Shawn Bird

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the other side of the pitch February 18, 2012

Filed under: Writing — Shawn Bird @ 6:40 pm
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When I attended my first writing conference- the Surrey International Writers’ Conference in 2009- I was told about The Elevator Pitch. This is the 30 second blurb about your book that establishes the protagonist, conflict, theme and audience. You need one, because every time you’re asked, “What’s your book about?” you should be able to answer concisely, in a manner that catches the person’s interest. I worked with author Carol Mason to polish mine, and when I presented it to Crystal of Gumboot Books that afternoon, it earned me a “Yes, we’d like to see more!” and eventually a contract.

I wondered at the time, what is it like for an agent, publisher or editor at these events? They’re the ones being pounced upon by every would-be writer in the building. Everyone there has something to pitch, and the APEs are the ones being pitched at. The image in my head is someone standing in the middle of the room, frantically covering his head while baseballs rain down from every direction.

Mark Glenchur has written a delightful poem that gives a hilarious view from the APE side. Unfortunately, the writer in the poem did not have a 30 second elevator pitch polished and ready.  Read and learn.

 

Another snippet of book 3 February 16, 2012

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Grace Awakening Myth,Writing — Shawn Bird @ 10:08 pm
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I was wondering today just what choir class was like for Ben.  Strangely enough, a window promptly opened, and here’s what I know now.

Meg eyed us suspiciously as Paul, Ryan and I came into the band room for choir.
“What’s this? A trio of fools?”
Ryan grinned at her. “Fools for love! Valentine’s Day approaches. Will you be my Valentine, Meg?”
Her expression gentled into a soft amusement. “Oh? Are you serious?”
He shook his head adamantly, “Not even vaguely. Are you kidding? You’re a black widow spider. Do I look suicidal?”
Her eyes narrowed.
Paul punched Ryan in the arm. “Apparently you are! Why would you say something like that?” His voice was low and he watched Meg warily.
She spun on her heels and joined the other altos
Ryan shrugged and continued, “Maybe I feel like living dangerously.” He glanced over at Tanis.
Paul grabbed his arm, “Oh, man. Don’t do it. Tanis is deadly.”
Ryan smirked, “Dynamite is deadly and dangerous, too, but it can be a wonderful thing when handled properly.”
“You think you can handle Tanis properly?”
Ryan winked, “Watch and learn, Paul. Watch and learn.”
Mr. Johnson clapped his hands, “Come on people! Let’s get going. Do you have the ‘Titanic’ score, ready?”
There was a flurry of papers as everyone lined up in sections and readied themselves for warm-up.
Ryan smiled at Tanis.
She wrinkled her brows as she smiled back automatically.
“Ben, give me a C?” I stepped over to the piano and struck middle C, then the octave below, then both together before returning to my spot. The class found their notes and Mr. J. directed us up and down the scales.
I watched Ryan as we sang. He kept catching Tanis’ eye. The first time she met it blankly, without interest.
He winked.
She blinked, and hastily glanced back to Mr. J. A few bars later, she looked back.
Ryan stared at her as he sang, “love can touch us…”
She blushed, looking away again, but moments later her gaze had wandered back.
He smiled dreamily at her as he sang, “You’re here in my heart.”
She inhaled, losing her pitch momentarily before returning his gaze as she sang, “You’re safe in my heart.”
They stared at each other, oblivious to the rest of the class as the final chord reverberated around us. As the notes died out, Ryan nodded at her.
Tanis nodded back.
They broke their gazes, and Ryan nudged Paul, whispering, “See? Putty in my hands. It’s all about crafting the moment. We’ll be telling our grandchildren about this.”
Ryan grunted and looked over to me in disgust.
I grinned, “What can I say? It’s the music. It does it every time.”
“It does, does it?” Meg’s eyes were narrow as she sidled up to us. “You’re sure of that, are you?”
“What do you mean, Meg?” Paul asked. “It seems to be working for Ryan.”
She sneered, “It might work for him, but he’s not the only one relying on the technique.” She stared maliciously at me.
I swallowed, bile rising up my throat like fire.
Paul shook his head, “Meg, Meg, Meg. Don’t be a hater.”
“You’re one to talk.” She raised her eyebrows, glancing at Tanis.
“Well, one traumatic experience shouldn’t turn you off love forever.”
Nonetheless, I noticed he crossed his legs somewhat nervously as he looked over to Tanis.
Ryan had wandered over to Tanis and said something that made her giggle and flutter her eyelashes at him.
I shook my head and muttered, “We should be taking lessons from him.”
Paul nodded. “Things not going well with Grace these days?”
I sighed. “Not particularly well, No.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
I shrugged. “She’s stubborn.”
“Maybe you’re trying too hard?”
I watched Tanis and Ryan flirting at the door, she punched him playfully in the bicep. He made a melodramatic gesture of agony and then pointed at his arm insistently. She shook her head, blushing, but as the bell rang, she quickly stood on tip toe and kissed the bicep. Ryan swoon and grabbed his heart. She giggled and headed out the door, tossing a coquettish look over her shoulder.
Ryan swung around and returned to us, grinning broadly. “She adores me.”
Paul shook his head doubtfully. It always starts well.”
“Not always,” I grumbled.
Paul clamped an arm around my shoulders. “Cheer up, Ben. She’ll come around eventually.”
Meg caught my eye and shook her head, mouthing, “No. She won’t.”

 

write the magic February 15, 2012

Filed under: Writing — Shawn Bird @ 9:48 pm
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Little things kind of reveal themselves to me in the (process of) writing. A lot of people think that magic happens when you write, and it does, but they think, “Well you must be struck by inspiration, this magic bolt hits you and then you just sit down and … it must just pour out of you.”  Well no.  First you work and then the magic happens, if you’re lucky.  (Diana Gabaldon podcast Episode 3: The “Kernel Process”)

You have to write to find the words.  I tell my high school students to “think with your pen, not your brain.”  It’s an odd concept at first, but once the pen is moving (or the keyboard is clicking), the words tend to find their way onto the page (or screen).  If you wait for the thunderclap of inspiration, you’ll never get the words.  If you sit, ready to work, they flow by themselves.  Perhaps there won’t be thousands of them, perhaps they won’t all be brilliant, but there will always be something that you can use, even if only as a jumping off point for something else.

Think with your pen, not your brain.  That’s where the real magic is.

 

the long process February 5, 2012

Filed under: Writing — Shawn Bird @ 2:13 am
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Things are changing in publishing, as e-publishing, indy-publishing and self-publishing are gaining popularity.  It is interesting to see exactly why.

Diana Gabaldon has a recent blog entry about her latest projects.  It includes are very thorough explanation of the long process of having a book published in the traditional manner.

The workings of a small indy-press like Lintusen are much simpler, because fewer people and projects are involved. When everyone is paid on percent of royalties, they’re all keen to get the work out as promptly as possible. When only one or two projects are in progress at any one time, the process can be streamlined.  All the same things Gabaldon mentions do happen though, just much more efficiently than with a huge corporate publisher.

Editing is a long, long process.  It makes me laugh at times.  When my students are sure they’re done a composition because they’ve read it through once, I can’t help but smirk and tell them what the editing process is really like!

Thanks  to my amazing editor, Vikki for her skill!  (She even corrects my Facebook slips! lol)

 

Young love February 2, 2012

Filed under: Alpha-biography,Pondering,Writing — Shawn Bird @ 1:44 pm
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This is the second entry in a  section called an “Alpha-biography.”  The exercise is to work through the alphabet, commenting on a word that connects somehow to your world.  My students are doing this in English 9 this semester, and I am modelling it by creating my own alpha-biography.  For myself, I will be focusing on how I am interpreting, synthesizing and contemplating the Greek/Roman gods as I’ve been exploring them in the process of crafting the Grace Awakening series.  (I’m working backwards, so that in the blog they’ll eventually appear A-Z instead of Z-A, as they end up ordered by time).

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Young Love:

Sometimes I feel like young love coloured my entire world. I am not alone. I speak to a lot of women who are very nostalgic about the first person to whom they opened their heart. Some had negative experiences, I suppose, but I seem to meet a lot of people whose first love set them on a course of self-respect and happiness. I hope that means the negative experiences are fewer than the positive ones. Perhaps it’s just that with the span of years, one begins to find the positives, even if they hadn’t been noted previously?

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I think a good young love is one that remains a fond memory throughout your life. If you take the issues and troubles, and learn from them, future relationships can be stronger.  It can become a fuel for creative endeavours, like perhaps a novel series…

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Nostalgia can be a snare though, and if you build up a young love into impossible heights, a current love that must be worked around children, mortgage and bills, can seem as if it can’t measure up. Sometimes we idealize romance from the time when we didn’t have responsibilities, and forget that maturity requires change.

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There is nothing like the intensity of a new love, young or old. Awakening passions make everyone young when they’re first in love.  I remember giggling phone calls from a senior lady, a widow, soon after she accepted a marriage proposal.  Her giddy joy was no less than the girls in the college dorm.  Love is a happy thing, whenever it occurs, but the small space in our hearts that is occupied by that first love remains through the years, forever young and precious.

 

7 keys January 26, 2012

Filed under: Commentary,Writing — Shawn Bird @ 12:56 am
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo, author of the Wind Legends series among other things, (www.windlegends.org) shared this brilliant bit of extended metaphor about publishing at Linked In the other day:

There is a round brass ring. From that ring are dangling Seven Keys.

All Seven Keys are needed to spring the Publishing Lock.

The keys diminish in size from Key One to Key Seven.

The largest key is Key One and it is named Desire.

Key Two is Determination.

Key Three is Perseverance.

Key Four is Endurance.

Key Five is Patience.

Key Six is Luck.

Key Seven is Talent.

If you use all seven Keys and the lock refuses to open, one of those seven Keys simply isn’t strong enough to make things tumble into place for you. Perhaps the Key to your future lies on another brass ring.

That’s quite profound, isn’t it?  Even with my limited experience here at the beginning of the journey I know there is a lot of truth here!  It is hard work to get your work out there.  Big or small, the publisher requires authors to be skilled in story and active in the promotion and marketing of their work.  Every writer has to develop his/her talent and keep plugging away at the craft in order to have any success at all.  It’s a hard reality I think.  Sometimes you have the luck, and sometimes you don’t.  Sometimes you just don’t have the ability to stick it out.  Sometimes you don’t have that special spark of talent that makes your work worth the effort.

 

Kharon drops in January 24, 2012

Filed under: Grace Awakening Myth,Mythology,Writing — Shawn Bird @ 12:03 am
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Further to my determination to squeeze out some writing or die trying, I thought I’d share the day’s efforts on Grace Awakening Myth (Book 3 of 4 in the Grace Awakening series).  It’s a first draft, remember.  To be honest, there are already some changes, but you’ll get the idea.  This is 1230 words.  My goal is about 1200 a day, (5 pages) or 6000 words (25 pages) a week.  That was the pace for the first 2 books in the series. 

As I sat down to write, the image in my head was of blackness.  I wrote about that while wondering exactly why it was so black, and then Kharon walked in… 

Truly, I just take dictation.  The story is just floating out there, waiting for me to listen to it.  Ben is narrating.

It’s a black night, Stygian black, as they say. That’s very black. The River Styx drifts, black as crude oil, roiling and burbling with the murmuring sibilance of thousands upon thousands of lost voices. Its thick waters seem to suck the light from the sky, and leave all around it in an inky grey wash. Kharon the boatman floats along on his ferry, pole in hand, pushing it away from the banks, gathering the departing souls and taking them safely to Hades, for the price of a coin, of course. He shows up at the stops to collect what Hermes has dropped off: the confused half-shadows, some still not quite aware that they are ghosts, reclaimed from new graves. The shades dazedly cough up their coin, and they load into the ferry as Hermes waves to them heartily and wishes them luck on the next part of their journey like some jolly tour guide. Hermes can be quite an ass. The vacuous faces hardly stir in response, though. Those without a coin are on their own to get across the Styx. If you’re on your own, you’re not going to make it across. Simple.

I shivered at the memory of that blackness and the descent into the sucking void of the underworld. This was earth though, and not the underworld. This was Grace, not Eurydice. It was a Stygian black night, though, and the oppressive gloom was creeping into my gut.

“Hey, there. Ben is it?” The low voice held a faint glimmer of amusement.

“Hello Kharon.” I nodded courteously, recognising him at once. Had my thoughts summoned him? Or was this dismal atmosphere a result of his presence? “What brings you here? You’re a little far from the river.”
“Not so far. A guy needs a bit of a break from water now and then, after all. The river flows where it needs to. It’s near enough that I can step ashore for a moment.” He looked around with interest. “I thought I’d come have a chat with you.”

“With me?” My heart stopped for a moment. “I’m honoured, of course,” I said with a polite incline of my head, “but…uh…why?”

He smiled. His long nose and slightly blue tinged skin made it a rather eerie expression. Though it was probably meant to be reassuring, it made him look a trifle morose. It didn’t lighten the mood, at any rate.

I waited while he stood ponderously thinking. His thoughts seemed to move like he was punting through them with the stick he used on the ferry. They moved slowly and methodically in one direction. Patiently was the only way to communicate with Kharon. He would not be rushed.

Finally he said, “It’s about the girl.”

I took a deep breath. “Which girl? Grace?”

He shook his head. “No. The other one.”

“Other one?”

“From before. You know. The snake bit her, and you went to Hades to try to get her out? You snuck by the dog with some singing and got everyone down there all in a mush of sentimentality with your music, and they let you take her. But something happened and she had to stay, after all.”

“I looked back.” I whispered, suddenly cold.

“Ah.” Kharon nodded sagely. “Oh right. Looking back can cause a lot of problems for a person, can’t it?”

“Apparently.” I tried to bite back the sarcastic tone in response to his unintentional understatement.

“Yeah. Well. She was at the river bank the other day when I went by, and she asked me to give you a message.”

I swallowed. Then swallowed again. My mouth was the Sahara all of a sudden. I croaked, “She asked you…to give me a message.” She had never tried to communicate with me before. Why did she need to send a message now? What did she know?

He nodded in confirmation at my dazed expression, then after making sure that I was paying attention he looked up, as if trying to recall her exact words. He cleared his throat and intoned, “She said, ‘If you have a chance to see my love, when you’re above. Tell him that the song has many verses, some rich with hate and curses, but that he deserves whatever joy, that girl can give a boy.’”

“She rhymed it?”

He shrugged. “I think she thought it’d help me remember.”

“Oh.”

“I think she misses you,” he added. “She looked sad.”

“She’s been in the underworld for a couple of thousand years. Of course she’s sad.”

Kharon shrugged again. “Not everyone is. They get used to it. Everyone has to be there eventually after all.”

“I suppose.” It hurt to think about Eurydice. It hurt to remember that my failure doomed her to that two thousand years in the underworld. She wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t been inept. My failure. Mine. It wasn’t Kharon’s fault. “Thanks for passing along the message.”

He nodded. “I think she was afraid Hermes wouldn’t deliver it and Iris doesn’t have reception there.”

“Oh yes. Of course not. I appreciate you taking the effort.”

He stood waiting for something, with a studied nonchalance.

“Oh, wait.” I rummaged in my pockets and studied the coins. “I don’t have anything ancient. Will a twonie do?”

He eyed the polar bear on the two dollar coin dubiously. “A little on the cheap side, but whatever. Next time we meet in the Other Realm, you can top it up.” His mouth twitched in something that might have been a good-humoured smirk, but might not.

I chose to interpret it positively. “Thank you, Kharon.”

He started to stroll off with that particular, unsteady gait of sailors walking on land, and then looked back over his shoulder, “You take good care of that new girl, you hear? Don’t let looking back blind you to the possibilities ahead of you. What you’ve done before doesn’t have to bind your future.”

His words hit me like an arrow and I reverberated for a moment from the impact. When I went to answer him, he’d disappeared. With him went to ominous atmosphere of blackness, and I was able to take a deep breath again. The fresh air oxygenated my lungs and cleared my head, but his message sat heavily on my heart.

I thought of Eurydice from time to time, of course. If I was being honest with myself, it was her that made me most anxious about Grace. Eurydice was my first and greatest failure. My first love, my first wife, symbolized such an essential lack in my character that any thought of her ensured my elemental humility, despite the loud accolades about my brilliant talent. Such bone deep awareness of inadequacy is not overcome. Ever.

It is also why I am afraid that I won’t be able to protect Grace this time.

I’ll tell you a secret. I’m pretty sure that it is also why they appointed me her guardian. They don’t expect me to succeed. They think that it will appear they’re giving her a guard, when I’m actually so useless that she is doomed.
I know it.

I know it, and despite being overwhelmed with the awareness of my own inadequacies I am so damned full of pride that I’ll risk it anyway, rather than let Mars or Alexandros have the job. What kind of fool’s paradox is that?

Mine.

 

writing and real life January 23, 2012

Filed under: Reading,Writing — Shawn Bird @ 12:25 am
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Arg.

You know, I had a rather easy teaching load first semester, and I thought, “Wow.  There will be so much time to write!” and I didn’t.  I had hoped to finish book 3, and maybe get a good start on book 4 in the Grace Awakening series, but it didn’t happen.

I completely blame Diana Gabaldon for this.

I was making good progress until Outlander came into the electronic library for me in October.  Then I had to read every other book in the series.   Have you seen this series?  The first book is over 800 pages, and it’s the shortest one.  Four of the seven books are well over a thousand pages.  Like 400 pages over.   The books were so good that I read every one of the books twice on my e-reader before they expired from the library, and then I went out and started buying the audio books to listen to while I knitted, sewed, cooked, or cleaned (okay, not so often while I cleaned, but only because I don’t do that very often).  Then I had to find and read all Gabaldon’s Lord John books.  Just because.  Between reading and working and the other stuff- like making a traditional 8 yard kilt…  I wasn’t getting much writing done.  Much?  Read ‘practically none.’

I was listening to the Diana Gabaldon podcast the other day (yes, it’s all gotten quite obsessive, I recognise) and this comment struck me:

I write every day. If you don’t write for a day or two, the inertia builds up on you and it’s hard to start again.  (Diana Gabaldon podcast Episode 3: The “Kernel Process”)

Plainly, that is precisely my experience.  I wrote the first two books in 6 months, writing 5 pages a day, or 25 pages a week, while I was working full-time and president of my Rotary club.  Two years of editing those, and starting the research on the next series, and then Outlander brought me to a grinding halt.    Gabaldon reminded me that it was time to find the hour a day that would break the deadlock and get me in the swing of working on the novel(s).

In the last week, I’ve been making a concerted effort to at least read through the previous work, edit here and there, add a scene, etc.  It’s not a lot, but it’s getting into the habit of spending time with Grace and Ben again, which is the important thing.

Diana Gabaldon is very active on the internet.  She interacts with her fans, she travels, she has family commitments, and yet she is writing every day.  I was reading a section of The Outlandish Companion yesterday that particularly hit me.  She describes her day (December 15, 1995), in amusing detail.  Since I had already read the completed scene in situ, it was very interesting to read the process of its development.  She writes like I do on too little sleep, images come in, she asks questions, and the story evolves.  At the end of that particular day, she was 1700  words short of her 2000 word goal, but she had several threads developing in her mind and she had 300 words more than nothing.  As I read how she wove her writing into her day I decided I need to be far more disciplined if I’m ever going to get Awakening Myth finished for this spring.

Next week the new semester begins, and I’m full-time again.  Guess what?  I bet I’ll find more time than I’ve been able to find for the last five months.  I’ll be squeezing it in between other tasks with intention.  I’ll probably have to cut back on the knitting, but since I have made 3 sweaters, 5 scarves and 5 pairs of socks already, that shouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice.  We’ll see.

PS.  If you want to read about Diana’s day some 16 years ago, it’s here.  If you have The Outlandish Companion, it’s on page 453.

PS2.  Didn’t I say in yesterday’s blog that the student is responsible for learning, and the teacher can only inspire?  Thanks for the lesson, Diana.  I guess it’s my own fault your great books completely distracted me from my responsibilities. I get it.

 

truth and memory December 27, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Mythology,Writing — Shawn Bird @ 12:40 am
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One of the values of learning another language, is the enlightenment it provides to your own language.  I have links to an article about this in a previous blog post.

While I’ve been working with Mnemosyne and Lethe this week, I’ve discovered an interesting thing.

In English, the opposite of memory is forgetfulness.  In Greek lethe  is opposed with aletheia (prefix ‘a-’ making some thing the opposite, remember). Aletheia doesn’t mean memory, it means truth.

I find that very profound.  It’s not the concept of a lie that is the opposite of truth in Greek, it’s forgetfulness.

It begs pondering.

I think I can do something with the concept

.  I’m not sure what, at this point, but it fits with Ben’s reality, doesn’t it?  Lethe has robbed Grace of memory, and it keeps her from knowing the truth.

I suppose this means I’m about to be introduced to the goddess Aletheia.  I wonder what she’ll be like?   Writing is fascinating business.

 

Mnemosyne & Ben December 26, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Mythology,Writing — Shawn Bird @ 2:59 pm
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Here is a snippet of ‘something yet to be.’ I think it will end up in Grace Awakening Myth, but it will tell me for certain in its own time. The author has very little say in these matters.  Characters have their own agendas.   Lethe is the river of forgetfulness from which humans drink before they pass into the underworld. The personification of the river is the goddess Lethe herself.  ‘She’  is Mnemosyne, goddess of memory.  ‘He’ is… uh…well.  Ben.  Sort of.

**************

She remembers all, of course. She must. It is her talent and her obligation. It is her blessing and her curse. Everything is in balance, an essential paradox poised on the point of a pin.

He doesn’t remember everything.  Whatever he sees in those longing backward glances, Mnemosyne knows the two sided blade. She has gifted him with the joy of them, but she has blessed him with Lethe’s touch as well. Of course, he has no memory of that.

He senses the tragedies though, despite the lack of memory.  He feels the ephemeral pain of loss, rejection, disdain and disgust.  He clings to the fear of them, to fuel his pursuit, but they threaten to overwhelm him at times.  It was doing so now.  She could feel the force of her presence stirring memories in him.

A faint hum stirred the air along with a cool, gentle scent.  Mnemosyne reached behind her to a goblet that had materialized there.  She touched his shoulder, “Here, son.  Drink.”

He smiled vaguely, sipping down the draught.  He nodded gratefully, and she felt the tension leave him  as he gazed beyond the room.  ”I must go.”

She nodded.  ”I will do what I can from here.”

“Thank you.”

As he turned into the ether, she smiled to herself.  ”Thank you, Lethe,” she said to the empty room, and heard the distant  melodious chuckle in response.

Paradox indeed.

 

 
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