by Sandra Gulland | Oct 18, 2015 | Adventures of a Writing Life, Resources for Book Clubs, Resources for Readers |
I got back home last night from a flash-trip to Edmonton for a “reading” at StarFest, the St. Albert Readers Festival in Saint Albert, Alberta. I’m still aglow from it! It was such a special evening. Close to 100 in attendance—”sold out”—and a wonderful crowd. I’ve honed my talk-with-prizes—such fun!
Here’s a wonderful comment a reader put on Facebook that the StarFest organizer just sent me:
The most wonderful thing about being a writer is having you READERS. <3
I’ve a million things to do, so I’m going to leave it at that for now. It was lightly snowing when I got back last night and in week and a half my husband and I turn into Snow Birds and head south.
You might have noticed that my website is changing. Please forgive the awkward transition phase—the visuals, especially. I have to change the basic design—the “theme” in WordPress language—so that it can be read more comfortably on mobile devices (i.e. tablets and smart phones). Ultimately, it’s going to look very much like it did before, but better.
Sundry Sundae delectable links:
Links for Napoleonistas …
• I love this painting of Napoleon. So very like him.
Links for travellers …
• On giving the fountains at Versailles a new look. I used to be horrified by such changes, but I’ve come to see them as so very, very French … and a wonderful thing.
Links for Serial podcast followers …
• If you were one of the billions following the Serial podcast, you will want to know the newest (and shocking) revelations: here, here and here. This new form of Net journalism could have a very positive effect. It would be a relief to see justice for Adnan, and—one prays—changes made to the “injustice” system that incarcerated him.
Have a wonderful week!
by Sandra Gulland | Oct 10, 2015 | Adventures of a Writing Life, On Plot, Resources for Book Clubs, Resources for Readers, Resources for Writers |
Sorry, Peeps, I’ve apparently disappeared on you! I was doing my best to post at least once a week, and — voilá — now two weeks have passed.
An update:
The plot does indeed thicken: with index cards, the old standard. My extensively detailed Excel plot sheet bombed on me. Excel is complex, and once it stops working, it’s challenging to fix—at least for me. (If I do need a spreadsheet at some point, I think I will use Numbers.)
But for now, returning to index cards is refreshing.
What’s nice about index cards is that you can move them around and clump them up. You can throw them out and add more. You can lay them out, squint at them, and rearrange them. The other thing you can do is stick post-it notes to them. I had piles around: Random Thought Capture I think of them. Sticking them on index cards and putting them in a semblance of order is calming.
What’s eating up my time:
- Pondering plot (puzzling);
- Research (fascinating);
- Taxes (aggravating!);
- Health: getting shots, check-ups, consultations, plus learning how to sleep using a CPAP machine (challenging);
- Fixing things (sigh);
- Finding things (double sigh);
- Gardening (oh, my back!);
- Reading: catching up on many issues of The New Yorker, Renaissance, and The New York Review of Books before we head south (yikes!);
- Preparing for Canadian Thanksgiving (yay!), always a big, boisterous celebration at our house;
- Preparing for a trip west to give a talk at StarFest. (:-) See below!
- Getting ready to fly south for the winter. (What? Already?)
An event coming up …
I’m going to be flying to Edmonton next week to give a talk (with prizes!) at StarFest, the St. Albert Readers Festival in Saint Albert, Alberta, October 16, Friday night at 7:00.
I’ve heard that this is a great festival; I’m very much looking forward to it. Do come!
Sundry Sundae delectable links:
Links for writers …
• À propos to the above: 7 ways to write a plot outline; The Infographic.
• What agents think. :-(
Links for creatives (i.e. everyone) …
• I read—and loved—Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She is so gently hectoring in an altogether inspiring way. Elizabeth Gilbert on the perils of ignoring your creative self. Right on, sister!
Links for Napoleonistas …
• I adore Canadian cartoonist and history-loving nerd Kate Beaton: Napoleon wasn’t so short after all: a cartoonist’s take on history.
Links for historians …
• Opium Eating: The Lincolnshire Fens in the early nineteenth-century.
Links for just about anyone …
• Who isn’t overwhelmed? I find Stephanie Bennett Vogt’s books on clearing clutter — both mental and physical — inspiring. I’m looking forward to her newest book A Year to Clear and enjoyed watching her three videos on clearing: Reducing Overwhelm, Releasing Stuck Energy, and Getting Spacious.
Happy Thanksgiving Canadians!
by Sandra Gulland | Sep 27, 2015 | Adventures of a Writing Life, Resources, Resources for Readers, Resources for Writers, The Writing Process |
Last Tuesday morning there was a terrible tragedy in our peaceful part of the world: an enraged man, recently out on parole, sought out and murdered three of his former girlfriends. Our community is so small that everyone knows someone who knew one of the victims or even the killer. It is hard to comprehend such a loss … impossible to comprehend such rage.
It is also impossible to comprehend a “justice” system that allows a repeat violent offender out on parole without providing any protection whatsoever for the women he’d already abused and threatened.
There was a beautiful vigil for the three on Friday night: it helps to share tears with hundreds (and hundreds) of others.
{Photos posted on-line by the Ottawa Sun.}
I am officially Lost in Plot. Will I ever emerge? I’m not so sure! When I’m not puzzling, I’m painting, or weeding, or reading (Lila), or avoiding getting to taxes. :-(
Here is a painting I finished this week, inspired by a photo I saw on Facebook.
My Sundry Sundae delectable links for the week:
Links for writers …
• Different Types of Plot in Fiction, by Kate Forsyth. An interesting summary.
• Writing a novel: 8 writing tips from Ursula K. Le Guin. Very practical!
More on the Sun King this week …
• Louis XIV: What France’s Sun King did for art. He was a cultured man.
Links for time travellers …
• The Diaries of Miss Fanny Chapman (beginning in 1807). It’s wonderful to see the Net used to publish such invaluable historical work. “Just before tea time Miss Simms, the daughter of a farmer near Miss Pyne’s, sent her a brace of beautiful partridges.” Don’t you just love it?
Links for just about anyone …
• I’ve been reading Marian Schembari’s blogs for some time. She has an honest vitality and sense of humour that is very engaging. I originally read her because she wrote very astutely about promotion and social media. Now I’ll read whatever she writes. I’m always happy to see a new post by her. Here’s a recent one: My recipe for $800 cupcakes.
Have a great week.
by Sandra Gulland | Sep 20, 2015 | Adventures of a Writing Life, Resources for Writers, The Writing Process |
We had little more excitement this week than we cared for!
{A cloudy NY offered wonderful photo opportunities. I especially enjoyed catching the suggestive night window dressing moment on the Highline.}
After a wonderful trip to NY to see our son, we arrived home in good time on Tuesday, only to be overwhelmed by the sickening smell of dead mouse wafting throughout the house. We quickly threw down our suitcases, opened all windows and doors and set five fans blowing.
Shortly after, the power went out (but not because of the fans), and shortly after that there was a terrifying series of extremely loud explosions. I found out what I do in such a case: I run in and out of the house trembling. (Handy to know: there’s an explosion in my next YA about Hortense.) We thought it must have been the meter, triggered somehow by our new electrical furnace.
It was 6:00 by this time. We were afraid to use our generator under the circumstances, so we set out all the candles and flashlights, the land-line telephone, and closed the windows and doors since we wouldn’t have heat for the night. By then we’d thought better of staying. Instead, we’d have a quick dinner while there was still light, then pack up and move to our cabin on a lake. It was in a state of disruption due to work being done on it, but at least it had electricity, toilets and a Net connection. Who knew how long we would be without power at the house? In the morning we would contact the furnace and electrical companies.
The next morning, the furnace turned out not to be the villain, but the dead mouse was found. (Yes!) Then the electricity crew came out. A transformer on the telephone pole 100 ft. from our house had exploded. Why, we don’t know. It had been a calm, cloudless day.
The power was going to be out at the house for some time, so we packed up more gear and returned to the cabin, where—groan—we discovered that the power had gone out due to a problem in a village some distance from us.
So: back to the house, having since learned that we could safely use the generator.
We returned to a house littered with open suitcases, dirty dishes, candles and fans—but blessedly odour-free.
That evening, however, a friend encountered a very large bear at the top of our driveway. I was waiting for her not 25 feet away.
TMI? I just had to share.
It’s a pleasure to get back to what might be considered Normal Life. However, there are two things I should put on my To Do List every day, for inevitably they have to be dealt with:
- 1 hour: puzzle out why Net/computer/software isn’t working.
- ½ hour: search for something I’ve misplaced.
Here was my To Do List for today:
- 1 hr. exercise
- 2 hrs. puzzle out plot
- 1 hr. Skype French lesson
- chat with our son & daughter
- ½ hour weeding
- 1 hr. taxes
- ½ hr. watercolour painting
- blog post
I am down to the last one: this blog post. It helps to wake at 4:00 with a compelling idea on how to tackle the plot revision. (More on that later.)
My Sundry Sundae delectable links for this week:
Links for writers …
• 3 Simple Prewriting Strategies.
• The Units of Story: The Sequence. There is a lot to learn in this series from StoryGrid.com.
Links for Napoleonistas people with a sick sense of humour …
• Okay, this is a little sick: Napoleonistas as well as parents will be understandably offended by this account of how Napoleon died, as told by stinking drunk kids. (The Drunk History series is rather amusing.)
Links for Sun King enthusiasts …
• There has been quite a bit again this week on the Sun King because September 1st was the 300th anniversary of his death. Here is a big treat for you all: The King Who Invented Ballet, a wonderful BBC documentary on how Louis XIV invented ballet. At the end of the video is the ballet. Heavenly! (Note: if for some reason you can’t watch this video here, you can watch it on YouTube.)
• Accompany this with a Forbes article: How Ballet Can Make You A Better Leader.
Have a great week!
by Sandra Gulland | Sep 10, 2015 | Adventures of a Writing Life, Resources, Resources for Writers, The Writing Process |
Another whirlwind week. Is there any other kind? We’re leaving for NY today—a five-day visit with our son.
I’d told my editor and agent that I would have the revised first section of the WIP to them before I left, and I’ve been working toward that deadline.
Meeting a deadline—a commitment to send out—invariably entails many sleepless nights, which creates a certain frenetic heat. The creative cauldron, I think of it.
At the beginning of this period, I had lost faith the work and, worse, lost faith in my ability to write at all. Despair! As I worked on the MS, I was also composing, at the same time, a draft of a resignation letter.
In the heat of the cauldron, however, I began making big changes, revising the pages over and over again. By D-Day, the day to send—which was only the day before yesterday—I was, miraculously, actually pleased with the work.
And off it went, without that letter of resignation. I had gone from despair to elation in a matter of days.
Now: time for a holiday!
This week’s delicious Sundae Sundries
Links for writers & other creatives …
• Nine Secrets to Successfully Completing that Elusive First Draft. Or that elusive fifth draft, for that matter. :-( This is a very good article.
• The most popular article in my Flipboard magazine this week, not surprisingly, was: Rude awakening: three essential rules for writing good sex. This is a helpful article.
• This is funny: Free Blurbs for Your Book!
• I love this: How Reading (and Writing) Obituaries Can Improve Your Fiction.
• 9 Creativity Tips You Can Learn from Geniuses. Many good suggestions!
Links for Sun King enthusiastists …
There is quite a bit on the Net right now on the Sun King because of the 300th anniversary of his death on September 1. Here are a few I like:
• Louis XIV: The Sun King & the Arts.
• How Ballet Can Make You A Better Leader.
• Louis XIV: What France’s Sun King did for art.
• This post launches a wonderful Wallace Collection series on the Sun King.
One thing I always think about with respect to the Sun King’s death is how his wife, Madame Maintenon, left at the very end; she wasn’t by his side when he passed. This has been interpreted by some as heartlessness, but my feeling—entirely subjective—is that we don’t understand life without pain killers. The presence of loved ones can make it harder for the dying to “let go.” Leaving would be considered a mercy.
On that somber note: have a great week!
