EXCITING NEWS!!

Grim Hill has found a wonderful new publisher!!! Heritage House under its imprint, Wandering Fox, will be publishing the Grim Hill books beginning with “The Secret of Grim Hill.” “The Secret of Grim Hill” will be released in October this fall 2015 just in time for Halloween. Books two, three and four of the series will be released in the spring of 2016. This means a lot of wonderful things: the books will be available in local bookstores; teachers and librarians can order the books; there might even be (never say never) more books in the series.

Heritage House has included a lovely addition of interesting questions for readers and an author interview.
Needless to say I am very excited.

And I thought after book six, there would not be much new news for the Grim Hill books.

Heritage Books: http://www.heritagehouse.ca/new_releases.php?cat_id=15&sort_filter=release_date&page=2

Please spread the word.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween everyone!

I’ve had a great writerly October at the Junior Authors Convention, the BC Teacher Library gala event, in helping out at the writers’ workshop at the Vancouver Science Fiction Convention, and catching some of the Writers’ Festival.
Seriously, it’s almost like a month long Halloween party. I learned some important lessons for writing as well, which, once I’ve cobbled it all together I’ll chat about on this blog.
In the meantime, phew, I’ll be quite happy to stay home tonight and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.
I’ll sort of be participating in a fun Halloween event; my zombie story will be part of a Halloween production this evening:
http://www.ckdo.ca/events/view/community-events/dead-north-theatrical-readings-of-canadian-zombie-fiction

Have a safe and fun evening!

Awesome pictures

I thought I’d share these two gorgeous pictures I received from a young Grim Hill reader. I think Ryan just might be a future book illustrator. My dream used to be to write and illustrate one of my own books — one out of two dreams come true is still pretty wonderful. As a young reader, I used to love it when a book, even a novel, had illustrations. Come to think of it, I still do. It would be awesome if more books had illustrations.

Upcoming Events

My friend Shannon sent me this picture of kids playing soccer in the fog – it is awesomely spooky and reminds me of Grim Hill.
Speaking of Grim Hill I will be attending a couple of events in October.

October 3rd, 4th & 5th I’ll be at VON — Vancouver’s Science Fiction Convention helping out in the writers’ workshop and appearing on various panels. http://www.vcon.ca/

October 18th I’m super excited to be presenting at the Junior Writers Conference in Richmond. http://laurathomascommunications.com/conference/

October 23rd I’ll be attending the BCTLA (BC Teacher Librarian Association’s )75th Gala.

I hope to see lots of friendly faces.

The Write Moment

It’s been a fun summer, and this is the first rainy day in a long time, so I thought I’d better catch up with this blog.
So to continue and finish with the Write Moment…

Okay, forget the suspense and let’s cut to the chase. My time travel story never got published. Turns out, writing time travel stories was a lot harder than I thought –
But my second story was published. I’ll never forget the early morning call (the editors didn’t know I lived in a different time zone than New York) and the cheque which felt like so much money for doing what I loved. Since then I’ve sold almost all my short stories – one hasn’t found a home yet, but I live in hope.
Also I published the Grim Hill series.
The main thing is, though, I was happily addicted to writing.
I think you can get hooked on writing at any age.
I was older, but that’s okay too, because I’ve had a lot of fun interests in the meantime: interests like art, and reading and archeology and travel and well, loads of stuff. I moved from interest to interest (and still do – I’m currently dabbling with star-gazing) but once I’d stumbled onto serious writing, all my other interests fueled my primary passion for storytelling.
So, when do you know you want to write?
You’ll just know because it becomes irresistible.

The Write Moment (part four)

So like I said, I ripped open the envelope and…lived happily ever after?
I lifted the paper out of the envelope with trembling hands, unfolded the letter only to see it was a rejection fired back. So I sent out my story – again and again. Rejections were fired back again and again.
Curiously undaunted, I joined a critique group that I’d read about in a community brochure. Armed with my manuscript, I read my story to the group and sat back waiting for accolades. But all they gave me was advice. Sigh.
Oddly undaunted again, I sifted through the advice, reflected on the advice, rewrote bits of the story and submitted it again. The rejection came back, but this time with the comment that the imagery could still be sharper. Strangely, I still didn’t feel daunted. Instead I sort of felt complimented even though I hadn’t been. But I’d been treated like a real writer because an editor had taken a moment to point out how my writing could improve.
That process of writing the time travel story was the defining moment – that the writing, the crafting, the utter joy of creating could not be diminished by anything, because in the making of the story, and in the determination of sending it out, and sending it out again, I had become a writer!
Did that story ever get published?

Tune in for part five–

Publishing my First Story

Part Three:
Okay, here’s where it got hard – sort of…well, not in the beginning.
Armed with the genre, an idea, a mood, and an atmosphere of mystery, I launched into a story about a woman who is drawn into a time portal.
I wrote with such fervour that by the end of a day, I’d written down the entire short story. Oh, how exciting it had been – as if I’d been on the grand adventure with my main character. Then over the next bit of time, how I loved crafting the sentences, mastering metaphors, and tightening the tension.
That fast, I’d fallen into a new passion, and strangely, developed a strong desire to share it with people.
So, I read the story to my husband who suggested I send it to the New Yorker (which is one of the reasons he’s a keeper) and I asked my friends to read it.
When a friend said, your story made me want to live in that apartment, to be that woman, I thought – mission accomplished!! That’s exactly how I wanted my reader to feel.
I got out an envelope and stuffed the story inside it, bought a stamp, carefully folded a return stamped envelope (I’d quickly done some homework and found out about proper manuscript format and how to submit a story) and fired it off to a SF magazine.
I waited on pins and needles for the magazine’s reply.
Then one day shortly after I sent out my manuscript, a letter from the magazine arrived.
I held my breath as I ripped open the envelope…

Tune in for Part Four

From Genre to Story Idea

Part two:
So I wanted to write a time travel story, but I needed a plot – or at least a plot bunny (which is like a dust bunny only instead of dust, you roll an idea around in your head until it gets bigger.)
I remembered how one summer when my nieces and nephew were visiting from Ireland, we’d taken them to the beach all summer. Every week we’d walk by a ground-floor apartment in an arty and hip beach neighbourhood, as we carried beach balls, blankets, snacks, and held little hands. I looked into the open curtains of that apartment and felt a sense of wonder at its bohemian décor. There was something magical about the scattered Persian rugs, ceramic vases filled with hydrangeas and roses, and stacks of books topped with chipped china tea cups perched on saucers. There was even a velvet settee with a silk robe tossed over the arm.
I imagined this was a place of residence for an actor or artist or musician. In other words, to me it was a portal into a totally different life.
Then low and behold years later, my husband and I would once again pass by that apartment on the way to the beach. We were once again loaded down with beach balls, sand buckets, blankets, and the small hands of our own children. Yet there the apartment stood, it seemed to me, unchanged over the years…
Not only was it a portal to another life, but it was frozen in time.
I had my time travel story. So I picked up that heavy pen and set it to paper…

Tune in for part three–

The Write Moment

When did I know I wanted to be a writer?
Part one:
I think I might want to be a writer, but I do not know how to start…
A person recently posed a question like this to me, and it made my mind wander back to when I began writing. I mean writing with the intention that I absolutely knew this is what I wanted to do – to become a writer. I don’t mean dabbling in writing…
For example, as a young kid, I totally enjoyed writing stories. My mom can testify to my magic princess stories and my nonfiction cat stories…and my year of coloured pens where I lovingly rendered comics of Frankenstein’s children and King Tut’s siblings before I moved on to making paper dolls with wardrobes for my little sister…
In grade five I entered a school-wide writing contest and came first (I’m not sure how many people actually entered, but I’m sure my arch rival had.) I remember the prize was a hairband and barrettes, which came in pretty handy because my hair was long (and it made me think the teachers bought the prize after they knew who the winner was because, hey, what if my hair had been short…or I was a boy!)

I still dabbled in story making in high school where I took creative writing and had a teacher say my writing was good. He had also said a whole bunch of people in my class were good writers, which I could see for myself. I found out later some of them had gone on to publish right out of high school, so maybe I should have taken his compliment more to heart. No matter –my time hadn’t arrived yet.
Instead I drifted away from writing. After so much essay writing in university, even lifting a pen seemed like a burden. Then one day I bought a science fiction magazine to read on a long bus trip. After finishing a time travel story, I thought to myself, okay it was neat, but I bet I could write a better one.
So…I had an idea I wanted to write a time travel story. That gave me the genre but what now…
Tune in for part two —

The Write Name

Do you think Sookie looks a little spooky?

What’s in a name?
Well, think about your own name. Does your name have a meaning? Who named you? Are you named after someone? Do you like your name? Have you adopted a nickname?
Get the picture – names are complicated and interesting…That doesn’t change if you are a fictional character.

So when an editor asks me to rewrite the ending, or fix a chapter, or start in a different place, I say, “Sure, no problem.” (um, after a long walk.) But when an editor asks me to consider renaming a character, I might dig in my heels and say, “What? – I’m not so sure about that…” Suddenly (and uncharacteristically) I’m a little stubborn.

That’s because I’ve already gone through the process listed above. What I haven’t done is pulled a name out of thin air. Sometimes I have favourite names I am waiting to bestow on just the right character (as I’m doing now with my new manuscript.) Other times, I’ve made word associations with my character and my character’s name. To unravel those associations is a challenging task.
In one instance a long time ago, a publication changed my character’s name without consulting me. To this day, I wince thinking how that didn’t work. If they had consulted me about the name they chose, I’d have gone back and unravelled and rewoven some of the supporting details.

What’s in choosing the right name? For me, quite a lot…