Janice MacDonald's Blog: Notes on writing - Posts Tagged "writing"

Why do writers write? It's certainly not for a chance at immediate response, though when it does come — like it did today, in the form of a colleague popping over to my cubicle to say, "I just finished your latest and loved it. I'm starting on the one about computers now" — it's lovely. It's not for the money, either, though I am pretty sure most writers make more money than I do. And it's certainly not for glory or respect; after all, one of my own children has never read any of my books.

But I'll let you in on a moment that explains why writing is the whole reason, in and of itself.

Looking for a setting that made sense for the mystery novel storyline I'm presently working on, I recalled a place my mother once taught back in the days of teacherages and one-room schoolhouses. I knew the original site was no longer there, but needed to know what was along that road, so that I could fabricate with impunity (loose translation: make shit up) and then pop in one of those nice little poetic licence commentaries at the end about how I'd made everything up. My husband and I made plans to take a drive out that way to look around.

While waiting for my husband to wake up on the holiday Monday, I decided to write the passage the way I wanted it to be, figuring it would be easier to edit later than waste time. I decided that as well as inventing a standing schoolhouse that would now be a museum/meeting hall, I needed a historic marker on the highway, one of those pullover sites that contain a garbage pail and a sign detailing the important event that took place in the vicinity — perhaps even a map. My mom used to make a point of stopping to read these markers, all over the country, and it's become a habit with me, too. I decided I would have Randy Craig and her friend Denise pull into the layby to get away from a tractor pulling a huge load of hay bales and find something important. Randy would read the map on the sign, and things would come clearer by the minute. I got eight pages written in the silence of the early morning.

Around 9:30, after a quick breakfast, we headed out and drove into the blue Alberta day. It took us just over an hour to get to the highway we were aiming for. I grinned when we passed MacDonald Road, thinking that if I was someone who believed in omens, this would be a good one. A little later on, near where the school would have stood, had it still been there, we noticed a small historic marker arrow. We pulled off the road, and there it was: the historic marker sign — with a map. It wasn't quite as I had described earlier in my imagination. And there was no garbage can. But as I stood there, taking photos and trying to quell the shivers I get when my worlds mesh, a tractor hauling a truckload of hay bales drove slowly by.

That's the magic of writing.

I have one weekend to go. I intend to get in the car with my husband, drive out of town to our friends' house for a relaxing evening of good food, wine and board games. We may play a bit of music together. I know we'll laugh a lot. And I will enjoy every minute. And boy, will I need it.

Because next week, I am getting my manuscript back from my editor. It will be accompanied by about 24 pages of close, single-spaced notes. They will be prefaced with a paragraph telling me how much she enjoyed the story. Because she is a very nice person, she has in fact already written me two short emails to that effect.

It's what comes after that paragraph that will take a whole lot of energy to get through, and then a whole lot of work to deal with. Because it is never much fun dealing with critiques of your work — even critiques meant to make your work the best it can be. I am and have always been a carrot responder. Sticks hurt my feelings and leave me feeling completely deflated.

However, I will read through all of her notes, and I will set my alarm to ungodly-thirty A.M. each Friday night, and I will resign my weekends for the foreseeable future to rewrites and nail-biting and swearing under my breath. I will work my way through all 24 pages, shifting and changing the words I sweated over, moving situations and plot lines about and even cutting the occasional beloved character. I will also craft tortured paragraphs of justification for every phrase I cannot bear to lose, worrying that it won't be enough of an argument to sway my editor, who will have grown to resemble Grendel's mother in my mind's eye (she's actually a very attractive young woman with shiny hair and great shoulders).

The book, which my publisher paid me an advance on, and liked so much that he entrusted it to a gifted, qualified, expensive editor, will at various points in these next few weeks seem like both the best thing I have ever written and the worst pile of verbiage anyone scraped off their shoe. I will wonder why it is I ever thought I could write. I will cry a bit and be an enormous irritant to my husband. I will be distracted while commuting. I may burn dinner.

I will also dance about a bit when I laugh anew at the funny bits I cannot wait for people to read, I'll thrill to the exciting bits that pop, and I will thank my editor for making the suggestions I needed to tighten, to tauten, to clear away the dross. (What little there was, of course.)

And I will be so happy when spring arrives and the books come off the press and I hold one in my hand and whisper, "Thank you, Sharon."

There is very little glamour in writing a book, if you happen to be me. I drag myself out of bed on weekend mornings at 5:30 a.m. Dressed in comfy pants, a cozy sweater and fuzzy socks, I brew a pot of French Market Chicory Coffee (thank you Ron and Jeff!) and curl up in one of the chairs in our living room to knock out five pages minimum. When I eventually have a decent draft to send off to my editor, she and I volley it back and forth (she's in Winnipeg, so I end up face-to-face with her maybe once every couple of years) and at long last I'll see cover art and page proofs, while rising to knock out five pages on the next manuscript.

In between, my husband updates the website, my friends meet for lunch to commiserate about our compulsion to pursue writing careers, and I buy other people's books, read about other people's books in glossy magazines and listen to national broadcasters gush about other people's books. Oh yes, and I clock in at my day job, which is challenging, stimulating, and filled with wonderful colleagues. Which is a good thing, eh?

But every once in a while, the magic happens.

And last night on June 15th, at the Rutherford House Provincial Historic Site, I felt like a princess. The new book, Condemned to Repeat: A Randy Craig Mystery, was piled up in a glorious display on the Rutherfords' shiny dining table, people I love and respect kept piling in through the door, and party food and drink was laid out in the tea room. The new book begins at Rutherford House, with a mystery dinner theatre event based on a magicians' reunion, so our friend Stephen Dafoe (who in an earlier incarnation had been a touring professional magician) whipped up a short magic act to entertain after my reading. After the entertainment, I signed books at Premier Alexander Rutherford's desk... it was all very heady.

Kelly Hewson, my best friend from grad school, drove up from Calgary to help us celebrate. All my friends from work were there. People I admire, who have shaped me into who I am, were there in droves: Tom Peacocke, Jim de Felice, Margaret Van de Pitte, Nancy Gibson and John Whittaker, and many more. Family like Randy Williams, Larry Reese, Ruth Kindree and Jossie Mant were on hand. And friends! Stalwart pals through thick and thin showed up to share in the celebration.

Sharon and Steve Budnarchuk, who own Audreys Books and have been so supportive over the years, managed the sales and food. Sharon Caseburg, my darling editor, spent time and energy conspiring with Olga Fowler of Rutherford House Provincial Historic Site to put the whole event together. Masani St. Rose-Toth and her husband Justin provided glorious fruity iced tea.

Also, excitingly, several fans of the series I didn't know till last night were there and introduced themselves to me. There were more than sixty people there, and various people who couldn’t make it sent lovely notes and promises of lunch dates ahead. I wore splendid red shoes and shiny red nail polish and my new Simon Chang dress and was toasted and feted and awash in good cheer. I could hardly sleep last night, reliving and reverberating.

And this morning, I rolled out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to work on the next manuscript. It's okay, it's what I do. Another few thousand words, another few drafts, another few revisions, some more solitary Saturday and Sunday mornings, and there'll be another marvelous party.

On Thursday, May 29, 2014, I attended the YWCA of Edmonton's 2014 Women of Distinction Awards, having been nominated in the "Arts and Culture" category. It was a lovely party -- a sincere honour to be nominated, a thrilling experience to be in the presence of so many incredible women, and a delight to spend the evening with a posse of very vocal supporters. It also jogged some of my earliest memories of the organization.

When I was four, my mother signed me up for swimming lessons at the YWCA downtown, in a building which is long gone now. The swimming pool was in the basement, and I recall exposed pipes alternating with lines of little trident flags on a rather dark, low ceiling. I am not sure if there was even the height necessary for a small diving board in that pool.

There were bleachers along one side, though, and my mother sat there along with other mothers, breathing in the chlorine, reading her book, and waiting for this particular Saturday morning chore to be over so she could do the many other things crammed into her short weekends.

I am not by nature a floating sort of person. I wasn't when I was smaller and I still am not. I have to work to stay buoyant. While I am hard-wired to learn new skills with eagerness and joy, try as I might, the whole getting across the pool without touching the bottom of the pool never happened. The lessons went on, and I grew more and more sad every Saturday morning. Still, on we went, splash splash with the legs, cup and pull with the arms. Knowing how to swim could save a life, after all.

The last Saturday of the series of lessons was to be a celebration, and each class was to show their abilities to the full complement of parents in bleachers. The whole day-long roster of lessons were brought together to perform in a circus-themed performance. We had costumes and music. Of course we did. Those were the days that tulle was invented for, and if you weren’t twirling a baton, you were tap dancing like a grim little trouper.

Our class of little Esther Williamses were to be lions. We would dog-paddle in a line to the centre, swim in a circle and then dogpaddle, and stretch out into starfish. We had orange tulle ruffs for our heads, and we were told to look fierce. I was great at the looking fierce part, but the teacher wisely tapped another reluctant floater and me to be the central cubs. While the real swimmers did their circle, she and I -- who had trailed along with our paws fiercely parting the water, but our feet walking boldly along the bottom of the pool, stood in the centre of the swimmers and gamely growled and pawed the water.

My mother was sitting there, giggling, and the woman next to her said, "Which one is yours?" Mom pointed and said, "One of those two in the middle." The other mother said, "Oh thank God, mine is the other one1" When it was all over, I think we went out to lunch, to celebrate what my mom used to call "the art of showing up."

So, while I eventually learned to tread water and do a passable crawl that could take me the length of a pool, I didn't learn that at the YWCA. But the Y was where I learned one of the big lessons: how to grin and look fierce, even when you're not managing the right steps. And knowing how to do that can save a life, after all.

Grrrrr!