June 2009 Archives

Four hours and 18 chapters later, I have an outline I can live with. I've mapped out the main story of the cyber bully, and I think it's mostly there. The major beats are working and the story is active. There are a couple of character beats that don't track as well and I think Trina goes missing in the middle of the story, but that's something I can work in as I'm exploring the first draft. I'm much more confident in this outline than the previous ones. I think it's mainly because I've turned the story into an active investigation rather than a series of vignettes. The only thing I have to be careful of is to make sure I'm not treading the same ground I did in the previous books. I'm going to let this outline sit for a day and marinate. Then I'm going to see if I can bake it into a first draft... ugh, apologies for the cooking metaphor. Brain hurts. Won't try metaphors again in this blog entry.

The good news is that I feel like I can now write the first draft in a way that is actually productive. But everything always looks possible at the beginning of the process. Let's see how I feel when I'm in the middle of it.

Happy Canada Day! I'll be back on Thursday.

The last few weeks, I've been trying to build up my stamina for bicycle riding. The hardest part of the training are the hills. I start off okay, but about halfway or three-quarters of the way up the hill, I run out of energy and have to hop off to push the bike the rest of the way. Part of it is lack of stamina, but the other part is the pain of having to pump the pedals.

I'm feeling the same way about my cyber bully novel. Every time I tackle the hill that is the first draft I keep losing energy, or I feel pain from eking out the lamest sentences in the world. I keep rolling back to the beginning and not wanting to go back up the hill. This is why I despise first drafts... I mean I really loathe them. I know I can get to the top eventually, but it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of concentration.

My latest failure has been the fact that the cyber bully villain means the heroes are spending a lot time reading emails and looking at the computer. Boring! I've gone back to see how I can revamp my original outline to get more action into the story. I think I've figured out how to get a better start to the book. The ironic thing is that I figured out how to rejig the beginning while I was walking up a hill in the river valley. More walks please.

Anyway, I'm back at outline and trying to get up a smaller hill. Hopefully, I'll set up enough milestones by marking what happens in each chapter so that I can get through the first draft easier. I'll see how far I get over the next hour. If I stall out, I'm taking a guilt-ridden two days off to enjoy Canada Day.

I had to flip from cyber bully to serial killer in mid sentence. I got a message from my Vancouver producers that the new scene I wrote for The Bone House wasn't working. It was not giving the audience a break from the storytelling and it was creating more questions than it needed to. Plus, there's a concern that the play has to be under 60 minutes for the Edinburgh Festival. Our solution was to go back to the previous version of the script, which has the video clips of the killer's victims. I went through and cut out the extraneous material to come up with a lean mean scene. My only worry is that in cutting to the bone, I might have taken away the air that allows the audience to relax a bit from the barrage of Eugene's storytelling. I won't know if the scene will work for sure until the cast and crew rehearse the scene. This is a good reminder that what works on page may not always work on stage. I wish I could be at rehearsals to see it for myself, but I'm glad to go back to the video stuff. My original instinct to have video was to break up the monotony of the direct address to the audience.

I have to admit that this certainly gave me a much needed shot of creative adrenaline. I knocked off the revisions in a couple of hours, and now I feel recharged. I was feeling pretty sluggish on the book. So sluggish in fact that I think I'm going back to outline so that I can map out each chapter. Right now, I'm cranking out pages and more worried about meeting my quota than thinking about where the story needs to go. When that happens, best to put on the brakes and check the map (or in this case, draw the map).

Back to the book.

I did a reading time presentation for pre-school kids and they ate me alive. I showed fear, breaking into a sweat when the kids starting fidgeting within a minute of me starting to talk. I tried my best stories about the cats to keep their attention, but nothing was working until I brought out the book. The kids settled for a bit, but the book was short and after the last page, they were fidgeting again. I think I've nailed my school presentations down for older students, but I need to develop a whole different set of skills to grab the attention of pre-school kids. The presentation was humbling, and now I have something to prove to myself. I know that all my presentations are based on language... and if an audience hasn't developed their language skills yet, I'm dead in the water. Time to look at visual aids and figuring out how to adjust my stories for the younger set.

In my opinion, it's always good to fail once in a while. Keeps me on my toes and helps spur me to revamp my presentations so I won't fail again. Okay, back to the book.

I'm well into the second chapter of the novel. Not as fast as I had planned, but at least I'm moving forward. I had an insane goal to finish the novel in two weeks. On the pace I'm at, I'm thinking more like four weeks to finish off the piece. The trouble right now is introducing characters and setting up the story. It just takes time and effort. I think I have the right start, but I won't know until I see where the story ends up. That's the joy of writing!

Day 2 of working on the book is making me impatient. I want to get to the end of the book so that I can flesh out the climax. There's part of me that wants to jump to the end, but I know that would probably screw me up. Better on this particular project to hold the climax as a reward for writing the first two thirds of the book. The weird thing I've noticed is that little character details just jump into the story. I'm doing my best to incorporate them, as this is the first draft and no idea is bad until I've finished the draft, and can see what fits and what doesn't. Back to work!

Like slipping into an old comfy pair of pyjama bottoms, I'm back in the fictional town of Bouvier and spinning out the first draft of the last in the mystery series. It took me a little while to concentrate on the task at hand (it's been about a month since I've last sat down at the computer and did any significant amount of writing), but once I got going, the story flowed. I know the characters pretty well, and they seem to be dictating to me where the story is going... as long as I give them a starting point. I'm happy with what's coming out and I have 5 double-spaced pages to show for today's efforts. Not a bad start, considering I usually only eke out a paragraph or two when I start a new project. Let's see if I can maintain the pace through the week.

After the CTV interview, Buddy is still freaked out. I made the silly mistake of trying to lure him out by shaking his cat treat bag. Now every time I shake the bag, he goes into hiding. He definitely is a scaredy cat, but I love him anyway.

Today, I'm dealing trying to wrap my head around The Mystery of the Cyber Bully. Knowing the climax is helping me sort out the scenes beforehand. I now need to figure out the first scene of the book, and I'm just a bit stumped right now. I can start with Marty and his mom or I can go with Marty and his friends. I just need to know which one sets things up the best for the rest of the story. I'm going to go for a bike ride and sort it out. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to start the draft by the end of the weekend.

Much movement today on the ideas. I don't have a formal outline, but I did clarify who the characters are in this book, and I have a general sense of the climax. Lots of stuff needs to happen in this book as I want it to have more of a mystery than the other three books. The really interesting thing is the character actions are really driving the early ideas. I'm almost ready to start the first draft. I'm being careful this time out not to concentrate too much on the outline. I just want a general idea of what will happen and the major conflicts. I want to leave myself some breathing room to have fun when I write the draft. It's very similar to the way I worked on the Mystery of the Mad Science Teacher, and that worked out well for me. Of course, if I get bogged down, I'll just go and hammer out an outline until I find the thruline of the story that works.

So, I had some soft-serve ice cream at Dairy Queen last night...

Actually, the book is temporarily on hold today as I try to capitalize on a media opportunity. Just got a call from Graham Neil, the hilarious arts and entertainment reporter at CTV. He missed the book launch at the Edmonton Humane Society, but still wants to do something about the book. He's coming over this afternoon... and my house is a disaster area! I spent the morning cleaning up and figuring out fun and visual things that Graham can film. Sadly, the two stars of the segment (Buddy and Max) are people shy, so I suspect the piece will be about the search for the missing cats. I think the piece will air tonight.

Also, if you missed CKUA this Sunday, the interview Lorna and I did on the Bookmark program is archived on the CKUA site.

As soon as the dust clears at the end of the day, I'm going back to brainstorming the book... or going to Dairy Queen.

Starting a new novel is like spring cleaning. I know there's a heck of a lot to do, so I keep putting things off until there's so much clutter, I have no choice but to roll up my sleeves and start moving junk out. I'm almost at that point now with the fourth in my mystery series. There are plenty of ideas piling up, but I'm not sure where to put them yet and I have no clue what to throw out. I'm going to start today with an outline to see if I can clear up some of the clutter in my brain. If my next blogs are about going to Dairy Queen, you know that I'm putting the book off for another week. Wish me luck.

Looking over the revisions, I think I'm on to something. I like that Jacob has a more personal connection to Midnight Cowboy. Originally, Jacob was just an assistant to Eugene Crowley. Now, he's got something at stake; his family members were victims. It means I have to re-examine the relationship Eugene has with Jacob throughout the play, but I think this is an interesting dynamic. Eugene is using Jacob like bait, believing that Midnight Cowboy's "trophies" are the survivors of his murders. And Jacob now has a reason to be engaged in the hunt, rather than just a bystander. As long as I make the reason credible, I think the revision will work. Let's see how it looks after a couple of days thought. I might change my mind.

Weird. I'm trying to pull my head out of my cat picture book and get into the world of killers with The Bone House. Today, I've been working on the first major scene in the play, trying to revamp it so that it works without technology. Upon reading it a second and third time, I realize the original and the revised scene just aren't working for me. I'm going to have to mull this one over a bit before I get it right.

I think I found my summer book. It's the first in a trilogy by director Guillermo del Toro and it's called The Strain. Apparently, it's about vampires. Normally, I'm not a fan of the fanged fiends, but something about the synopsis grabbed my attention. The book (I'm hoping) seemed more like a zombie novel. I can't wait to crack it open and find out. Welcome to the summer!

Well, just received a happy reminder that I still have a theatre career. The Edmonton Sterling nominations were announced and The Forbidden Phoenix was nominated for outstanding production of a musical. Also nominated was my fight choreographer, Adrian Young.

The Toronto Dora nominations also came out and the play received a nod for Best Musical. My other choreographer, Laura Krewski, got a nod for her choreography. Plus, Richard Lee and Nadine Villasin received acting nods and director Ron Jenkins got a nod as well.

The only weird question I have is that our actors had to switch roles about a week into the Toronto run. Was Nadine nominated for the Phoenix or the Empress Dowager? Hmmm...

Anyway, my heartfelt congratulations and thanks to all the cast and crew who busted their humps putting together the show. I'm glad that the effort was recognized (even if we don't win).

What's the cliche? It's just a thrill to be nominated. Maybe I'll adjust it to this: "as long as I don't see the final score, my team always has a chance of winning the game."

Great news. Just talked to the fine folks at the Edmonton Humane Society. They had 46 adoptions on Saturday and 29 on Sunday, bringing their weekend total to 75 adoptions. Between the two raffles and book sales, the EHS raised over $2,000 during their open house. I'm thrilled to have been a part of the event.

Now all I have is one last school visit (next week) and then I become a writing maniac. I have to prepare The Forbidden Phoenix for publication, revise The Bone House for production and write a new Marty Chan mystery novel for publication. Summer? What summer?

Well, despite my fumbling attempts at snaring publicity, we had a wonderful turnout for the book launch on Saturday. EZ Rock was on site all day to promote the open house, and there was an amazing number of people who came through the facilities and into our book launch. I donated $3 from every book sold to the EHS, and we offered a customized watercolour painting as a raffle prize. Between the two fundraising activities, we raised over a thousand dollars for the EHS. I also heard that over 50 adoptions were processed on Saturday alone. Normally, the EHS processes 50 adoptions in a weekend.

All in all, I was pretty thrilled with the launch. I have one more video launch to do on Tuesday, and then the book signings in the summer begin. No rest for the wicked or the self-published authors.