Reluctant Reader No More - Thanks to J.K. Rowling & Chris Colfer!

Thanks to J.K. Rowling​'s Harry Potter Series, my 10 year old has turned the page in her reading confidence and ability. The magic found in Rowling's books has transformed how my daughter views herself as a reader. 

When her best buddy suggested she read The Wishing Spell, the first book in The Land of Stories Series, by Chris Colfer, she hesitated. It is a big 400 page book, with few pictures to break up the text, but she was on a reading high, thanks to Harry, Hermione, and Ron. As she gingerly opened the book, she immediately fell in love with Colfer's imaginary world.

Highly recommend this series!

Now, I often find her at 10:00pm, well after bedtime, secretly reading, because she is "at a good part" and has to see what happens next. To her, every scene in The Wishing Spell is  "a good part." 

The reader in me is thrilled to have a fellow book lover in the house, the mom in me is proud that my once struggling reader is now ranked above grade level, and the writer in me knows what a feat it is to write a book full of "good parts" and no slow, boring sections.

Thanks Chris Colfer for sharing your imagination with millions of kids. Please keep writing.  My daughter never wants this series to end.

The Seeds of a Story

institutechildrenslit.net
This is actually a close cartoon likeness of me.
Except the desk is missing my clutter, coffee cup,
& "cartoon me" has much tidier hairdo.

Not to state the obvious, but a lot of work goes into publishing a book. Yup. Thousands of hours of labour.

It begins with creating the characters, building the story, and adding details that make the reader avidly turn every page.

To develop your story, deleting words, phrases, and passages that you have painstakingly created can be a painful step.

In the writing world this process is called, “Killing the darlings.” All those cutesy, fanciful passages that don’t carry the story along, although they make you feel like an ever-so-clever writer, have just got to go.

Constructive criticism is crucial and an open mind to receive it, is imperative. A great way to get feedback is to join a critique group of genre specific fellow authors.

roashina.wordpress.com

Once you are confident your manuscript is the next best thing to follow Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwort’s, you begin the Submission Process.

This is slowly followed be the Reception of Rejection. It can take three to six months to hear back from publishers and unlike constructive criticism it doesn’t matter if your mind is open to it or not, it’s a’ comin.'

Then, if you have actually written a decent story, found the right publisher, and you’re willing to listen to their ideas for its future place in the Universe of Literature, you will receive an offer to publish.

For my novel, Spaghetti is NOT a Finger Food and Other Life Lessons this will be a five year process, from the moment of conception to publication this November.

But really the seeds for Spaghetti and the seeds for all my story ideas germinated in me when I was a child.  My mom always looked for free ways to entertain us, so we spent almost every winter Saturday at the Centennial Library, our noses buried in books. My brother and I would grab a stack and race each other to one of our favourite reading nooks. That’s when my love of reading began and was further nurtured by my mom’s love of poetry.

A.A. Milne was our house favourite and our copies of Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young both lost their covers as a result of our love of Milne’s words.

My favourite poem from A.A. Milne is, Halfway Down.

thelovelys.com

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where i sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

Fellow readers, when did you first get hooked? Can you remember what book was the “one” for you?

Fellow writers, when did you know, “I am a writer?”

Three Cheers for Multi-Tasking!

I, like all mothers, have taken this skill to epic proportions. I can talk on the phone, make quadruple batches of spaghetti sauce, wash dishes, and check emails without pause. Never have I gaffed and washed the phone and stirred my dishes. This skill serves me well as I carve writing time from any spare moment that comes my way. 

I have become that low maintenance writer that you see madly typing on the bus; their laptop perched on their knees, ear buds blocking out all sound, swaying in their seat with the ebb and flow of traffic as they make their way to work.

There was a time where I needed silence. Uninterrupted long periods of silence…and my comfy office chair, with the back locked at a perfect 82.75 degree angle…and my coffee, fresh and hot (steaming was best) in my brightly-lit writing nook. Then and only then was I ready to write - as long as the phone didn’t ring and break the magic.

Now my computer is optional and I only need a pen, paper, and a smooth writing surface. Above is a picture of my seat-back tray from my recent flight to Toronto. What a gift; 1½ hours of writing time crammed into a Westjet seat, next to a kid that was more interested in his book than talking to the middle aged lady, who feverishly scrawled page after page of nearly illegible text.

Honestly, this was near bliss. I would have been happy with this alone, but then that tiny voice that cartwheels around my noggin’, suggested this was another prime multi-tasking moment. It was mid afternoon, and I was slightly peckish. I’m sure I've read somewhere, that all the great writers maintain perfect blood sugar levels. If J.K. Rowling would take my call, I’m almost certain she’d agree; low blood sugar hampers the creative juices. 

With firm conviction I took my bliss to a new level. I ordered, without guilt, a large double-double and bigger-than-my-face-size triple chocolate cookie from Tim Horton’s. 

Good-bye bliss, hello Writing Nirvana.