Crazymakers

I once had a creative writing teacher who told our class the following.

"To become a successful writer," he said, "you have to do two things. First, you have to toss your TV out the window. Second, you have to marry someone rich."

It was good advice, especially the TV part, but I think he could have added one more item to the list. Avoid Crazymakers.

Julie Cameron, in her book, The Artist's Way, describes Crazymakers as "those personalities that create storm centers. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive. And," she adds, "for the creative person in their vicinity, they are enormously destructive. You know the type: charismatic but out of control, long on problems and short on solutions."

In short, they will sabatoge your writing time.

Early on in my writing career my life was filled with crazymakers. It seemed that every time I found a few hours to write and was just getting into the flow of a project my phone would ring or the door bell would buzz and one of the many crazymakers in my life would be there, sucking me into the eye of their storms. By the time I was able to hang up or they had moved on, I was totally derailed and could not get back into the project. Crazymakers never ask if it is a good time to call or visit, or if they are interrupting something. They just give it to you with both barrels.

I don't have as many crazymakers in my life anymore. I'm not sure why. Maybe I've became more protective of my time. Call display on the phone certainly helps and my real friends always understand that writing is my work, and that I have a truly miserable boss (me). When I give writing workshops and the participants ask how to become successful, I give them this advice: become tyrants with your time. Schedule writing into your week, and stick to the schedule. Don't let anyone steal your time, and that's really what it is. Stealing.

Most writers don't have the luxury of full writing days. They have to write in the margins of their lives, between paying jobs, carpooling the kids, maintaining a home and making meals. It's hard to squeeze in writing time, and when you do, you feel selfish, especially if you are not yet published. But that is the irony. To become published you have to spend hours, years, mastering the craft. You have to send out submissions and accept rejection letters. Above all else, you have to persevere. You have to write. And write. Expecting your family and friends to give you the time to work at your craft is not selfish. Avoid the crazymakers. They are not your friends. Your friends want you to be successful.

Remember that.

Here endith the sermon.

Oh, and don't forget, get rid of the TV.

Shelley

Favourite Quote

Recently my book publisher asked me to fill out a questionnaire in preparation for the launch of my next book, The Gotcha Gods. One of the questions asked was, what is your favourite quote?

Hmmm. I love quotes. I even collect quotes. I went to my journals and searched for something perfect, the quote that would sum up my beliefs and values succinctly and beautifully. No luck. They were all lovely, but each of them spoke to only part of my life, like friendships, writing, or finding inspiration. I left the question blank, but felt bad about it.

Later it came to me. Desiderata.

Desiderata is a prose/poem that I feel speaks directly to me. I have always loved it, from the first time I heard it as a young girl. When I searched for it I discovered that it is attributed to Max Ehrmann in 1952, but I believe I once read that it was first written in the 16th century. One of my daughters recently discovered the music that was written to go with the words. She burned it onto a CD so I can listen to it whenever I want, which is often.

Unfortunately, it is too long to use on an author bio, but I will post it below. Clearly, these are words to live by.
Shelley

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

Backyard visitors

Good news! We haven't seen the skunk for a few weeks. We smell him, he's definitely been to visit the neighbours, but Winston is back to smelling doggy and not skunky. Our strategy of blocking any potential backyard skunk-access holes with chicken wire must have paid off, although the skunk can still walk up the driveway and into the backyard anytime he wants. Fortunately he stayed away the night we had a backyard wedding reception, a sit-down dinner for 100. Can you image??? A direct hit to the dog that night would have caused mass pandemonium. I cringe to think of it.

A little bit of trivia: when I went to purchase chicken wire I discovered it is now called poultry wire. Is this the new, more politically correct term, do you think? Gotta keep those turkeys happy.

A new, more welcome backyard visitor I've had this year is a hummingbird. This is the first time I've had a feeder, and I'm fascinated by these tiny birds. I have the feeder hanging directly outside my office window where I can enjoy their visits.

Amazing hummingbird facts:

Hummingbirds can fly forward, backward, shift sideways and stop in mid-air. (Can a helicopter do all that?)

An average hummingbird consumes at least half its weight in nectar each day. (Lucky birds!)

The hummingbird is the world's smallest bird (but the hardest to catch - see next fact.)

Hummingbirds can reach speeds up to 60 miles an hour.

While lapping up nectar, they can move their tongues in and out of their bill at a rate of up to 12 times a second. (Give that a try why don't you!)

A hummingbird's wings beat 78 times PER SECOND during regular flight. (See how fast you can flap your arms!)

Female hummingbirds' tongues are longer than the males.

Hummingbirds use spider webs as glue to attach the nest to a tree branch and as a binding agent for the building materials.

Whoa! Such amazing little creatures. Mother Nature is one clever gal.

Shelley

Summer Reading

There's a romantic notion that summer should be filled with lightweight, 'beach' books. Ha! Not for me. For some reason I always spend the summer plowing through one very long book. This year my book club chose Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True as our summer read for exactly that reason - it is so long and we'd need the whole summer to get through it. I'm almost there, and look forward to reading something much lighter next. That said, I agree with the blurb on the back cover that describes the book as, "A work of astonishing craftsmanship, structural symmetry, and literary self-awareness." So true. The book is truly a masterpiece of fine writing.

Last summer I read John Irving's hefty Until I Find You. It too was a brilliant saga, told in that warped voice that only Irving can pull off. Highly recommended. (But then I love anything Irving writes.)

I also love anything Jodi Picoult writes and in the past year I have read My Sister's Keeper, Vanishing Acts, Plain Truth. I intend to read everything else she has written too, as soon as I can wrestle the books out of my daughters' hands.

Other stand-out books I've read this past year:

Before I Wake ( Robert J. Wiersema)

Ms Zephyr's Notebook (KC Dyer)

Marley and Me (John Grogan)

Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True (Elizabeth Berg)

Looking at this list I'm surprised to see so few teen novels there. Other years I've read only teen fiction. Rejoining an adult book club has clearly changed my reading habits.

On the to-read-very-soon list:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (a classic I've somehow missed)

The trilogy: Uglies, Pretties, Specials by Scott Westerfield (recommended by my 15-yr.-old daughter)

Dear Catastrophe Waitress by Brendan Halpin (I enjoyed his first book, Donorboy)

The Book Club by Mary Alice Monroe

Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood I believe all the women are Canadian (?) My friend Alison Kelly (actress from Mom's the Word) has a piece in this book. I've seen the cover, it's gorgeous!

These and more I need to squeeze in between the monthly book group selections.

Would love to hear what others think should be on my MUST READ list!

Yours in books,

Shelley

They Liked It!!!

Those wonderful people at Orca Books have sent me a contract for my latest project, Sister Wife! Yahoo!!! The plan is for The Gotcha Gods (or maybe just Gotcha)to be released in the spring of '08 and Sister Wife will come out the following spring. After a long dry spell with no new books, I'm back on the writing track. It's a satisfying feeling.

Sister Wife is set in a town very much like Bountiful, BC, where polygamy thrives. Emotionally it was a difficult book to write so this contract is especially rewarding.

Two activities that a couple characters in the book enjoy are balancing rocks and building inuksuit (plural for inuksuk). Funny thing, I like doing those things too! There's a magic in that moment when you balance a rock in a way that looked impossible. It feels almost spiritual.

On hikes with Winston, my bouncy springer spaniel, we sometimes stumble across inuksuit at the side of the trail. They always make me smile and I stop and build companions for the lone ones. One winter a whole community of inuksuit sprouted up in Cates Park where I often walk. I looked forward to going there each day to see if there were any new ones, and to add my own creations. I never saw anyone else building them, but I felt we were playing some kind of game, a game without winners, losers or competition. That's how my story, Sister Wife, was born. Two of the characters individually build inuksuit on the beach, and wonder about the identity of the other builder.

Ideas come from the oddest sources...

Until next time ~
Shelley

OutFOXing the skunk

We have a problem. A stinky problem. It's making me crazy.

Each night at dusk a skunk passes through our backyard on his nightly stroll. He's absolutely adorable with his glossy black and white coat, his bushy tail and his shiny black eyes. He sniffs about, looking for grubs, completely oblivious to us even though we are often sitting just a few feet away.

The problem isn't the skunk. It's Winston, our incredibly stupid (but loveable) springer spaniel. How many times does he have to get sprayed before he gets that the skunk is not a squirrel with a stripe? That if he chases it he's going to get blasted with skunk spray, right in the face and up the nose?

Winston's been sprayed 3 times in the past few months, and twice before that. I've tried to train my family to keep the doors closed in the evening, but too often they're left open, and the next thing we know the dog is tearing about, foaming at the mouth, shaking his head and spreading eau-de skunk all through the house. The first time it happened was at Thanksgiving when we had relatives staying with us for the weekend. At the end of the first evening the dog was let out, but before the door was even shut he came flying back in, and the obnoxious smell was so horrid that it caused a young relative to throw-up, right then and there. Then we had throw-up and a stinky dog to deal with. My daugher came home the next day and said the combination of roasting turkey aroma and skunk smell made her want to throw up too. More recently we were hosting a large gathering of people, a volleyball club wrap-up event, but the party cleared out in exactly 5 minutes flat when the freshly-skunked dog ran through the house. More than one guest has let me know that their clothes still stink of skunk.

If you haven't experienced 'fresh' skunk spray, it's a smell you simply cannot believe. It gets into your mouth, permeates your skin, makes your eyes burn. Everyone in the room, everything in the room absorbs the odor and stinks for months. It doesn't matter how many times we wash Winston, in whatever kind of guaranteed skunk-odor-removing solution, he still stinks for weeks, and the smell lingers for months, especially noticeable when he gets wet. At Thanksgiving our house guests reported that when they returned home after the weekend and opened their suitcases, everything in them smelled of skunk.

What to do, what to do??

When I lamented to my friend (and fellow author) Diane Tullson about my skunk dilemma, she replied with the following...

What the heck was the skunk doing in the yard with so many people around? And wouldn't it be out of skunk-squirt by now? I'm thinking you have a bad skunk. A genuine psycho. A serial-squirter. I think you need to do it in. Ah ah ah, I can hear that vegetarian voice crying for mercy, but no, bring in the guns, Shelley. I'm sure about 48+ Deep Cove residents will support me on this. OH MY. There's probably not a can of tomato juice to be had in N. Vancouver. You're probably not ready to laugh about this just yet.

No, I wasn't.

Another author friend, Kim Denman, always a source of the most intriguing facts, gently explained that the only natural enemy the skunk has is the fox. Therefore, to get rid of the skunk, you simply have to sprinkle fox urine around your property. Sounds logical.

But where does a person get fox urine?

The three of us wondered if human urine might suffice, and we made plans.

This is what the next email from Diane said.

Night vision goggles, that's it! Fill the squirt guns with pee, how about? Get a gun, Shelley. Tell the neighbours to stay away from the windows, put on a nose plug, and do it.

Sadly, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I searched the internet and discovered there are pellets available that are made of fox pee. You sprinkle them around your yard to deter the skunk. Not as much fun as squirt guns, I admit, and certainly not as 'fitting', but I'm on the market for fox-pee pellets. If you know of an outlet that sells them, please call me.

Shelley

Symposium on the Book

Whoa! Was that ever a learning experience!

Yesterday I sat on a panel at the SFU Symposium on the Book. http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/pubworks/symposium.html

Four other authors and 5 panelists teamed up to discuss topics such as reaching reluctant readers, (my topic), historical fiction, humour, censorship and fantasy, all for teen readers.

I was there as a presenter, but I felt like an imposter. I gave my little talk about luring teens into "the wonderful world of the written world" (Orville Prescott) but it felt so lightweight compared to the other presentations. Thank goodness I was able to go first. I'm not sure I would have been able to walk to the podium if I had to follow one of the other fabulous presentations.

And what an audience. Such wise questions and reflections.

On another note ~ one of the Steps to Greater Happiness by Mark Holder is: Get Into the flow - do things you can get passionately involved in. "Bike a favourite trail, do yoga, play hockey. Do whatever lets the rest of the world fall away. Watching TV doesn't count. Be an active participant in something that absorbs. you."

I wonder if participating in the symposium counts. I wasn't particularly 'active', but teen fiction is my passion and the rest of the world certainly fell away. Even my skunk problems. But more about that tomorrow.

Namaste