Reading as Writers

Archive for the ‘Seven Questions, Now and Then’ Category

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

That’s a tough question. I read a lot as a kid. Emily of New Moon, Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden… I loved Frances Hodgson Burnett, too—A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. And the Green Forest books.

Overall, though, I think I’m going to have to go with Heidi. I loved the idea of living in the mountains and running around barefoot with the goats (in retrospect, that’s probably one of those things that’s more appealing in a book than in real life). I liked that she helped her friend, Clara, and that she always knew where home was.

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

The first novel that I wrote and completed as an adult was for kids. It was set in England and had to do with ghosts and with Alfred Noyes’ poem ‘The Highwayman’. Then I took out the Highwayman bits and kept the setting and rewrote it. Then I chose the sidekick to be the main character, made the former main character a ghost, and set it in Muskoka. That version, I might actually do something with someday.

Do you have a reader in mind when you write, or are you writing ‘for yourself’?

It depends what I’m writing. Poems and short stories are usually written for myself. I’ll take more chances in those, and use them to explore ideas.

Sometimes I think ‘the reader’ in my mind is myself as a child, at least for first drafts of children’s books. When I’m revising a book, I’ll give more thought to what will work best for a real reader. Who that reader is, though, varies from book to book, depending on the age level and gender.

Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book; why is it special?

I love The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, especially the chapterwith the fox:

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near–

“Ah,” said the fox, “I shall cry.”

“It is your own fault,” said the little prince. “I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you…”

“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.

“But now you are going to cry!” said the little prince.

“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.

“Then it has done you no good at all!”

“It has done me good,” said the fox, “because of the color of the wheat fields.” And then he added:

“Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret.”

I love the bit that follows, too, where the fox gives him the secret:  “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” But I think I like it better because of what came before.

I like the idea that it’s the time that we put into things that makes them worthwhile. It’s true of relationships and writing and probably everything else that we do.

Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (barn raising, beeswax, enchiladas…??)

Family is important to me and I seem to write about that a lot. Parent-child relationships, cousins and extended families, and “found” families. I am fortunate enough to come from an extremely large and supportive family, many of whom live right here in Whitby; in my writing, I like to explore different types of families and the relationships between people.

When I wrote Boarder Patrol, I consciously tried to create a character who was very different from me—never having been a teenaged boy, myself—and one way that I created that separation was to have Ryan choose to live away from his parents, something I never would have dreamed of at that age. But even then, I gave him an aunt and uncle and a cousin with whom he was extremely close. His relationship with the cousin, really, is at the heart of his external journey—and his internal journey has a lot to do with his father, who never even appears in the book.

Looking at my other books, I see that kind of thing a lot. It all comes back to family in one form or another.

A Choice (or seven):

Secret Garden or Narnia?
Nope. No way. That is not a possible choice. Both are equally necessary.

Soft Boiled or Fried?
Omelette. Made by my husband, who is the best egg cook in the universe. J

Notebook or Keyboard?
Usually keyboard (I love my Mac), but notebook when I’m stuck or attempting a poem or freefall writing. Freefall writing is often how I get un-stuck.
Index cards for story planning. Real ones, that I can hold in my hands and shuffle around, although later on I’ll transcribe them into Scrivener.

Lake or Ocean?
The ocean fascinates me and scares me at the same time; I’ll wade in it, but not too deep. I grew up around lakes, camping and cottaging and canoeing. Muskoka, Temagami, up north of Thunder Bay on Black Sturgeon Lake and the rivers that feed it—I like tall trees and deep shadows, and lily pads in the quiet bits. I’m a lake girl.

Deborah Ellis or Sarah Ellis?
I have to choose? Deborah, then. I have more of her books on my shelf, and the Breadwinner Trilogy and Company of Fools were brilliant.

Poetry or Song?
Poetry. I think. It has to be really good poetry.

Comedy or Mystery?

I don’t read, or watch, much of either. My reading tends to be YA with a heavy helping of modern fantasy, and a “grown-up book” thrown in every now and then to remind me that such things exist. My television choices belong firmly to the geek demographic. Tolkein, Gaiman, Whedon, Rowling… these are magic words.

Why write?

I think, like a lot of writers, I never made a conscious choice about it. Writing was always something that I did.

Writing lets you explore ideas and fit a lot of different lives into the one that you get to live. It makes your world bigger.

–

Erin Thomas writes novels for children and young adults. Her first book, Draco’s Fire, was published in 2009 as part of the Dragon Speaker trilogy from HIP Books. Her second, Boarder Patrol, will be available in May 2010 from Orca Sports. Erin’s work has also appeared in On Spec magazine and in the Globe and Mail’s Facts & Arguments column. She is a CANSCAIP member and serves on the executive council as co-recording secretary.

 www.erinthomas.ca

Draco’s Fire: http://www.hip-books.com/hipfantasy.php

Boarder Patrol: http://www.orcabook.com

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

Frankenstein. I was afraid of my brother, Frank. He was 6’3” and 13 years older. If I bugged him, he would scream out my name and come after me. But, then he was always there for me, too.    

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

 It was a poem written jointly with a good friend in grade 9 and published in the school journal. Instead of Santa coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve, Frankenstein’s head popped out. He died in a hideous manner after terrorizing the city. (The guy who wrote this with me has been a professional writer for most of his life since then)       

Do you have a favourite writing “place”?

Yes, other than on location during a field trip, it is at my messy desk in the basement.  

Reading is….

 … how I spend quality time with my friends.

Reveal some themes that often come up in your work… (peacocks, fruit, romance?)

 Architecture, the self-indulgent sterility of  Suburbia, ostriches.

A Choice (or seven):

Sweet or Savoury?   Savoury

Waltz or Polka?     The Waltz because it is played by jazz and classical musicians.

Meat or Veggies?   I need both.

Pen or Keyboard?  Pen

Poems or Songs?    Poems

Live Theatre or Film?  Film, and that includes all those black and white horror films from the 1960s.

Leacock or Davies?  Davies. He came to my school and we put on one of his plays. I was in the chorus.

What advice would you give someone who said: I’m thinking of writing my life story…?

 Wait. Live a little longer because the best part is still ahead.

 —

Greer Roberts was born in Toronto. He attended private schools in both Toronto and Switzerland before graduating from the U. of T. with a degree in English and Philosophy. Then on to Teachers’ College. He currently lives and works in Durham.

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

Alec in The Black Stallion series – I learned to dream that anything was possible when there were words on a page. And I fell in love with action based plot. A little later I discovered Jane Austen and suspect that my desire to do something with my life beyond becoming a wife stemmed from the restrictions her characters faced every day. Both these factors are showing up in my current fiction writing.

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

Since my writing career started with my still-in-the-works first non-fiction book several years ago, that’s easy. Personal money management. Unless we want to count the really bad short story I wrote for my college English class.

Do you have a writing “routine”?

When I started writing, the most comfortable place in the house was my husband’s recliner. I am now conditioned. I dragged my husband through six furniture stores looking for a perfect match to that chair for my writing loft. If I want to be creative, I need to be sitting in that chair. I usually read the last sentence and then write. Editing is my least favourite part and I avoid it until the last possible moment and sit elsewhere to avoid contaminating my creativity.

Reading is….

A compulsion. I have slowed down the volume of reading in the last few years as I carve out time for writing but I still consume more words than food in any given week.

Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book. Why is it special?

I suffer from poor short-term memory. Trigonometry was a challenge – I had to rework all the formulas from scratch on exams. I can’t even come up with a quote from my own book. Sigh.

A Choice (or seven):

Juice or Water? Water. I’m acidic enough without adding juice to the mixture.

Geist or Walrus? What are these when they are home? Just kidding, I have read Walrus once or twice.

Summer or Winter? Summer. I grew up in B.C. and still think of moving back every February I spend in Ontario .

Run or Walk? Run – I prefer short bursts to sustained efforts.

Fiction or Non? Fiction any day – I am incurably nosy and love to become a part of other people’s lives. Which probably explains why I became an accountant – an excuse to ask the most personal questions.

Munro or Gallant? Munro.

Poems or Songs? Songs. My challenge in my writing life is poetry. Every time I take any kind of course with The Writing Fairy I seem to get stuck with some form of poetry writing. I took Stuart Ross’s poetry boot camp to get past my resistance – the wine at the end of the day was my favourite part.  That said, I do enjoy Kevin Craig’s poems.  

What is the best advice you never got?

To build a formal structure and outline rather than just write a shitty first draft and worry about the rest when you finish. I’m not enthralled with editing and I find that an outline gives my creativity a base to jump from and soar.

—

Rosalyn Cronin is a Certified Management Accountant who loves to give people advice on business and personal money management. She has just published her first book, The Healthy Business: Shape Up, Survive & Thrive. A Get-Fit Program for Small Business. This book grew out of a course for small business and gives the existing small business owner an easy-to-read, practical guide to success.

She is working on a second non-fiction book on money management titled the Healthy Spender in between time spent on her sci-fi novel-in-progress.

While developing her writing skills for the book, Rosalyn has had articles published by the Sun Media and various magazines. She writes a regular blog, found through her website rosalyncronin.com.

Rosalyn Cronin, CMA

Author of The Healthy Business

rose@rosalyncronin.com

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

Uh oh. There’s no easy answer to that one.

Reason #1: Despite my sisters’ claims that I have a phenomenal memory, my dad is closer to the mark when he says, “You’ve got a good memory; it’s just really really short!”

Reason #2: I was a gluttonous reader, who gobbled up a stone soup of literary characters. (Still am, still do.) When I was really young, there was no bookstore in town, so on Saturdays my mum (also an avid reader) took us downtown to visit our limestone, 1904-built, Carnegie public library. The rooms of that lovely old building housed a smorgasbord for the imagination! I preferred to dine on characters who were curious, independent, and determined individuals who found their own path and made their own way. Early on, they ranged from Enid Blyton’s  four young adventurers to Alcott’s March sisters, and from Nancy Drew to Trixie Belden and Donna Parker. Later, Wuthering Height’s Catherine Earnshaw  topped the menu of headstrong, passionate, full-of-life and hard-to-ignore literary figures…though it was clear that she was also one not to emulate too closely!

My hometown library

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

As a teenager I remained greedy for books, and I loved English class. But whatever writing I did was purely school-driven. I did begin a diary, though it wasn’t long before I’d ripped out and ‘disappeared’ the few entries I’d made. Two decades later, I started work on a novel, the story of a young woman piecing together the history of a silent, solitary old man who’d immigrated to this area before WWII. The task became a test of sorts. I was totally engaged, until I recognized the writing’s shortcomings, i.e. my own, as a writer. I ’drawered’ it, and later, I burned it. Hmm, a pattern, you ask? Well, it might have become one, if I hadn’t determined to build my writing skills, and in the process, decided exactly how and what I wanted to write. That helped me grow comfortable with the idea of ‘putting my work out there’ to be read. Mostly.

Do you have a writing “routine”?

Always. Yet routine is both blessing and bane. At university, my faculty revolved around studio work, which usually took place from early afternoon to late at night. It suited my biorhythm; I swear I’m set to Pacific Time! And when my daughters were very young, I continued to utilize the tranquility of the ‘witching hour’. While I’m still inclined that way, it’s not so great when the alarm is set to go off early. Currently, I have the house to myself during the day, so keep to a dull 9 – 4 schedule, with mornings assigned to clerical tasks, and creative work happening later on (read: once the right side of my brain’s kicked in, and provided an urgent parental or household duty hasn’t come up). My general rule of thumb: “Work whenever the going’s good.”

Reading is….

 …bliss, stimulation, perspective, possibility, challenge, freedom, a doorway, a lighted path out of ignorance’s dark forest.

Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book. Why is it special?

Uh oh. Another toughie! I’ve a knack for later ‘losing’ lines that set off ”YES!” in my head when I first read them. So now, just as I do when I’m reviewing a book, I use colourful little sticky tabs to mark passages I know I’ll want to come back to. Problem is that I’m amassing a large collection of books with rainbow edges! It’s hard to choose, so here are two that left their mark–one poetry, one prose. The first is from painter Lawren Harris’s only book of poems, Contrasts, which explored Canadian urban space in verse. It’s aurally and visually exciting, beautiful, honest, with an edgy observation that hasn’t lost its relevance. Harris’s visual art may have eclipsed his writing, but this little gem stood out because of the word choices, and the momentum that builds to those “hard hosannahs”. 

The Age

This is the age of the soul’s degradation,

Of tossing into the sun’s light

The dross and slime of life,

And glorying in the miserable glitter.

Hell’s tinsel, and allurements and stupifying glare

Shot over the soul’s great sadness

With cries and sneers and hard hosannahs.

                        * 

The second snippet is from Duet, one of David Helwig’s novellas:

“Norma had brought the pot of coffee downstairs with her, and she put it on the hotplate at the back of the shop and popped a tape into the player and got something nebulous and soothing. Not as good as the birds. The sun was shining in the back window and making a pattern on the set of kitchen chairs, shapes of light falling on the red paint. Beautiful, you said, and then wondered how a thing got to be beautiful.”

This always reminds me what it is to be a writer, an artist, human–to stop in the midst of ordinary, and notice extraordinary … to pay attention; to not just look, but see. And wonder. 

A Choice (or seven):

Sweet or Savoury?

Savoury. No, sweet. No, wait…savoury! Agh! Is there chocolate involved?

Dylan (Bob) or Dylan (Thomas)?

Dylan Thomas, if only for the music of his language.

Summer or Winter?

Summer, for its extrovert freedom and vitality (when you might fill the creative well). Winter, for its introvert hibernating promise, (when you can hunker down and tap that well).

Lake or Mountain?

Lake. Water, sky, and the ability to see for miles are very freeing.

Sonnet or Haiku?

Haiku. It’s something to aspire to: to be able to capture a mood, emotion, observation with such “concision and precision” (as poet Richard Outram said).

Movie or Doc?

Depends on my mood.

CNQ or TNQ?

Depends on what I want to discover. 

What is the best advice you never got?

Best piece I NEVER got? Uh, I don’t know; I never got it! However, some good advice I DID get, with respect to writing, came from Goethe via a poet friend: “Do not hurry, do not rest” (an approximation of his motto “Ohne Hast aber ohne Rast”…”Without haste but without rest.”) 

–

Ingrid Ruthig is a writer, editor, visual artist, and former architect. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared across Canada and internationally, in numerous publications such as The Malahat Review, Descant, Prism International, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Books in Canada, CNQ–Canadian Notes & Queries, Maisonneuve, along with various anthologies and chapbooks. Her poetry won a British Petra Kenney prize and the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival literary competition.

Ingrid is awaiting publication of Richard Outram: Essays on His Works (Guernica Editions, fall 2010) and a collection of her poems. In the meantime, she continues to work on various writing and visual art projects, and to publish/exhibit. Her haiku sequence and companion artwork Slipstream will be shown in Clarington in fall 2010, and a portion of the extensive mixed-media, image-text series Fragments of the Missing will be exhibited from May 3 to June 21 in Pickering. She plans to extend both works into print form.

Visit her website at: ingridruthig.wordpress.com.

What literary character did you most identify with as a child, and why?

Anne Shirley. Like her I had red hair and was pale and freckled (and hated this), talkative, impetuous, often inadvertently getting into trouble. And I had a vivid imagination. I remember reading Anne of Green Gables and “experiencing” the descriptions of PEI with its red soil and apple blossoms – the White Way of Delight – and wishing I could inhabit that world, and at the same time longing to be able to describe the beauty in my own world in the same magical way. While she wanted to be called “Anne” with an “e” because it was more distinguished, for the same reason I encouraged people to refer to my hair not as red, but as auburn … or preferably titian. (Without much luck.)

Coincidentally, years later when I lived in Japan, where Anne is a national obsession, people often told me I looked like “Akage no An” (Anne of the Red Hair).

Can you recall the premise of your earliest ‘work’?

Oh yes. At nine years old I was reading Harlequins – though tamer ones than those available today (and I should know, because as an adult I spent several years editing Harlequins of various degrees of torridness). I remember writing a detailed one-page description of a prolonged and, in retrospect, embarrassingly passionate kiss. I told my father I wanted his opinion on it, naively believing he’d judge it on literary merit. By the time I finished reading, I swear he was blushing.  He ahem-ed and avoided my eye – he was skimming leaves from the pool at the time and I’d been following him around while reciting my masterpiece – and suggested I go and ask my mother what she thought.

Do you often re-read books? If so, which? And why?

When I was a child I did. I read Little Women at least 7 times.  But now, as an editor who reads for a living I just don’t have the time to reread much for leisure. There are too many alluring “new” books calling to me.  One exception, and I can’t even tell you why, is The Great Gatsby, to which I’ve been drawn back several times over many years.

Recite a favourite passage of a favourite book.

When I was a teenager I borrowed from the library a wonderful book for young writers called Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail: A Book About Writing Among Other Things, by Jacqueline Jackson. I thought it incredibly inspiring, and though I didn’t have my own copy I remembered it for decades. About six years ago I decided to surf the Internet to find the author, and I did. She had been, for some time, a professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield. I screwed up the courage to contact her, and she was friendly and pleased to hear that I’d been influenced by her writing. But she informed me that, sadly, the book I’d enjoyed was now out of print. A couple of months later, she wrote again to say that while cleaning out her parents’ attic, she’d found some books they’d squirreled away including a few copies of Turn Not Pale. So she sent me one, and in a very special moment I found myself unwrapping it and reading her inscription: “To Allyson … a book you’ve never forgotten. Jacqueline Jackson.”

This is from her introduction:

“What do you do with this book? There aren’t any rules. Start anywhere and go anywhere…. If a teacher likes the book, don’t let her (or him) shove it down your throat and make lessons out of it, unless that’s the way you want to use it. And tell your teacher, if you have to, that the kind of writing this book is about isn’t a spelling assignment, or a lesson in grammar or handwriting or how to make good paragraphs. This writing is to get down your good ideas, and what you think and feel inside…. The really important thing is to get it all down without judging whether it’s good or bad, and only then to go back, maybe, and rewrite it here and there to make it say what you want even better…. Throughout I’ll include scraps of my own writing, my children’s writing, other kids’ writing, and other adult writing. I’ll also include a lot of other stuff because that’s the way I like to write. Things keep reminding me of things.

“And as I’ve said, what you’ll do is write whatever you like, however you like – if you like.”

Reading can …

… transport … enthral … awaken … surprise … stir senses … broaden horizons …

And I like this quote from Anne Coleson’s teenage narrator in the memoir I’ll Tell You a Secret: “I’ve always simply jumped into books and lived in them.”

A choice (or seven):

Urban or Rural?

Urban. While I appreciate the beauty and peacefulness of rural settings, I prefer living in or near the city with all its energy and choice of activities. I lived for ten years in the Toronto Beaches, and I remember shortly after we moved there taking a walk through a ravine and emerging on Queen Street E., where my husband famously declared, “I love nature, especially when there’s a Japanese restaurant at the end of it.” We live “in between” now – in Unionville. If I drive north, within minutes I’m in the country, and if I drive south I can be in downtown Toronto in 25 to 30 minutes, and for our family right now it seems the best of both worlds.

Milk chocolate or Dark?

I grew up in a family that didn’t consider a dessert to be a dessert unless it involved chocolate. And we’re not very discriminating: we’ll eat pretty much any chocolate – from Godiva to little foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs. (Though, we draw the line at “white chocolate” – talk about the emperor’s new clothes.) My current favourite? Dark chocolate with chilies.

eReader or Covers?

Covers at this point. I can’t imagine wanting to read on a screen any more than I already have to for on-screen editing. Though, I am pretty adaptable … so I never say never.

Notebook or Keyboard?

Keyboard mostly. I type over 100 words a minute, so when writing longhand I sometimes get frustrated that my hand can’t keep up with my thoughts. But I don’t carry a laptop, so there are times when I actually enjoy having no choice but to write in a notebook – on a plane, for example, or at the cottage, or even sitting in the orthodontist’s office waiting for my kids.

Joni Mitchell or Neil Young?

Joni Mitchell. Beautiful lyrics and vocals, especially in her earlier recordings. Neil Young I find depressing, though his songs are woven through some of my memories, so at times I have a strange fondness for his music too.

Substantive or Line?

With the kind of books I edit, mostly literary fiction and non-fiction, it’s not unusual for these roles to overlap. The degree to which they do varies with the publisher, the author, the particular book. I enjoy the process of helping the author to make the manuscript the best it can be, and edit toward that goal.

Agatha or Alice?

I read a lot of Agatha Christie when I was a child – my mom was a big mystery buff and influenced my early reading – and Christie’s 1977 autobiography is fascinating. But now … I’d choose Alice Munro, for her textured explorations and insights into ordinary and yet complex human relationships that I didn’t have the life experience to understand as a younger person. What we read reveals different things to us at different ages.

Why write?

My parents were lawyers, not writers, yet my four siblings and I all ended up writers of one sort or another. What are the chances? And I don’t remember a time when I didn’t yearn to write. As Julia Cameron says, “I love it when I write well, but I love it when I write, period.”

–

Allyson Latta is an independent editor of adult and children’s fiction and non-fiction books, many of which have garnered Canada’s top literary awards. A graduate of Carleton University’s School of Journalism, she has written for newspapers and magazines and has published short fiction. She developed and now teaches a life writing/memoir course for the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies, for which she is also an online mentor. Allyson leads writing workshops in Canada and abroad, with one coming up in Tucson, Arizona, in January 2011.

www.daysroadwriters.blogspot.com

What literary character most influenced you when you were young, and why?

At age 12 I bought the collection, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare published by Nelson Doubleday, Inc., with hard-earned babysitting money (hated taking care of little kids … even for pay).  My parents moved us to the city that year as I started Grade 9 – too young, too awkward, too country and too shy to fit in.  I was introduced to The Bard and all his magical, captivating, comedic, romantic and tragic characters.  If I was to choose one that I identified with as the young me, it would probably be the sad, pathetically solitary (bad guy) Shylock.  Fifty years later, the two-volume set still sits on the bookshelf in my office.  

Can you recall the premise of your earliest work?

Other than decades of business writing and a lifetime of journaling, I’m a late starter.  My earliest work was done jointly with my sister in 2007, a 39-page outline/manuscript for a series of children’s books about the adventures of “WoDash and The Bellidragg’n”.  Cid lives in Dublin, GA, so we created the story almost entirely through MSN chat.  I really should dust it off and do something with it. 

Did you receive a piece of advice that made ‘all the difference’ to you as a writer?

In a backwards kind of way one instructor did make motivate me to keep writing.  The first creative writing course I took was in 2006, and in her feedback with the final assignment she wrote that she simply couldn’t understand why all my stories were “so over the top”.   Shockers!  I never told her my pieces weren’t fiction but from what I thought had been a life well-lived. As my sister says, “You can go with the flow or join us in riding the rapids.”  Anyway, I headed for the cottage with my constant companions, dog, pen and journal to mull over the instructor’s critique, ultimately deciding there damn well was an imaginative writer wide awake in me that sorely needed cultivating … and a different instructor.   

Reading is…

…gently rocking branches and filtered sunlight. The eldest of three girls, the surest way to get out of chores and responsibility for my siblings, was to sprawl near the top of my favourite maple tree with a book.  I’ve been reading voraciously since I first discovered phonetics! 

Recite a favourite passage from favourite book. Why is it special? 

From Creators on Creating, Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind, from the section “The Dedication to Mastery” a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “I have very joyful dreams which I cannot bring to paper, much less to any approach to practice, and I blame myself not at all for my reveries, but that they have not yet got possession of my house and barn.”  I’ve been working on a novel for about a year now, a joy-filled, energizing process.  I know that I can only ‘bring it to paper’ through practice with as many forms and genres of writing as possible (poetry, short stories, etc.) before it will get ‘possession of my house and barn’!  And, I’m totally OK with that.

A choice (or seven):

Postcard or Email?  Email, although I can’t deny the thrill of receiving that rare handwritten postcard or letter.

Morning or Night?  Morning … especially at the cottage waiting for the sun to rise above the tree filled horizon of the long arm.  What a show!

Romance or Mystery?  Neither. 

Gallant or Laurence?  Yeats!

Pasta or Curry?  Pasta, pasta and pasta!

Pen or Keyboard?  Both, pen for the journal and keyboard for everything else.

Cohen or Dylan (Bob or Thomas)?  (Bob) Dylan, political activist, counterculture icon and songwriter extraordinaire!  His inspirational lyrics are pure poetry.  Ditto for the other Cohen too, Leonard!

What is your ideal writing environment? 

A gypsy at heart, the car with digital recorder is the most creatively productive environment for me. The only drawback is listening to my own whiney voice when transcribing.

– 

Cheryl Andrews is a writer, poet and artist whose love of the natural world also inspires her paintings and photography.  When writing she slips willingly into a brightly lit and infinite time orientation, as if there was no such thing as time.  Recently, her poem, “The Frayed Map”, was published in SmoKe and SaLt:  A Journal of Lyrical Art.  A short story, “Four Forty Four”, will appear in the WCDR Wicked Words anthology to be published this spring.  An established leadership coach, she lives and works from Newmarket, Fort Myers and Otter Lake.

Blogsite:  http://cherylandrews.wordpress.com

Website: (for the sisters):  www.froghairs.com

What literary character did you most identify with as a child, and why?

Ralph, the mouse from the Mouse and the Motorcycle, because he was small and longed for adventure.

Can you think of a case where one of your own characters surprised you?

I wrote a short story that features a misogynistic bastard, and the thing that surprised me was that I was able to write him in first-person POV without even breaking a sweat.

Did you ever receive a tiny gem of advice that changed your direction, your thoughts about writing? If not, do you have a tiny gem of advice?

The first time I heard a story summed up as put a man up a tree, throw rocks at him, then get him down (attributed to George Cohan, I think) stands out. It reminds the fiction writer of so many important things, such as that three-act structure just about always works; that conflict and stakes are essential to good story telling; that people love a happy ending. It’s easy to get caught up in the beauty of words, but without a good story, even the best writing fails. I don’t believe, as Fitzgerald said, that style is everything. A great story can overcome mediocre writing, but the reverse is not true (at least for all but an esoteric few).

Recite a favourite passage from a favourite book. Why is it special?

My earliest memory of being blown away by a writer was when I struggled through Ayn Rand’s We The Living when I was maybe 12 or 13. She wrote, “It’s a curse, you know, to be able to look higher than you’re allowed to reach.” It was the first time I was aware there were places in the world where people lived that way, having been lucky enough to grow up in Canada with parents who believed I could reach for absolutely anything, and the first time I was really aware that writers had the power to encapsulate enormous emotions, events and ideas in a very few words.

Reading is….

… the best way to live a thousand lives within the only life we can be sure we get.

A choice (or seven):

 lined pad or spiral notebook? beautifully bound, lined journals – life is too short to write in cheap, ugly books

urban or rural? urbral

morning or night? summer nights, winter mornings

fall or spring? spring

pen or keyboard? yes

music or silence? music

comedy or horror? comedy

Why write?

Because the voices in my head told me to.

—

Annette McLeod has spent more than 20 years on staff at the Toronto Sun, but don’t hold that against her. She is an award-winning automotive journalist, contest-winning short story writer, and money-making playwright currently trying to (at last) complete a novel while enjoying her maternity leave and running around after just-learned-to-crawl son Callum.

What literary character did you most identify with as a child, and why?

I can relate to a few poets, Khalil Gibran is the closest I can identify with. I received a poem of his on Joy and Sorrow when I was a young child, later I was given two of his books as a gift. I can relate to his view of humanity and the world from a global perspective. Joy and Sorrow knows no boundary, no race, no religion. One seems to pass in a fleeting moment, while the other lingers for what feels like a lifetime. But we cannot fully understand either Joy or Sorrow, without experiencing each of them.

Can you recall your first piece of creative fiction/poem/song ?

When my kids were very little, I made up a song that we sang together that went:

“ I love Mommy, I love Daddy,

Daddy and Mommy love me,

I love you, you love me,

That is how it should be.”

Do you have a MS in a bottom drawer that will never see the light of day? If so, what’s it about?

Over 20 years ago I started to write “ A Mother’s Love, a Mother’s Lie”,  it’s about a mother-daughter relationship, and takes you on a journey of the peaks and valleys as the daughter transitions from child, teen, adult to becoming a mother. The climactic ‘lie’ is revealed, causing a tragic break in their relationship. In the end, forgiveness finds a way to reach them and heal their relationship.

Recite a favorite passage from a favorite book; what makes it special for you?

Be Still and Know (that I am God); Psalm 46:10

Ever since I learned to meditate and be still a tremendous sense of peace and joy often fills my being. This phrase reminds me of how powerful and magical silence and  inner reflection truly are. We all have an inner wisdom that speaks volumes to us when we are quiet, still and reflective.

Reveal a trait (of yours) that does not fit your own idea of ‘the writer”

I plan things in a linear fashion, the proverbial To Do list, get from A to B in a straight line. It’s a symptom of my former life as a business/finance manager.  I see ‘the writer’ as more of a lateral thinker, creative and free flowing. When I tried to write my first book, Raise Your Vibration, Transform Your Life, chapter by chapter…it did not work. I learned to let go and allow content to flow in whatever section it was meant to be created.

A Choice (or seven):  

mustard or ketchup? Neither, unless it’s organic, of course (smile)  

summer or winter?  Bring the HEAT!! I am an avid hot yoga fan, if its not 100 degrees or more, I get goosebumps.  

walrus or geist? walrus  

fiction or non? for writing, non fiction; but for reading – fiction, science fiction, fiction fantasy.  

pen or keyboard?

Let’s see…former pianist with Royal Conservatory of Music, using computers over 28 years now. Keyboard has my vote 10:1. And let’s not forget the power of spell check!!

lessing or atwood? Atwood  hands down.

What is the writer’s role in society?

To Inspire, and take one’s thoughts to new places.

Author of: Raise Your Vibration, Transform Your Life

Subtitle: A Practical Guide for Attaining Better Health, Vitality and Inner Peace

Publisher: Lotus Moon Press, March 2010

Adult, Non fiction; self empowerment, personal growth

Website: www.raiseyourvibration.ca

What literary character most influenced you as a child, and why?

King Arthur. As a child, I devoured anything Arthurian: Howard Pyle’s The Tales of King Arthur and his Knights, The Once and Future King, The Crystal Cave. And I still love anything with an Arthurian connection, especially Jack Whyte’s Skystone series. I’ve even named my business (Merlin Writes) after Arthur’s wise old wizard, using Merlin’s hat as my logo.

As a kid, I envisioned myself as the hero in the books and fairy tales I read – the brave knights and charming princes with the swords, the steeds and the magical adventures. I remember the tremendous disappointment I felt that none of them were girls, like me. (And I certainly didn’t want to play the damsel in distress!)

That’s why the hero of my novel Twice A Ghost is a girl. I first imagined her as a prince in hiding, but once I realized I was falling into a literary trap, she got an early “sex change.”

Can you recall your earliest ‘work’?

I wrote my first book when I was in Grade 3. It was a construction-paper picture book; the title was hand-lettered in red crayon. I submitted the manuscript to the only publisher I knew: Macmillan, the same company that published my speller. I also received my first (polite) rejection letter. I sometimes wish I’d kept both the book and the letter.

Ironically, the three books I’ve written were published by Nelson Canada, the company that prints my children’s spellers.

Do you read in the genre you’re writing, while writing?

Historical fiction and fantasy own my heart. They are always my favourite genres to read; everything else is second-best.

Recite a favourite passage of a favourite book; why is it special?

“That leaves you just ten minutes. You will have to run,” said Gandalf.

“But –,” said Bilbo.

“No time for it,” said Gandalf.

“But –,” said Bilbo again.

“No time for that either! Off you go!”

To the end of his days, Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything he usually took when he went out; leaving his second-breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed-up, pushing his keys into Gandalf’s hands, and running as fast as his furry feet could carry him, down the lane, past the great Mill, across the Water, and then on a mile or more.

Very puffed he was, when he got to Bywater just on the stroke of eleven, and found he had come without a pocket handkerchief!

This passage from The Hobbit launches Bilbo Baggins into action, transforming him from a middle-aged, safe-and-settled gentleman hobbit into thief, adventurer and hero. That archetypal metamorphosis lies at the heart of our favourite stories: from Cinderella to princess, Clark Kent to Superman, unacknowledged son to hero-king. And for me, it echoes my discovery of the writing life: one moment, a stay-at-home mother of five; the next, a writer without a pocket handkerchief. And what an adventure it has been.

Reading is best done….

When I’m home alone, feet up, fire roaring on the hearth, a pot of hot tea at my elbow and hours to go before the school bus pulls up. If the book is good, it’s a little piece of paradise.

A choice (or seven):

coffee or tea? Tea. Looseleaf, black, none of this herbal nonsense. China pot, china cup, and without appearing too picky, could it be a nice peaty Scottish Breakfast Tea?

spring or fall? Spring. It’s a benediction. In spring, the sunlight wakes me with a kiss – it pulls me right out of bed. I throw open the windows, breathe in the scent of the lilacs and hyacinths and good, honest dirt, listen to the birds singing. Time to lace up my shoes and just go. Perfect walking (and imagining) weather, great for biking, the start of soccer season – does it get any better than that? And bonus! A single autumn afternoon spent planting bulbs pays off in years of beautiful spring flowers – but no weeds. Fall – pfft!

walrus or geist? Sorry, neither.

fiction or non? Fiction. By the armload. And non-fiction about fiction.

pen or keyboard? Pen. A Zebra F-301 for everyday use, and a calligraphy pen for special occasions. I even have an old-fashioned-looking quill pen that I’m saving for signing my novel, when it gets published.

canoe or hiking shoes? Hiking shoes. I walk and hike all the time, but in the woods, on the trail and by the waterfront, never on the sidewalks – too pedestrian. The best writing gig I ever pitched was a series of stories on hiking with kids in Durham conservation areas. Imagine – getting paid to hike with my kids! Though I love canoeing and canoe-tripping, I never get the opportunity. The canoe I paddled at my cottage as a kid has been hanging, sad and abandoned, in my garage for a good 15 years.

Where does writing take you that nothing else does?

Away. I often call myself a “Calgon, take me away” reader – remember the old commercial with the woman in the bubble bath? (www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvE65VOcAL0) Real life just doesn’t hold the same appeal.

Freelance writer Heather M. O’Connor scribbles articles for national and regional publications from her home office, occasionally playing hooky to devour a good book by the fire. Heather thanks the writing gods for WCDR, where she has found inspiration, encouragement and a great many kindred spirits.  

www.merlinwrites.com