. My uncle is 97 and just pub­lished a book of 97 poems. The list goes on. How lucky could I be?

Why do you write? 

I write be­cause it’s a cre­at­ive state of con­stant im­prove­ment, learn­ing and dis­cov­ery. It’s a world of ac­know­ledging and fol­low­ing con­nec­tions and pos­sib­il­it­ies. I’m able to take my pick of sub­jects: people, nature, an­im­als, land­scapes, sea­scapes and sky­scapes, past, present, fu­ture-and run with it. A free-range writer.

Deborah Griffiths is the au­thor of two fic­tion books (writ­ten un­der the pen name Deborah Greene) and three non-fic­tion books in­clud­ing Heather’s Amazing Discovery (fi­nal­ist, children’s non-fic­tion, Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable) and Water­shed Moments — A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District (with Christine Dickinson, Judy Hagen and Catherine Siba). 

 

 

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Four writers, four questions #2 Susan Ketchen

Here’s the second in­stall­ment of Four Writers, Four Questions. Installment #3 will be pos­ted next week.

What are you work­ing on right now?

I am work­ing on a new nov­el. There seem to be a lot of dogs in it. A dead body is found and lost and found again but in the wrong place. People try to be help­ful but make everything more com­plic­ated. The dogs be­have badly, just as they of­ten do in real life, and their own­ers are al­ways in deni­al. Still, it is fic­tion. I’m about halfway in and don’t know what it’s about, though some­times when I’ve com­pleted a nov­el I still don’t know what it’s about. I prefer to leave that mat­ter to read­ers anyway.

Why is this mean­ing­ful to you?

Relationships are per­plex­ing. Whether they are between people, or between people and oth­er an­im­als, re­la­tion­ships are com­plic­ated, many-layered and in some ways un­know­able. I like to ex­plore this per­plex­ity by writ­ing about it.

What is your process?

I start each day with the usu­al eating/​brushing/​dressing routines, and be­fore I park my butt in a chair for the no-longer-re­com­men­ded peri­od of sit­ting, I get a little ex­er­cise by tend­ing to the horses. Then I have a cof­fee and reac­quaint my­self with my brain and my hus­band be­fore head­ing to my office.

P1020091_2_2I re-read what I wrote the day be­fore, do min­im­al edit­ing, then plunge ahead. 1,000 words is the min­im­um sat­is­fy­ing amount. If I do 2,000 I am ec­stat­ic. Usually I have only a vague sense of where I am go­ing; this is where the ma­gic happens.

I write un­til I have 35,000 words and some sort of end­ing, then I go back and edit. Some people edit down, but I edit up. I aim for 50,000 words, which is short for a nov­el, but my brain has trouble hold­ing onto a lar­ger universe.

When I have 50,000 and (hope­fully) a great end­ing, I edit again, print each chapter and read it aloud to my guardedly crit­ic­al husband.

I make a few changes, and send the ma­nu­script to one or two trus­ted read­ers. I make more changes based on their com­ments. That’s the end of my writ­ing pro­cess and the be­gin­ning of the “What am I go­ing to do with this ma­nu­script?” process.

Why do you write?

Brene Brown says that un­used cre­ativ­ity is not be­nign. It’s some­thing like a bor­der col­lie that lives in an apart­ment: if you don’t give it a job, it will find one. Furniture may suffer.

Sometimes I use my cre­ativ­ity for tasks oth­er than writ­ing nov­els. I may need to deal with the med­ic­al sys­tem, or neigh­bours with dogs, or con­flict­ing opin­ions about the longev­ity of my car.

At oth­er times, when life is be­ing agree­able, I use my cre­ativ­ity on ima­gin­ary worlds, be­cause if I don’t I will cre­ate drama and dif­fi­culty where in fact there is none. Or prob­ably there is none. Or there is none if I ig­nore it for long enough.

Outside of the po­ten­tial ma­lig­nancy prob­lem, I write be­cause I like to make people laugh. I like to ex­plore things I don’t really un­der­stand by writ­ing about them. And I like it when I can trans­mit my thoughts or ex­plor­a­tions out into the world.

Susan Ketchen is the au­thor of the Born That Way series, fea­tur­ing a four­teen-year old girl born with Turner Syndrome. The fourth in the series, Rides That Way, will be pub­lished by Oolichan Books in the fall of 2016

 

 

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Four writers, four questions #1 Paula Wild

After giv­ing my­self a short writ­ing ex­er­cise, I in­vited three oth­er au­thors to par­ti­cip­ate in Four Writers, Four Questions. The chal­lenge was to an­swer each ques­tion in 200 words or less and to be as cre­at­ive as pos­sible. Here’s the first in­stall­ment, a dif­fer­ent writer’s an­swers will be pos­ted weekly.

What are you work­ing on right now?

Dark shapes flow over the hump of the hill as si­lent and eph­em­er­al as fog. They move with in­tent fo­cus yet are open to whatever pos­sib­il­it­ies the land­scape re­veals. Senses quiver, alert to what is present and what re­mains to be found. Their search pulls them for­ward in an en­dur­ing lope through the trees and down onto the plain. The wolves are hunt­ing and will not stop un­til they find prey.

I too am hunt­ing but I seek facts, fables and an­ec­dotes rather than meat to fill the belly. Paula at UclueletI’m still climb­ing the hill, fol­low­ing a me­an­der­ing path through the forest, sniff­ing the earth and air for leads. Sometimes I fal­ter or get lost. But al­ways I move for­ward in search of my prey: the wolf and all that word for an an­im­al implies.

Why is this pro­ject mean­ing­ful to you?

On a December walk: a lime green coat of moss on trees, trans­lu­cent rain drops cold on my cheeks and Millard Creek’s cap­puccino-col­oured froth bat­ter­ing the banks. And, at the be­gin­ning and end of the trail, a shiny, sil­ver Christmas ornament.

The com­pul­sion for hu­mans to mark the land seems in­nate. We claim our ter­rit­ory with fences and houses, re­move nat­ur­al ve­get­a­tion to grow crops and feed live­stock and scat­ter or slaughter what we fear or find in­con­veni­ent. Some al­ter­a­tions are be­ne­fi­cial, be­nign or beau­ti­ful; oth­ers cre­ate en­vir­on­ment­al hav­oc that may im­pact fu­ture gen­er­a­tions forever.

Now the wolf is at our door, stand­ing in the soft shad­ows of moon­light howl­ing to his kin sil­hou­et­ted on the ridge. Inside, hold­ing tight to their warm blankets, hu­mans shiver with fear and fas­cin­a­tion. Is it pos­sible to un­tangle the com­plex web of myth and mis­con­cep­tion, truth and ter­ror that sur­rounds this car­ni­vore? Curiosity and a keen in­terest in nature prompt me to try.

What is your process?

Gather enough facts, fig­ures and stor­ies to fill the Pacific Ocean and jump in after them. Float around for a while un­til I’m over­whelmed by a rough chop of end­less white caps. Realize I’m drown­ing and will nev­er make it to shore. Flail my arms and kick my legs, des­per­ate to sur­vive. An etern­ity later, find my­self rid­ing the crest of a gi­ant wave giddy with re­lief that land is in sight. Tumble onto the sand ex­hausted and elated. Click send to email the ma­nu­script to my publisher.

Why do you write? 

Long ago, when a close friend and I were both mired in the sludge of de­pres­sion we called it The Room. There was no door, it was im­possible to get out.

When I write I enter a place in my mind where I feel ex­tremely com­fort­able. There are many doors and end­less op­por­tun­it­ies for ex­plor­a­tion and adventure.

Why wouldn’t I write?

Paula Wild is an award-win­ning au­thor of six books and 1,000+ arti­cles. Her book on wolves is sched­uled for a fall 2017 re­lease by Douglas & McIntyre. 

 

 

 

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Writing journeys for 2016

When the New Year rolls around most people de­cide how many miles they want to run or how many pounds they want to lose. I de­cide how many words I want to write.

There are two writers in our house and we’re both at dif­fer­ent stages of our books. Rick’s in the fin­ish­ing phase: adding tid­bits to cre­ate a stronger story, fact check­ing and pol­ish­ing the ma­nu­script be­fore send­ing it to a publisher.

I’m in the early middle, messy stage. Over the last year I’ve ac­cu­mu­lated a huge pile of re­search and now need to de­cide what else I need, how I’m go­ing to get it and then how to or­gan­ize the whole damn book.

Rick’s on a writ­ing high and I feel like I’m drown­ing in a sea of facts, fig­ures and fables. To top it off, we’re cur­rently shar­ing writ­ing space. Inevitably, one of us is in talk mode when the oth­er is into ser­i­ous writ­ing. SHUSS! and oc­ca­sion­ally stronger words of­ten bounce off the walls.

When I moan about or­gan­iz­ing my data (the part I hate about writ­ing a book) Rick tells me to just do it. “Just start writ­ing,” he says, “that’s the only way you’ll fig­ure it out.” I know he’s right be­cause I’ve told him the same thing many times before.

But we aren’t just writers. We’re walk­ers and run­ners, daugh­ters and sons, friends and fond of good meals. Exercise, so­cial­iz­ing, even cook­ing, all takes time. Something that al­ways seems to be in short sup­ply when you’re a writer.Goal 1

Rick and I both have im­port­ant (to us any­way) writ­ing goals for 2016. His is a con­tract with a pub­lish­er and launch date for his book. Mine is to be in the spot Rick’s in now – the fi­nal stages of a ma­nu­script. We know the key to achiev­ing our goals is our time and how we man­age it.

We’ve both vowed to de­vote morn­ings (when we’re the sharpest) to writ­ing. That means no lolling around in bed, few or no emails, no phone calls or ap­point­ments (un­less book re­lated) and no cof­fees out with friends un­til after noon. We’ll be strict about this be­cause we know, even if it’s dif­fi­cult at times, the re­wards will be worth it.

Rick’s strategy is to cut down on so­cial en­gage­ments and ar­range them at times that don’t in­ter­fere with writ­ing. He’s also de­cided not to ac­cept non-book re­lated work (not an op­tion for every­one, I know) for sev­er­al months.

Goal 2I’m a list maker so will re­fine my “to con­tact” list and put it into a timeline. Ditto for rough­ing out chapters, which will, of course, gen­er­ate an­oth­er list for “need to find out.” Every month or so, I’ll re­view what I’ve done. To be per­fectly hon­est, I rarely meet my self-im­posed dead­lines. But they keep me on track and motiv­ate me to try harder.

But simply hav­ing a goal isn’t al­ways enough. To be really effect­ive ex­perts say you should write your goal down, make a com­mit­ment by telling it to someone and be­ing account­able to that per­son. For most of our time to­geth­er, Rick and I have dis­cussed our goals – and wheth­er we ac­com­plished last year’s — at the be­gin­ning of each year.

It’s the time of year when most people make res­ol­u­tions. Many will be broken with­in a week, oth­ers will be half met and some will suc­ceed. Have you giv­en any thought to where you want to be in your writ­ing jour­ney by the end of the year?