by Sylvia McNicoll | May 5, 2013 | Sylvia McNicoll
 What a great event to reacquaint and meet with the Maritime kids lit gang:  the Canadian Children’s Roundtable Book Launch. Twelve authors and illustrators recounted lively yet candid and honest recounts of the journeys behind their new books alongside snacks such as homemade cheese crackers, and skorbar cheescake pops (Sure fire hit at the CNE next year)!
My first encounter with seafood was meeting Jessica Scott Kerring, the author of the Lobster Chronicles. I bought great souvenirs such as A Bluenose Twelve Days of Christmas by Bruce Nunn and illustrated by Doretta Groenendyk who I met and Spin to Sea by her daughter Izra Fitch. I met my fellow Arthur Ellis finalist author of Live to Tell, Lisa Harrington and  Lisa Doucet owner of children’s bookstore extraordinary:  Woozles not to mention visited again with Budge Wilson and Carol McDougall.
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by Sylvia McNicoll | Apr 25, 2013 | Sylvia McNicoll
The metaphor–does a lawyer really look like a crow?
Too many kids fall under some witness program so no full frontal photos.
The special thank you card that makes you think the students really know your book better than you do.
What makes for a really great author visit in the school?
Excitement–from the moment you approach the school you see a welcome poster on the door. The announcements declare your presence. The library displays your books.
The kids in the front row of the auditorium ask you if you’re the author. Maybe they point to one of the books in your stack and say they’ve read it or ask something about the plot or character.
What should a terrific author visit do? Entertain and enlighten–I think it’s important that the kids and I have fun but I’m there to deliver some writing process tips perhaps as much for the teachers as for the students.
“Where do ideas come from?”is the question foremost in my mind when I create my presentation. I try to address this question in as visual a way as possible. I carry around a rubber brain, for example, to show them. I use Power Point to show the brain with a piece of toast in–the brain is a toaster, what you get in,you get out.
But I also know the question really means how does a book get created from start to finish so I include images of my office, some research. I address what I
need to pre plan before my fingers hit the keyboard and call up kids to hold the key plot points. I sometimes feel the teachers want me to say I have an idea file, or that I plan and plot the whole story out but I always make sure to say that different processes work for different authors.
Also rewriting is a topic that educators want addressed but it’s so much different for a professional writer than it is for a student and there’s a fine balance between inspiring and encouraging readers and writers, and telling them how hard the professional job of writing and rewriting is.
S is for the Silver Birch…imagine an acrostic thank you poem. I was a little nervous that my name was just too long.
Aw, and then the personal thank you from the kids. To the left you see my cheerleading squad thanking me with attributes that spell my name. Y was for YA if you’re wondering.
Below is a thank you card that gives a flow chart of all the attributes the readers and teachers have found in my story–some I didn’t really know it had.
You’re welcome guys. It is always a huge pleasure. Inspiring and humbling, and tons of fun.
Characters, settings, themes–really? It had all that.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Feb 23, 2013 | Sylvia McNicoll
Hurray for grade 8 students (at Jack Chambers Public School) Nishit, Justin And Sumar. They created this dramatic book trailer and they honoured copyright! Thank you to Mrs. Gulliver too for inspiring (or maybe just assigning) her students to look at a book more closely and “talk” about it with other media. For their efforts they have earned an author visit from me for their fellow class mates. I look forward to
congratulating them in person.
New student production:crush. candy. corpse book trailer
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzzv736Uz6A]
by Sylvia McNicoll | Feb 19, 2013 | Sylvia McNicoll
We’d rather be writing still I think most readers would be surprised how often an author must stop to research things even for fiction. It ruins the right brain flow if we’re not absolutely sure about say, how a school might evacuate during a bomb threat. Â In the baby steps of my new mystery novel for middle aged readers, my brain froze at exactly this dilemma. Â I visited the Halton Police website and saw a phone number. Â
No I didn’t want to call and talk to anyone. Â Reluctantly I dialled Sergeant Glen of the bomb squad. Â I hate having to talk out an infant plot with someone I don’t know. Â So much rides on their cooperation and I can’t even promise if or when the story will be published, never mind a thank you in the acknowledgement or a free copy of the novel.
But this was a great phone call. Things I didn’t know:  how often kids prank call these threats during exam time.  Really?  Isn’t it easier just to study and take the test?  How much time is involved in investigating a suspicious package:  six hours minimally.  And it’s not all Die Hard Hollywood with a timer ticking.  Digital bombs don’t tick or have a visual timing device.  Sometimes they’re detonated by movement, light or a cell phone call.
Sergeant Glen immediately invited me to come down and see their equipment. Â Honestly, there was no need for me to do this, at least not for the plot of my book as it stood. Â Still. Â It would be cool.
I saw the squad’s blank white trailer (people get nervous if the bomb squad shows up in a labelled vehicle), looked at their safety suits and of course, took a photo of their detonating robot. Â See below.
Sometimes research makes a plot twist. Â I knew when I saw their detonating robot, it would need to crawl across my page. Â And yet they don’t even have a name for this $350,000 technological miracle.
Of course I will. Â Care to suggest one?
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