by | March 3, 2010 · 10:54 am

Overcoming my “prejudice against poetry”

I had a wonderful meeting with the other two winners of the BPL all-night short story contest over the weekend. Karen Kachra, Jennifer Mook-Sang, and I met up at CJ’s Café in Bronte to get to know each other and read our prize-winning stories. (Which were lovely, by the way! I’m looking forward to reading more of their work in the future.)

We chatted about what we liked to read for pleasure, and Karen mentioned feeling like she had a bit of a “prejudice against poetry”. (Love that phrase, Karen!)

The three of us agreed that poetry made us feel a bit dense. We expect it to be full of symbolism and deep thoughts and references that we just won’t get. Poetry seems like a lot of work.

Being required to take a graduate seminar on the long poem (think T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound) during one dark, Montreal winter may have ruined me for poetry. By that time, I had already finished my undergraduate degree in English Literature and published a few poems—I had had my fill.

Ten-plus years later, and I still generally skip the poetry in the literary journals I read. I’m drawn to the stories, the dialogue, the action.

But every once in a while, I’ll catch a word or a phrase in one of the poems I’m passing over—“violet night”, “vainglorious”, “this gritty pearl”—and sigh over the sensual power of language. I remember being amazed, way back when, by how poets more than anyone else get to play with words and use them in surprising ways to elicit emotional reactions.

It’s time I started reading poetry again. I’m looking for recommendations to help me get over my poetry prejudice. Jennifer and Karen recommended Billy Collins. Any others I should check out?

Maria

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by | February 28, 2010 · 9:33 pm

20 Sleeps til Spring

The Cadbury Cream Eggs are on store shelves. The days are longer. The sky more blue. The shutters are beginning to rattle gently as the March winds lie in wait—soon to be April showers to grow the May flowers. What will March bring for us Restless Writers?  Well, we’re currently working on adding some new goods to the blog. Including a jazzed up look and most definitely more posts. We’re pumped. It’s 2010 and we’ve got a great year ahead. Check it out:

  • Our 1st birthday in June
  • A special meeting with literary guests
  • Countdown to Query letter mayhem
  • The Surrey Writers’ Conference in B.C.
  • First novels, second novels…and sleep

How do you plan to throw open your shutters?!

Beckie

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by | February 26, 2010 · 10:08 am

Poetry as a symptom of insanity

This is from my Forgotten English word-of-the-day calendar:

metromania: A species of insanity in which the patient evinces a rage for reciting poetry. From Greek metreon, metre, and mainomai, to be insane.

—Rev. John Boag’s Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850

Maria

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by | February 24, 2010 · 12:51 am

Time well spent

Here’s a little midnight love for those of you choosing blog-fog (online form of brain-drain) over sleep. Check out Writer Unboxed. Jane Friedman writes a great piece titled:  Audience Development: Critical to Every Writer’s Future that debunks the myth that fiction writers don’t need to worry about developing an online platform. Newsflash! Getting a book published does NOT equate to readership. The big secret? You want to have an audience connected to YOU over the lifespan of your writing career—far beyond the publication of a single title. Psssst… Pass it on—social media is not a waste of time.

Beckie

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by | February 18, 2010 · 11:44 pm

Here’s what’s blowing my skirt up (Lori)

Ok. My Skirt. Nothing’s been blowing up there of late (my two kids are tag-teaming me with Norwalk-type illnesses, so if it’s not puking or pooping on me, I haven’t had time to notice it…).

I just finished Diana Peterfreund’s Tap & Gown, the final book of the Secret Society Girl series. These books are like caramel corn for me – I want to devour them in one sitting and I relish every tasty morsel. Next up: Perfection, a memoir by Julie Metz.

Lori

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by | February 18, 2010 · 10:48 pm

Sexy-Times: Trials & Tribulations

I’m revising the final act of my manuscript and I’ve hit a wall. A sex wall, to be exact.

You see, there’s a romantic, um, encounter that occurs and I’ve been struggling with both how far my heroine goes with the fella as well as how descriptive said encounter should be.  Apparently, despite my initial bravado, I am an emotional twelve-year-old when it comes to writing sex scenes (complete with blushing, discomfort and mild nausea).

Now, I like a good sex scene as much as the next middle-aged suburban soccer mom, but when I have to choreograph it…well, let’s just say it feels like my grandma is reading over my shoulder (or is – shudder – in the room with my heroine and her dude).

Last month, I unveiled my progress to my fellow restless writers and the reaction was unanimous: MORE SEX PLEASE!

And I tried, I really did: I googled “how to write a good sex scene”; I drank a lot of red wine; I even had some fairly steamy stuff on paper. But it just wasn’t working for me and I started feeling like a big, frigid prude (Judy Blume was cranking out fantastic raunch in her sixties!).

Then I read an interview with Jennifer Weiner, one of my favourite authors, and she stated that, as long as her mother was alive, she wouldn’t be writing any  sex scenes either.

My fellow writers will be disappointed, but until further notice, Ms. Weiner and I will be tunneling under the sex wall, much to the relief of our mothers/grandmas.

Lori

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by | February 9, 2010 · 11:19 pm

Here’s what’s blowing up my skirt and other fun (Beckie)

Cool addition to the blog, Maria! Here’s some interesting trivia (just because it’s fun). 2009 happened to mark the 55th anniversary of the filming of Marilyn Monroe’s skirt scene—the famous picture of Monroe, laughing as her skirt is blown up by the blast from a subway vent from The Seven Year Itch.

Okay, so, I’m no Marilyn, but here’s what’s blowing up my skirt!

What I’m reading:  I just finished “Wake” by Lisa McMann (first in a new and hot YA trilogy) and have learned that my dreams are not my own. I’m also into “Sage-ing While Age-ing” by Shirley MacLaine, which I seem to always be coming back to, to read excerpts and chapters over and over again. MacLaine is brilliant. Brave. Fearless. Provocative. Okay, so what’s next? I have cracked the cover of “Something Borrowed,” by Emily Giffin and only because it was handed to me (very nicely) by a fellow restless writer in an effort to cure my chick-lit ignorance. It’s also a library book (and not signed out by me!) which creates a bit of urgency to finish! I have already learned two very important facts: 1) that those mass-market sized romance novels are NOT chick lit; and 2) chick-lit is fiction written by women for women. And it’s damn funny!

Beckie

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by | February 8, 2010 · 8:14 pm

Here’s what’s blowing up my skirt (Maria)

This will be the first of a regular feature on the Restless Writers’ blog about what we’re into–what we’re reading, what we’re working on, the dreams we had last night, whatever we feel like sharing. (Thanks to Lori for inspiring the title of this new feature.)

And if this turns into TMI, we will stop. That’s our prerogative.

What I’m reading: I just finished “Couch Surfing” by Cathy Yardley. Yes, it’s chick lit, and it was great fun.  I’m now into “Perfidia” by Judith Rossner. Next up: “A Vintage Caper” by Peter Mayle.

Maria

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by | February 4, 2010 · 10:26 am

BPL short story contest winners announced!

The winners of the Burlington Public Library All-nighter Short Story Contest were announced at a special reception on January 27. Congratulations to Karen Kachra, Jennifer Mook Sang and—me! I’m very proud to have placed third with my short story “Poison Pen.” In addition to a cash prize, I received some wonderful feedback from writer Lynda Simmons, who was one of the judges.

I’m trying to decide if I should post the story here, or if I should try to refine it for possible publication. Your thoughts?

Maria

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by | January 18, 2010 · 12:28 pm

A room of my own

My husband is very respectful of the time I need to write.

If I’m typing away, he does not interrupt me with invitations to watch television; requests to sample his latest culinary feat; and pleas to, for the love of God, vacuum the stairs.

What is more of a challenge is ensuring I have space of my own in which to write, and the home office is getting a bit crowded with stuff. The stuff belongs to both of us—it’s mine and ours. Things like:

  • All the books we own
  • Wrapping paper and ribbons
  • An extra dining room chair
  • Malfunctioning Roomba parts
  • Cat litter
  • A recently acquired set of encyclopedias
  • Three empty CPUs
  • Textbooks, binders and sundries from my hubby’s cooking classes

While it’s easy to simply clear a path, settle into the office chair and peck away at the keyboard—because physically, what else do I need?—I find that I want more space for writing.

I want elbow room on the desk for when I peer out the window and noodle out a plot problem. I’d like to install a coffee pot so I don’t have to run up and down the stairs. I want a reading table so I don’t have to set up a secondary workstation in the living room every time I read the latest Writer’s Digest.

I need less ours and more mine.

How do my fellow Restless Writers carve out space at home to write?

Maria

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