February 2005 Archives

Monday morning and the armchair quarterbacks/fashion critics/television mavens come out to complain about the Academy Awards. Come on now, when was the last time anyone said, "Wow, I'll never forget those Oscars." Never. The Oscars are the Super Bowl of the film world. A lot of hype leading up to the event, which turns out to be a non-starter. This year, the media tried to make a big deal about Chris Rock (will they need a 5 second or a 7 second delay?). If you ask me, they needed a 24 hour delay so they could find someone else to produce the awards. With all the random shots of wrong people and sound problems, the show looked like an amateur production on local community television.

Surprises? None to speak off. Jamie Foxx got to reprise his Golden Globe speech, but this time he finished the story about his grandmother. Tell me that speech wasn't rehearsed like a thousand times. Martin Scorcese and Annette Bening lost again. And the winners still didn't learn how to be gracious and brief. The only thing worthwhile bit in the whole show was Chris Rock's "person-on-the street" segment at the Magic Johnson theatre. No one had seen any of the Oscar nominees, but they had all seen and loved White Chicks.

I guess I'd be more excited about this year's award ceremonies if I had seen any of the best picture nominees, but the price of tickets and the ill manners of today's cell phone toting, yappy movie goers has left a bitter taste in my mouth about going to the Cineplex Odeon. I'd rather rent the DVD a few months later and enjoy a cheaper film experience without the talkers. On a positive note, I did see White Chicks.

Guthrie School rocks! The school organized a morning of guest visitors to encourage reading. As one of the readers, I hopped from one class to another to read from my book and talk about writing in general. I was surprised at how many kids remembered my visit from a year ago. I had great fun, and I can't wait for my writer-in-residency to start at the school. I'll see the Guthrie Gators in 2006.

I just came back from an awesome reading at Rundle School. I read for grade 4 and grade 5 students, and they responded to the book really well. One of the students was dressed at the Night Watchman, and I thought it was hilarious. I was sad not to see the student who originally invited me to the school, but I was told she had to work on a puppet show.

Anyway, the students really responded well the the chapter and I even tested out the second book on them. There were good questions after, so I think I'm on the right track. I hope the kids keep reading. They all seemed very bright and enthusiastic. I had an excellent time visiting Rundle School, and I hope I can go back.

I've been laying low for the last few days, celebrating the completion of the first draft of Graffiti Ghouls. Now I have to jump back into the fray. The next two months will be hectic with a series of readings, the revisions to Graffiti Ghouls, a full-on rewrite of The Forbidden Phoenix, revisions to Count of Monte Cristo, and about 6 minor projects. My focus is to chip away at everything. I can't finish a lot of these projects in one day, but I can knock a few pages off per day. As long as I don't feel overwhelmed I should be okay. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

I just finished the first draft of the manuscript. This is what I call the ugly draft, because the writing isn't pretty and the story isn't ready to be shown to anyone. I'm going to take a couple of days off from the book, then I'll start revising it on Wednesday. The revising shouldn't take long now that I know what the story is and where it ends up. I hope to have everything ready to go to my publisher by the end of the first week in March.

What a relief. Some writers love writing. Some writers love having written. I fall in the latter category.

Oh, so close. I'm three or four chapters from the end of my first draft. The momentum in the story is starting to pick up now as I head into the climax. It's been tough trying to chase the protagonist up the tree, but I finally found the right set of circumstances to ratchet up the tension. I'm hoping to have the first draft done by the end of this weekend.

Now that I've been exercising regularly, I've noticed a connection between working out and writing. Both activities require a certain amount of willpower. You have to force yourself to go to the gym or sit down and write a few pages of a story or play. At first, the task is hard and you want to quit early. However, the more you do it, the easier it gets. Checking out other people in the gym or reading other people's writing gives you an idea about your own style of exercise or writing, and hopefully encourages you to improve what you do.

I figure if I can drop 30 pounds in 6 months of exercise, then I can write a novel in the same time as well. I'm saying this as I look at the tail end of my book. I plan to have the first draft complete by the end of this weekend. I'll spend the next two weeks polishing the manuscript, and send it out in early March.

I've been sitting on this news for a couple of weeks, but now I can safely announce that I've just received the Enbridge Playwrights Award. This is a brand new award that Enbridge introduced at the ATP Playwrites' Festival. The award goes to a playwright to further develop his or her play. I'm thrilled to be the first recipient of the award. In fact, I'm writing this blog from Calgary, just hours after delivering a pithy acceptance speech and seeing the premiere of the Leisure Society. The evening was spectacular. The folks at ATP and Enbridge really know how to put together a sponsor appreciation event and an opening night. I also scored some Bernard Callebaut chocolates with a joke in my acceptance speech. Yay, Enbridge and ATP!!!!

This is a lesson for all budding writers. Sometimes, even professional writers hit a wall. I've been trying to revise chapter ten of Graffiti Ghouls for the last three days. The chapter is a key turning point in the book, and if I don't get it right, I won't have enough story to take me to the end. Right now, the book has a good thruline up to the mid-point. This chapter has to send the story in a new direction, but it keeps fragmenting and creating little unconnected vignettes. I have to find the thruline for the second half of the book, and the catalyst is in this chapter. I'm running at the chapter again today. I compare the experience to a car getting stuck in an icy rut. The driver doesn't abandon the car. He just keeps rocking back and forth until the car rolls out of the rut. Right now it's frustrating, but boy am I going to feel good when I climb out of the rut.

I've been reading the Letters to the Editor section of the Edmonton Journal over the last week, and I've concluded that there are a lot of angry people with a lot of time on their hands to read the newspaper and write letters. The funniest letters are the ones which are responses to other angry letters to the editors. I remember there was a war of words when a driver complained about getting in an accident because he stopped for a pedestrian who decided not to cross the street. The pedestrian then fired off an angry response scolding the driver for writing the letter. Forget Road Rage; the new trend is Letter Rage!

Yesterday, I reached about half way point on the revisions to my second book. Today, I went off on a tangent taking the book in a new direction, but by the end of the day I arrived at a dead end. While I have to wipe out today's work, I don't feel bad because there's stuff that I can use for later in the book. The big thing I have to remind myself is that any exploration is valuable even if it doesn't end up in the book.