Scattered Thoughts of a Kijiji Surfer

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So, I ask myself – what have I been doing this summer rather than updating my blog?  Well, I have been working on my writing, but here are a few other things I’ve been up to:

a) surfing Kijiji for everything from a new apartment in Toronto for Liam, to a circa-1980 caramel-coloured Scandinavian leather chair/ottoman for Don’s birthday (I think I was actually looking for an old wooden double headboard at the time – a rare item as it seems people used to be a lot smaller and only required 3/4 beds rather than doubles, queens and kings);

b) painting – walls, not canvases. In particular, recycled Sky Blue (Walmart, $13.88/gallon) for Liam’s room and Aqua Whisper for the kitchen at The Lazy Loon. What a great job for somebody, making up names of paint colours;

c) avoiding vacuuming up dog hair and weeding flower beds, while hoping housework becomes Don’s new retirement passion;

d) Googling everything under the sun – I’ll be writing away, pause to look up something pertinent to the manuscript, then an hour later find myself browsing all-inclusive vacations or walking tours of Ireland – go figure!

e) reading – most recently (I even bought this book) – The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous (Suzanne Crowley) – reading is actually classified as “working”, fortunately;

f) thinking about facilitating a course as part of the Acadia Lifelong Learning program – an introduction to writing for children – this is also actually classified as “work”;

g) eavesdropping on conversations from Inverness to Bridgewater, Quebec City to Queen St. West in Toronto – this is also classified as “work”;

h) helping Shannon get ready to live in France for the year – this apparently involves upwards of 400 forms/applications to be completed;

i) catching up on the sleep I miss while “brain writing” between 2:00 and 4:00 am most nights!

Are you an expert at avoiding the task at hand? Did you do anything equally interesting this summer? Scattered thoughts welcome:)

When’s the last time you got a letter in the mail?

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Have you ever found yourself admiring the beautiful boxes of writing paper? Say, in the book aisle at Winners, or when you’re waiting in line at the cash? Chances are you smiled, then put it back, realizing that even if you did take the time to write somebody a real letter, they’d probably respond by email – maybe even text, if they were really in a hurry.

Today I finally got around to reading through a bundle of letters I inherited from my mother, who died in 2006. Immediately, I wished I could go back 25 years or so, and become a fanatical letter writer, as a means of reminding myself what I did during those 25 years:)  I read love letters written by my parents, when they were living apart, but about  to get married (they were the ages my kids are now – 20 and 22); letters from my grandparents to my mum before they really knew her, containing such nuggets as, “true love is the greatest of riches”; letters from me to my parents while I was a university student (ye gads – did I really spill my guts about my various romances to my parents?!)  The bundle even contained several telegrams (imagine!) Dad sent to Mum in 1957, the cheapest means of quick communication at a distance, I suppose.When I was a student, Nana Mingo typed (because of arthritis) me a letter faithfully every single week. She was fond of including newspaper clippings she thought might be useful, too. Reading those letters today brings her voice back loud and clear, as though she’s still here.

There’s something so intimate about handwritten letters, and it’s a sad thing that they’ve all but become extinct. For sure, the hundreds of email letters I’ve sent over the past decade won’t ever be read again, by anybody. Not that I usually have anything profound or earth-shattering to say, but email is still a record of life, communication, emotions, relationships – at least temporarily, until the recipient deletes it:) Love letters in the sand, sort of.

I made a research trip to the Nova Scotia Archives last week. In perusing various documents, mostly deeds, from the 1750s, I came upon the signature of an ancestor, Jean Frederic Menegeaux (Mingo today). He had simply served as witness to a deed, but I marvelled that I could (via microfilm) study his handwriting, centuries later.  Now if only he’d kept a diary…but that’s a whole different kettle of fish…When’s the last time somebody wrote you a letter? Do you have boxes of letters stashed away? Would you be happy to have somebody read them years from now? Hmm…

Moving Forward and Looking Back

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“Just keep moving forward and don’t give a shit about what anybody thinks. Do what you have to do for you.”
― Johnny Depp

I’m a sucker for a good quote, and this one by Johnny Depp spoke to me today – timely advice for Don on his last day of being a teacher at Horton High. Thirty-two years of getting up early, going to school, teaching, counselling, organizing, marking and planning would have exhausted a lesser person (like me!) much earlier. He’s a great teacher and Horton won’t be the same without him, but I’m so happy he’ll finally get the time he so deserves to write songs, play guitar, do nothing when he feels like it – and occasionally vacuum up some dog hair 🙂 and deliver cups of tea to me while I’m writing.

Other than being so ridiculously happy for him, I’m incredibly grateful – If he hadn’t gone to school (almost every single day for all those years  (if only teachers could get paid retroactively for unused sick days!) I wouldn’t have had the enormous privilege of being home with my kids when they were little (and bigger), nor would I have had the time to invest in becoming a writer. So, thank you, Don – last word to your rock and roll hero:

“We said we’d walk together baby come what may.That come the twilight should we lose our way.If as we’re walkin a hand should slip free,I’ll wait for you
And should I fall behind,Wait for me.”
― Bruce Springsteen

 

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Confucius

On By janlcoates4 Comments

If only it was that easy…When I was 22, like most people, I had no idea what sort of job(s) I’d end up doing during my lifetime.  I started out as a legal secretary (I was so not cut out for following orders all day), taught high school, then shorthand (does that even exist anymore?) at Acadia, became a mom, designed and made toddlers’ clothing for 15 years, did some substitute teaching, and finally, I’m a writer. Which, next to being a mother, is the job I love best. But it took me 30 years to get from new university graduate to here.

Son Liam’s among the many new grads currently roaming the streets of Toronto in pursuit of a career. I’ll be sitting proudly in the audience next week, wiping away a tear or two, as he receives his Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) in Accounting from Queen’s University (GPA 3.8, if I’m allowed to brag – since this is my blog, I guess I can:) The job market’s tough – accounting ads calling for fewer than 3-5 years of experience are non-existent, but I know somebody will eventually give him a chance, and his working life will begin. What I hope, is that he finds something early on about which he’s passionate (and that pays well!) My father spent 25 years doing a job he hated, but he had a family to support, and in his day, people stuck with the same job for most of their working lives. Husband Don retires from Horton High at the end of June, after a 32-year teaching career, most of which he’s enjoyed (okay – not 100% of the time). So it’s a time of new beginnings for our family.

In today’s world, young people are probably looking at having at least a handful of different jobs before retirement. One advantage of getting older, is that you gradually come to realize that things most often work out as they should…and that patience is a great virtue. Once again, I give the last word to Dr. Seuss:

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

by

Dr. Seuss

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go…

Of “Look Books” and “Longtubitis” – School Visits…

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I always tell students they need to be nosey in order to be a fiction writer because you never know when a brilliant idea might turn up. I had a fascinating conversation with a six-year-old boy yesterday at Maitland District Elementary – he told me he was writing a “look book”, and his main character had a condition called “longtubitis”.  Of course, I thought I was mishearing him at first, but he then gave me a detailed demonstration of what such an affliction might look like (think Inspector Gadget and his Go Go Gadget arms, only all four limbs). My adult brain could never come up with an idea like that – maybe it should be kids who write books for kids!

I’ll be doing my final WITS visit of the season tomorrow at Annapolis Royal Regional Academy, yet another small rural school on the education chopping block. I think I put over 2,500 kilometres on my car doing WITS visits this year, but it’s been a blast, and I can’t wait to do it all over again next year.  Thank you, students and staff at these schools, for welcoming me this year!

Bedford South, Central Colchester Jr. HIgh, Cornwallis Jr. High, Glooscap Elementary, Kingston & District, L.E. Shaw Elementary, Maitland District, North Queen’s, Rawdon District, Truro Elementary, Annapolis Royal Regional, and Auburn Drive.


My fifteen seconds of fame at Maitland District Elementary


A springy wall at Kingston and District School


Evidence of the Bay of Fundy Mud-Eating Monster, near the lighthouse in Walton, Hants County.


Students at North Queen’s providing some artwork for my (as yet unpublished) picture book story about their neighborhood park, Keji.

 

School Visits – L. E. Shaw, Glooscap, Rawdon Elementary Schools

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One of my favorite things about being a writer is visiting schools through the Writers in the Schools (WITS) program, run by the Writers’ Federation of NS. Thank you to everybody at these three schools for welcoming me! I got to help the grade 3 and 4 students at Glooscap get started on creating their own picture books, with topics ranging from wanting a puppy to the perils of being a very skinny man. I hope to go back and see their finished books before the end of the school year.

With Grace and the Braille edition of RAINBOWS

Although HARE is really for readers in grade 7 and up, I share a bit of it with students in grade 5 and 6.  Somebody always asks about the title; what I love is that as soon as I tell them that Jacob is the “Hare”, metaphorically speaking, even without reading the book, somebody in the crowd quickly figures out that the Elephant, then, must be the war. Being old and crotchety as I am, I always take a few minutes to explain that to many people, like Jacob and the other 20,000 Lost Boys of Sudan, war and its after-effects are very real, and it’s for that reason that many adults are against the video war games so commonly played these days. War is not fun for anybody. During yesterday’s visit, a student said, “Yeah, but war isn’t real in those games.”  I’ve never even seen a game like Call of Duty being played, but I can only imagine the adrenalin-pumping sort of violence contained therein, real war or not.  War is too devastating to be trivialized in a game. I must remember to use that as a response the next time the topic arises…

L. E. Shaw, March, 2012

Despite all that, I love being a visiting author, and I’ll be in Caledonia, Annapolis Royal, Maitland and Kingston before the school year’s out. I’m sure when I was in school we never had a “real” author visit our class – as a kid who always loved to write, I would have been thrilled to bits! Thank you Writers’ Fed for making these visits possible.

Book or Movie? The Hunger Games

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“The brain is very good at protecting itself,” Rich said. “When you read, you’re constantly accessing your memories and your frame of reference: your experience.” In other words, what a child is able to envision is limited to the boundaries of his or her imagination. “But when you put an image or an idea into a movie, someone else has translated that.” And quite suddenly, the picture a child has created in their mind is augmented by the more vivid and sophisticated imaginations of savvy Hollywood filmmakers.” (from The Miami Herald) (or possibly diminished, in my opinion)

Came upon this quote from Dr. Michael Rich, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, which sums up what I was thinking after seeing The Hunger Games last night.  Shannon and I managed to get last-minute tickets after a fifth showing was added at the local theatre.

For me, the movie wasn’t nearly as good as the book. I enjoyed the slower character and relationship development in the book, and picturing the characters as thought out by author Suzanne Collins. Jennifer Lawrence is a perfect Katniss; the young man who played Peeta, not so much. I would have preferred the actor playing Gale to have been cast as Peeta.  It’s a well-done movie, but my personal preference is to create a story in my mind while I’m reading an author’s words, rather than having the film maker’s version shoved in my face.  Certain scenes in the movie were vastly different from the scenes I’d envisioned while reading the book, and I don’t like that.  Maybe it’s because I’m a control freak…If I were to re-read the book now, I’d think very differently about it, I’m sure.

I’m part-way through the second book, and so far I’m finding it a bit repetitive, but still so well-written.  Apparently 12 million copies of the first book have been sold, to date, a good indication lots of young (and older) readers will have been able to read the author’s story before seeing the film maker’s version.

I saw one family there with a child who appeared to be about seven. Although the violence was downplayed, in favour of building suspense, this is not a story for a kid of that age. It is, after all, about kids forced to hunt down and kill other kids, in retribution for uprisings against the government that happened decades before these kids were born. I hope parents and teachers take the time to point out some of the social criticism in the movie, although I’m sure astute young readers will pick up on a lot of it without help.

I wonder how much money Collins will realize from her trilogy and its movies?  Hard to even imagine a book generating that much money!

Back to the Basics

On By janlcoates3 Comments

When I’m not sitting at my laptop, I do a little substitute teaching. This time of year, education is a hot topic in NS – the government usually declares funding cuts to education, and everybody gets in a tizzy. The fact is, the population of Nova Scotia is an ageing one; there are fewer school-age children every year, so it only makes sense that the amount of money spent on education should decrease proportionately.

Speaking of the basics, this is historic and beautiful Lunenburg Academy, built in 1895, replaced in 2012 by Bluenose Academy - I'm sure the new school is state-of-the-art, but it could never be this beautiful!

Based on my limited experience in the schools, the main problem with education is simply that teaching has veered away from the basics. There are new theories of education, experts, strategies and consultants galore, but the truth is, kids aren’t being taught the basics these days. Spelling tests were outlawed a few years ago; as a result, kids are horrible spellers. It’s not the fault of the kids – they want to know how to spell words correctly and are embarrassed when they can’t. Cursive writing seems to be a dying art, but elementary students are eager to advance to writing from printing, and eager to show it off when they master the skill. Beginning in the lower elementary grades, math strategies abound, making it impossible for parents to help their children at home as current methods are very different from those we learned as kids (no more memorizing the times tables, for example).

It seems to me that many people working in the schools would like to see a “back to the basics” approach in the classroom; why then, are the consultants still filling teachers’ in-boxes with new strategies and approaches that serve to take away from the teachers’ focus on the students, where it belongs? Maybe I’m just getting old, but it seems that the harder the consultants/experts work to devise the best way to teach a simple concept, the more complicated that concept becomes.

On a brighter note, I’m continuing to read the Newbery medal winners and honour books. Memorable ones of late include:  The Wednesday Wars (Gary Schmidt); Elijah of Buxton (Christopher Paul Curtis); and When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead). I’m trying to decipher what makes them so good, but they’re all so well-written I can’t see the structure for the story!  Happy reading and happy March Break!

Rejection, Rhyming and Dr. Seuss

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Dr. Seuss’s first book, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected 27 times before somebody said “Yes!” His most well-known rejection letter reads, “This is too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.” And we all know the happily-ever-after ending to his story!

In reading through various agents and editors’ blogs, it seems like nobody wants to publish rhyming picture books these days, but there are loads of them out there, and kids love them.  What’s up with that?  Apparently, there are lots of kids’writers who think they’re really clever at writing in rhyme, but, unfortunately, few of us actually have that gift. Or is it an acquired skill? I found an article recently, by Doria Chaconas, “Icing the Cake, Writing Stories in Rhythm and Rhyme, that’s full of in-depth, almost scientific, pointers about writing in rhyme. Some of it sounds vaguely familiar from my days as an English Lit student…but it’s worth a read.

For some reason, certain stories just start writing themselves in rhyme, weird as that probably sounds unless you’ve experienced it. I like to think I have a good natural sense of rhythm, but maybe I’m wrong.  It’s fun, but finding rhymes and sounding out rhythms can be incredibly frustrating, too. On-line rhyming dictionaries come in handy, and when all else fails, I rearrange the words again and again, or dig up new ones, until I think it works. Oddly enough, the story I’m working on now can be sung to the tune of My Favourite Things – surely that can’t be a bad thing!

Reading – one of the best things about being a writer!

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William Faulkner

“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.
Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner
Thought I’d keep track of the books I’m reading in 2012; so far, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (great book, perfect title and cover!); My Dad is a Birdman (by David Almond who also wrote the amazing Skellig – today’s Roald Dahl; I can only wish to have such an imagination), and Word Nerd (which won the Sask. Young Readers’ Choice Award last year). I went through the Newbery winners over the past couple of years, then requested them at the library.  The books are pouring in, and I can’t read fast enough!  I now have ten piled up in my writing room…The best writing advice I’ve ever been given is to read voraciously in the genre in which you’re writing.  Figuring out how other writers do it well (or not:) is so helpful!
Used part of my GG money to buy myself a new (very old) desk on Kijiji.  It’s made of oak and has a wonderful smell – not sure how old it is, but I feel like it may have been made in the late 1800s.  Might be time to write some historical fiction…
My new old writing desk (2012)