Stopping to Listen
I’m not writing today. I’m tempted. I have a story that’s been talking to me for a couple of weeks now, asserting itself with scene ideas when I’m trying to sleep, keeping my mind occupied when I’m running errands or working out or doing any of the thousand things we do in a day that don’t need our full, undivided attention. It’s alluring, the thought of opening up the word processor and getting some of it down on paper. And I will. But not yet. A month ago, just before I went away to Scotland for two weeks, I turned in a manuscript to my agent. I’d spent weeks rewriting and editing it, and was thrilled to get it off my plate before I left. Once I hit send, I was free to take a holiday from writing. None of the other projects I have on the back burner were talking to me, and it was time for a much-needed break. While I was away, I took time to breathe, to look, to see new things and soak in all I could. Apart from keeping a journal of how I spent my days, I didn’t even think about writing until the second-last night, when an unexpected conversation with new acquaintances meandered wonderfully for hours. Even then, I was in the moment, enjoying terrific people I’d never have met if I hadn’t taken this trip. At one point, one of them said, “this will all be fodder for your next novel,” and we all laughed and continued on to other things. Two days later, on the flight home, I got an inkling that he could be right. A new story started to whisper in my ear, the genesis of it formed in those few hours in the company of strangers who seemed like friends. In the couple of weeks since I got home, I’ve discovered afresh something I tend to forget in the busyness of life and the desire to fit writing into any available minute, always looking for forward progress: there is a difference between procrastination and stillness. Writers are notorious for the former. Not writing is so much easier than writing that we can easily become masters of procrastination. But when we try too hard to battle against that, making ourselves write even when we’re not ready, we can get stuck in the idea that only words=progress, forgetting that thinking and listening and percolating are all part of the job, too. Sometimes, it’s good just to listen to the world around us and to what our subconscious sends up for us to think about along the way, to let an idea grow quietly and assert itself until listening isn’t enough and it demands to be transcribed. I’ve consciously stayed away from starting this story, focusing instead on jotting down notes and ideas as they come to me. If I’d started it when I got home and the idea was too fresh, I’d have struggled through part of a scene, with no idea where I was going next, and stalled. I’ve killed other ideas that way, so I know exactly how easily that can happen. But now, with a couple of weeks to let the idea grow and gel in my thoughts, I have at least half a dozen characters who are pretty clear in my mind, a setting, a sense of what this story might look like, and ideas for at least a handful of scenes. I still don’t know where it’s going, but I have enough to go on. Soon, I’ll put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and start. But I’ll try to remember to stop once in awhile, too, and listen. Share...
Query Tips From My Inbox
I don’t claim to be an expert on query letters, and I’m not a literary agent. But in my day job as a conference coordinator, I get a LOT of inquiries from people who are interested in being part of our conference. Most of these are perfectly reasonable emails, but by around this time every year, enough problematic ones have arrived that the common mistakes people make in writing and sending queries become astoundingly obvious. And if they’re obvious to me, with my relatively small number of queries received, imagine how they look to literary agents who deal with thousands of queries every year. So, for what it’s worth, here are a few of my tips for cleaning up your queries, based on the repeated mistakes I encounter: 1. Follow the directions. Yes, hoop jumping can be frustrating. But showing you can jump through the requested hoop shows you’re reasonable to work with and avoids annoying the recipient by wasting his or her time. There are reasons for the directions. One of the things I ask for, for example, is for proposals to include where the person lives. This is important information for our board in allocating travel budget, and I don’t want to have to go hunting for it. It may seem like a nothing thing, but including that bit of requested information puts you ahead of the people who don’t bother. 2. Use email unless otherwise instructed. Whether it’s a query@ address, a direct email address, or a contact form on an email, there is almost certainly a correct, requested place to send your query that should not be difficult to find. Unless you are specifically asked to by the person you’re querying, NEVER use social media for queries. Facebook, Twitter, etc., are great, but they are not the place for business communication unless that’s what the instructions say. 3. Remember you are writing to a human being. Your goal is to establish a professional working relationship. Queries and proposals should not be generic press releases sent without context or salutation. In the same vein, you are a human writing to another human. This isn’t the place to talk about yourself in the third person. (If you’re later asked to send a bio, however, third person is great!) 4. A query is a business letter. Conferences and publishing are businesses. Want to stand out from the crowd? You don’t need to be fancy. Write a clear, informative business letter that includes all the relevant information and is grammatically correct. There is no magic here. I know people fret over writing these letters (I have, too!). If you’re going to agonize over anything, agonize over writing an intriguing blurb about your book or for your proposed workshops. Then surround the blurb(s) with a friendly, straightforward letter that contains any requested information, and you’ll be ahead of 9/10 of the other people sending queries. Most of this won’t be new to most of you, but I’m throwing it out there in hopes it’s helpful to someone! Feel free to add your own tips or thoughts in the comments. Share...
Help My Husband Make a Movie
Hello, all! Probably easiest to let my husband speak for himself here, since he knows the details. His note is below. If you’re able to help with a few minutes of your time, either by becoming a fan to support Hyde+Seek yourself (details below) or simply passing the information along to others who might be interested, I’d really appreciate it! Thank you. Kathy Hey friends and family, As you may know, I’m entered in the Cinecoup movie contest with a great local production cast and crew. The prize is $1M in funding to complete the movie, called Hyde+Seek, and and make its way to a theatre near you! We would love your support to help take us through several voting rounds as we progress to the final stages for consideration. There will be many future challenges and hoops that the team have to jump through to prove we’re worthy of the ultimate prize. I think we have a really great science fiction Jekyll and Hyde concept that should be an intelligent and thrilling ride into the near future, where the lines between humanity and technology get blurred. What happens when always-on connectivity and implanted bio-technology get hacked? You can watch our 60-second trailer here: http://www.cinecoup.com/hyde-and-seek/trailer How you can support us: A) Fans… Please sign up as a Fan on Cinecoup if you can. Fan votes and ratings have more impact than non-Fans, but you have to review and comment on OTHER projects to validate your Fan status. Please ask any of your film critic/most supportive friends to take this step in support of us. Unlike Kickstarter or Indiegogo, we aren’t asking for money, just support through likes, shares and referrals. B) Non-Fans… as above mentions, sharing the video page even without the viewers’ ability to rate/review helps. Thanks so much for the support, and please pass this on to others through email, Facebook, or Twitter. Martin FB: facebook.com/hydeseekmovie Twitter: @hydeseekmovie Share...
Writing Inspiration
Happy new year! I took a couple of weeks off over the holidays. I started out the month by accepting Nephele Tempest’s December writing challenge, in which you try to find at least fifteen minutes to write every day. It worked exceedingly well for me the first three weeks of the month, by which point I’d met all my writing goals for December and more, so I didn’t feel at all guilty about taking a much-needed vacation from work of all sorts. Like for all writers I know, time off is never just time off. Everything I encounter in the world has the potential to fill the well, inspire me, prompt story ideas, or make me want to be a better writer. That’s one of the reasons I think it’s important to step out of my own head and see what else is out in the world This time, in the deep dark days and nights of winter, I encountered all sorts of things that made me want to write. In no particular order, these included Reading: I read a lot over the holidays. There’s not much I enjoy more than curling up with a great book and a cup of tea or a glass of wine, with nowhere I have to be and nothing else I absolutely have to do. One of the authors I read over the holidays was Mary Balogh. Her historical romances have been auto-buys for me since her Slightly series made me fall in love with Regency romance as a go-to cosy escape read. Mary invariably makes me care about her characters, and every time I realize she’s done that again, it inspires me to write and find ways to do that for my own characters. Watching TV: We’ve been on a bit of a Mad Men kick at our house, late enough to the party to be able to watch straight through from the beginning and still have lots more to catch up on after weeks of returning to it again and again. I’m impressed with the show’s writers’ efforts to show rather than tell. I appreciate writing that respects its audience, and I feel like Mad Men does that. Often, after watching an episode, I am revved up to get some writing done. Exploring: I spent an afternoon wandering through vintage and antique shops, where I always wonder about the story behind the stock. I came home with a blue rhinestone brooch that sparkles in the light and made me happy to look at. There’s a story behind it; I’m sure of it. Also, we found time for a very brief visit to my favourite island over New Year’s, and being there, with the trees and the sea and the stars we can’t ever see in the same numbers in the city, always inspires me to put words on paper. Time with family: I have a teenage daughter, and for most of the holidays this year, I also had my niece staying with us. Every time I feel lazy about writing or consider blowing off planned writing time, I think about them. There’s nothing quite as motivating as knowing your kids are watching every time you make time for – or don’t make time for – your dreams. What inspires you to write? Share...
Happy Holidays
I’m deep into the last-minute preparations – baking, cleaning, wrapping presents – for our family’s Christmas celebrations. But today, I took a couple of hours off to have a hot chocolate with a good friend, and when I got home, a package was waiting for me from another, who lives on the other side of the country from me. Inside? A box of her homemade sponge toffee. It made me teary-eyed when I opened it and saw that she’d taken the time to send a homemade treat from 3500km away. For me, that’s exactly the kind of thing that makes the magic of Christmas. It’s lovely to do nice things for people at any time of year, but there’s something special about a stretch of time in darkest winter when so many people make an effort to be especially kind to one another, to help out, to choose gifts for people they might not regularly have the chance to buy or make things for, to remind the people they love that they love them, to send a handwritten card, to wish each other happiness, to hold a door open for someone laden with packages, and so much more. That’s what this time of year is about for me. To all of you, whatever you celebrate, happy holidays. I wish you magic. Share...
Reflections on This Week
This is going to be a long post, because it’s been a full week in the news already, and it’s only Thursday, and I’ve got a lot on my mind. This American Thanksgiving, I imagine there are a lot of conversations going on at a lot of family dinners about the decision of the Grand Jury not to indict Darren Wilson for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent protests in cities all over North America and the world. I know we’ve been having those conversations at our own dinner table. Whatever your views on this particular case, the fact is that black Americans are statistically far more likely to be killed by police in the USA than white Americans, and that’s a big societal problem that goes far deeper than any one case. (Here’s one look at the numbers, thanks to Jim C. Hines.) I sincerely hope the heightened awareness of the problems that has come out of this leads to positive change. I’ve been feeling for the parents particularly this week. As a parent myself, my biggest worry is keeping my child safe. I’ve been thinking a lot about the parents of teens and young adults of colour in the States, whose base level of fear for their kids has to be so much higher than mine is. I don’t have to raise my child to understand that she might be seen as a threat because of her colour or that the default position of the world around her is to see her as a risk and that that puts her at risk. Parenting is difficult enough without that extra worry, and I wish no one had to suffer it. If you’re struggling to understand what it is to live with that heightened sense of danger, and you have any knowledge at all of Star Trek, Mary Robinette Kowal offers a useful analogy on her blog. *** In other news, former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi has been arrested and charged with sexual assault and is out on bail, ordered to live with his mother. The women who came forward to tell their stories about Jian deserve our thanks. Without their voices, this would not have happened, and Jian could still be working at the CBC, a public figure with access to young women anytime he wanted. It’s extraordinarily brave to speak up about a crime for which our society seems unable to avoid blaming the victim, and I’m proud of all women who voluntarily put themselves on trial on the public stage by doing so. *** Finally, I was very saddened this week by the death of Pat Quinn, former player, coach, president, and GM of the Vancouver Canucks. I’ve often thought that one of the reasons so many people are drawn to their local sports teams, apart from the sport itself, is because of the sense of community they provide. The teams are like our local gladiators, someone to root for, for a community to get behind, when our modern world provides so little opportunity for that kind of large-scale connection with our neighbours. Pat Quinn pretty much single-handedly brought that back to Vancouver in the late eighties and early nineties, an era when hockey was as close to dead as it ever has been in this city, and the echoes of his influence are still heard in the city today. My thoughts are with his family, friends, colleagues, and all the people whose lives he touched through hockey and otherwise. Share...
Day Job Gratitude
Around this time every year, after a couple of months of having every waking minute – and lots of sleeping ones – taken up with my work for the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, the to-do list associated with this year’s event dwindles to a manageable level, and I lift my head and look at the world outside the SiWC box, breathe a little fresh air, get some good sleep, and feel the niggling, aching need to write gathering in my soul. I’m excited to see what comes. But leaping back in the writing pool after a long hiatus is a little scary. Somehow, even though I’ve been here many times before and it always turns out fine, there’s a tiny bit of fear that I’ve forgotten how to swim. So I thought I’d start here with a nice, easy blog post. Besides, I have a giant well of gratitude I need to share. Coordinating SiWC is an amazing privilege. I have made life-long friends doing it, and every October, I get to visit with some of them, meet new ones, and watch all the work I’ve put in for the whole year culminate in four days of learning and connections, camaraderie and inspiration. I love it. It’s exhausting and exhilarating, and I am so very lucky to have it in my life. I’m also uniquely fortunate to be in a position where I get a great deal of feedback about what kind of a job I’m doing. I’ve spent the last few days reading every single one of the evaluation forms turned in by attendees and presenters at this year’s conference, as well as all the emails and blog posts and tweets people have sent or posted. Literally hundreds of people took the time to tell us how the conference was for them, what they loved, which sessions and blue pencils got their wheels turning, what moved them and inspired them, what they’d love to see in future, and more. What an incredible gift that is when you’re trying to do a good job. This year in particular, a huge number of people stopped me while they were still at the conference to say thank you for all the hard work. Isn’t that something? Most of us work alone most of the time. Even if we work in offices or among other people, how often does anyone stop to say, “Thank you. You’re doing a great job”? it’s not something that’s happened to me very often in other jobs I’ve worked, that’s for sure. It’s not that people don’t notice, but it’s not often part of our work culture to express it frequently or even, in some jobs, at all. But the amazing people of SiWC do. They make the effort to say it when they think it. And if they have suggestions for making something better, they tell me that, too. What a gift that is. So to all of you who took the time to say thank you, to share your thoughts, to spread the word about the conference, I say thank you. You make all the hard work worthwhile. In fact, you make me want to work even harder to make SiWC even better for you every year. Sometimes the thank yous I get make me teary-eyed because they’re so touching. That happened more than a couple of times reading the evaluation forms. Some of those comments weren’t meant for public consumption, so I can’t share them here, but two things that made my cry were posted publicly, and I hope you won’t mind me indulging myself by sharing them here. The first was a tweet, posted after the conference by Michele Fogal, who was an awesome volunteer for us this year: The second was this wonderful blog post, written by attendee Amanda Hagarty, whose experience at SiWC was exactly what I hope for when we set to work planning for the year. You can read it here: http://www.amandajunehagarty.com/2014/10/siwc-quite-possibly-best-writers.html Pretty wonderful stuff, at least for me. Thank you again, everyone who attended, volunteered for, talked about, presented at, or was otherwise part of the SiWC community this year. I appreciate you. Share...
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