Tag: Paula Wild

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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?

 

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Canadian books make great Christmas gifts

Give Canadian books for Christmas. A nov­el idea some might say, but I’ve been giv­ing Canadian books as gifts for more than 40 years.

I come from a long line of read­ers. Being read to was a treas­ured part of my early child­hood. And I can still re­mem­ber the thrill of be­ing able to read on my own any time I wanted! When I was 10 I de­cided that in­cluded late at night.

Not sure if read­ing past bed­time was al­lowed, I draped a tow­el over the lamp on my night table to avoid de­tec­tion. Mom still saw the light un­der the door. But in­stead of giv­ing me heck, she said it was okay to read but not to start a fire.

Canadian books cov­er every genre and evoke every emo­tion. I’ve giggled, sniffled and even been creeped out on oc­ca­sion. Canadian au­thors have also in­formed and en­lightened me about our vast and var­ied mul­ti­cul­tur­al coun­try and provided in­sight into the hu­man psyche.

Although 99% of our books are currently living in a storage unit, here are a few of the Canadian books I found in a 60 second cruise around our apartment.
Although 99% of our books are cur­rently liv­ing in a stor­age unit, here are a few of the Canadian books I found in a 60 second cruise around our apartment.

Most of my fam­ily lives in the USA but, even so, Canadian books are al­ways on their Christmas wish lists. Some I’m wrap­ping as presents this year include:

Light Years: Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper by Caroline Woodward

Tide Rips and Back Eddies by Bill Proctor and Yvonne Maximchuk

Once They Were Hats by Frances Backhouse

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Watershed Moments: A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District by Christine Dickinson, Deborah Griffiths, Judy Hagen and Catherine Siba

There are oth­ers I can’t men­tion as my part­ner, fel­low au­thor Rick James, reads my blogs and would find out what he’s get­ting for Christmas!

With the ex­cep­tion of Station Eleven, which was pub­lished in 2014, the above books are all fall 2015 re­leases. But many Canadian books are what I call ‘keep­ers’ and have per­man­ent homes on my bookshelf.

So if you’re in­ter­ested in Canadian clas­sics, here are a few of my favorites:

Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell

The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence

Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat

Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier by Wallace Stegner

Books open the door to oth­er worlds, both ima­gin­ary and real, as well as dif­fer­ent ways of think­ing, eat­ing and mov­ing. They are com­pan­ions on dark, winter nights and al­low us to es­cape the drudgery or demons of every­day life. I can think of no bet­ter gift.