The students at Highcastle P.S. rock! I read for grades 3, 4, 5 & 6. I was soaked in a spring shower on my way to the school, but I got a warm welcome from the staff and students. I'm thrilled that the kids loved the book, and I'm sorry I ran out of bookmarks. I'll send more to the librarian when I get back to Edmonton. Thanks to everyone at Highcastle for letting me visit. I hope you all enjoyed the book. You should be able to find copies at Chapters. If the store doesn't have a copy, just ask them to order it in from another store. If you still can't get a copy, just send me a note and I'll find a bookstore that does carry copies. Take care!
March 2005 Archives
Oh boy, now I'm in uncharted territory. After fumbling for weeks with an outline and trying to wrestle the historical allegory into the story, I've decided to stop trying to show my research in the play. Now I just want to tell a good story that has high stakes, empathetic characters, and a point. This was a lesson learned. When doing research, remember that it is just grist for the mill. It's not the actual end product. Now that I've let go of the history, I feel free to explore and challenge myself. The ideas I have for the revisions are exciting and wild. I think I'll have a stronger draft in the end. Okay, back to work.
Well, my voice is shot. It died somewhere in my last session of the Highlands Young Readers Conference. I had attended this conference the year before, and a lot of students came back to hear my session this year. Unfortunately, I was doing the same material as last year. I've got to come up with new stories to tell when I go back to a school the second time. Hmm, time to raid the family closet for more stories.
Anyway, the conference went well despite a late start due to bussing problems (kids from other schools were late because of poor roads). I'm impressed with the scale of the event and how well put together it is. Kudos to the organizers. Fantastic job!
This afternoon I paid a quick visit to the students at Hazeldean. I might be an author-in-residence at their school in November, so I thought it would be good to meet the students and staff. Right now, there's a lot of construction on the building, which the principal hopes will be done by May.
I had the pleasure of reading to grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The younger kids laughed a lot at the book, while the older kids had some very cool questions. I was impressed with the school and their dedication to writer. I hope to be a part of the Hazeldean family next fall and work with the kids. I can't wait to see what kind of stories they create.
I just finished three readings at Aldergrove School for a wonderful bunch of students. Most of them had never heard of The Mystery of the Frozen Brains, but I think they were all big fans of the book after the sessions. I have to say that I'm a big fan of the school. When I walked through the main doors the first thing I saw in the hallway was a display of books. The principal and the teachers were awesome, and it seemed like everyone really cared about books and writing.
I hope that the kids understood that the seed of a story can come from a person's own life. All it needs is a little imagination to go from a real life event to a cool story. My own experiences like the discovery of the cow brains or clothes shopping with my mom seemed boring to me at first, but when I added things from my imagination the stories got more interesting. I hope all the students at Aldergrove take my advice and use it for their own writing. Start with something you know and then start changing it to make it more interesting.
Anyway, the kids were great and I hope I get to go back to the school in the future.
My apologies for neglecting the blog. I couldn't get to a computer while I was in Grande Prairie for the Wordspinner Festival. The 4-day event was great and full of fun memories. The best way to summarize the festival is in snapshots.
- At Aspen Grove School, I had to stop my reading so that a little girl could run through a crowd of students and get to the bathroom.
- Governor General Award Winner Glen Huser humbly admitted that he struggled with titles of his works, which made me feel less alone when I fumble for the right title.
- Story teller Michael Kusugak gamely fought a horrible cold to enthral an audience of college students with stories of the north. He spun stories with little effort and had the audience hanging on every soft-spoken word.
- Food and travel writer Judy Schultz wowed audiences at Sunday brunch with a reading from her book Looking for China, which she referenced as the mirror image of my play "Mom, Dad, I'm Living with a White Girl." Read the book and you'll understand why.
- Mystery writer Gail Bowen praised an old essay of mine, saying that she used it as a teaching tool. I made a complete fool of myself when I didn't remember the essay in question until fifteen minutes later. I had to sheepishly apologise to Gail for my cheesecloth memory. A generous spirt, she patted my arm and said it was okay, but I think she must have walked away with the image of me as the village idiot.
- My favourite memory is sitting in the airport with poet Tom Wayman while literary superstar Alastair MacLeod cracked old jokes and talked about having to deliver a reading to a high school gym full of kids in Halloween costumes.
- At the Chocolate Extravaganza (an evening of readings and chocolate), I saw a chocolate cake so rich and tall that it nearly collapsed under its own weight.
The volunteers and audiences were incredibly supportive of the festival and appreciative of all the writers. This was my first literary festival, and I hope they are all like this. My warmest thanks to all the people involved with Wordspinner for their amazing hospitality.
Yesterday, I landed in Grande Prairie, and the snow started falling as soon as I stepped off the plane. I'm glad that Edmonton is covered in snow too. At least I won't feel like I'm missing any good weather.
The Wordspinner Festival hasn't officially kicked off yet, but I've been running around to different schools for author visits. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting St. Gerard and St. Clement's school. The students were great at both schools. They had already started reading the book, so they were already familiar with the first chapter that I read. I've got to remember to ask what the kids have read of the book so that I can read new sections to them. It's about time for me to change things up anyway and rehearse a new section of the book.
Today, I talked to grade seven kids at I V Macklin School. The grade seven kids seemed to enjoy the book. There were a lot of laughs, but not a lot of questions at the end of the session. I wanted to talk about The Bone House, my thriller play, but I had run out of time. I think that would have triggered a few questions.
Later in the morning, I did a session for grade six students at Crystal Park school. They had already started reading the book, so I read chapter 5 instead. I got a couple of laughs, and felt comfortable reading the section aloud. I think this might be the new section that I'll read for kids who've already started the book. It has some fun laughs, especially with the jockstrap bit at the end. I just have to rehearse it more so I can perform the reading with more confidence.
The cool thing about the Crystal Park reading was that I had a signer beside me. I also wore a microphone/headset. At first it felt weird, but I got used to it within a couple of minutes. There's one more school to visit this afternoon. My throat is a little scratchy, but it's holding up okay. I seem to have beaten the flu that knocked me down on the weekend. Okay, I'd better wrap things up. I'm writing the blog from a computer at the school. I'll try to report on the festival when I can. Later.
Now that the first draft of Graffiti Ghouls is off to the publisher, I have time on my hands. Well, not a lot of time. Just enough to get cracking on the revisions to The Forbidden Phoenix. I'm hoping to complete the revisions by the end of the month and meet with my composer about the re-think on the songs. It's a lot of work ahead, but I'm excited to see this thing through to the end.
What a great way to end the week. I did two readings at Overlanders School. The kids peppered me with questions after each reading of The Mystery of the Frozen Brains, and I had to stay alert to answer questions about my middle name and the recipe for cow brain stew. My thanks to the two young men who greeted me at the door and showed me to the music room. Thanks guys!
The revisions of Graffiti Ghouls is officially done. I finally wrestled the manuscript to the mat late this afternoon. The climax kept slipping out of my holds, and for a while I thought the book was going to pin me. My finishing move was a cross-face chicken wing arm bar that I locked on to the ending and forced it to give up. I don't know why the wrestling jargon. Maybe it's all the Wrestlemania commercials.
Anyway, my point is yaaaaaaaayyyyy! I'm going to do a quick proof of the draft over the weekend, send off the draft on Monday, and then contact schools to see if I can test drive the chapters.
Graffiti Ghouls got the better of me yesterday. As I was revising the last four chapters, the story started to fall apart. I've had to back track a couple of chapters to rebuild the story. I hope to have the thing done today. The good news I take from this setback is that at least I caught the problem before it went to the publisher. I'd hate for the publisher to come back and say nice try, but no thanks.
Do you know that feeling of being inches away from completing a task, but lacking the energy to cross the finish line? That's where I'm at. I have about 30 pages left to revise on Graffiti Ghouls, and I'm finding the last 30 pages harder to work on than the previous 130. I had promised myself that I'd finish the pages today, so that I could take tomorrow off and spend Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday doing a final polish. Looks like it's going to be a long night. It's times like this that I wish that I drank coffee.
Whenever I had a little break from revising Graffiti Ghouls, I tried to peck away at a revised outline for Forbidden Phoenix. While I do have a draft of the play, I decided it wasn't working and I've gone back to basics. I noticed that my draft tried to hard to tell the history of the Chinese "Bachelor Men," often at the expense of drama. This go around, I'm just going to tell a good story with conflict and heart, and use the details of history to flesh out the allegory. As long as the base of the story is grounded in a human decision rather than a socio-political observation, I think the drama will be inherent, and I hope that the allegory will then become clearer without becoming a history lesson. Hopefully, I'll be finished a draft by the end of this month. Between the book and this project, I'm feeling pretty burned out. I'm ready for a vacation. Ugh.
KABOOM! That's the sound of Edmonton's winter theatre festival kicking off. I saw the opening night performance of JOB: The Hip Hop Musical. Two hip hop theatre artists revise and retell the Biblical story of Job in the first act, and then explore the nature of life, death, and meaning in the murder of Abel in the second act. These two exciting performers hit the Fringe Festival a couple of years ago with an earlier version of their play. When I saw the show then, I was thrilled, excited, and challenged by their theatrical style. This time around, the show still had the raw energy, but was contained in a more coherent and clear structure. The second act too a little too long to make its point, but the performers were just amazing. The play runs only this weekend, so if you're in Edmonton check it out.
I'm actually looking forward to checking out the show next weekend, King of Fun, starring Andy Jones, formerly of Codco. When it comes to theatre, Edmontonians are spoiled.
The revisions are going much easier than the first draft. I'm already at the fourth chapter, and it looks like I should have the revisions and polish done by the end of next week. Some people hate having to rewrite, but I actually love it. I don't know why this is. I also like watching movies twice, reading books twice, and catching reruns of old television shows. Maybe that's why repeat myself all the time. I like doing things over and over again. Am I repeating myself now? Okay, back to work.
