by Sylvia McNicoll | Jun 22, 2008 | Sylvia McNicoll
The sales rep Maria Paguirigan for Today’s Parent Toronto and I decided it would be fun to enter a team at the First Annual Downsview Park Media Olympics. So we entered
ourselves and it was, fun I mean. Teamed up with Adam and Kristin from Easy Rock, We played soccer, beach volleyball and drove go-karts. Apparently I was the slowest driver by the electronic printout.
Parenting writers should be cautious and set good example besides those sports writers kept cutting me off!
We had a great day and even earned kind of a mini tree stump medal. Next year we hope for a bigger better team. Wait a minute, no one could have been better than Maria–lots of spirit and so fit for a pregnant person.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Jun 22, 2008 | Sylvia McNicoll
We had a great visit from Norma Charles, the author of The Girl in the Backseat and Boxcar Kids, along with many other books.
It was neat to take her to visit other creative friends such as Deb Loughead, author of Time and Again and president of CANSCAIP.
We also made a point of breaking up Janet Wilson’s day so that Norma could buy her cover painting from Janet.
Besides being a brilliant illustrator, Janet is a great grower of rhubarb and she sent us home with tons. Great friends and wonderful deserts, it doesn’t get any better.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Jun 22, 2008 | Sylvia McNicoll
One of the many fun parts of my magazine editing job is that I get invited to press releases and sneak previews.
Here’s a shot of me and
my husband posing on a Mars Rover, parked right here on Earth at the Science Centre.
I tried almost gravity free walking, I operated under Mars conditions and
successfully removed gall stones and I saw the Mars Imax film and ate space cookies. Lots of fun. I don’t understand kids who ask me why I write. I don’t get why everyone doesn’t want my job.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Jun 22, 2008 | Sylvia McNicoll
When I wander the streets of Hamilton, searching for buildings that would have been around when 10 year-old Will Aitken
would have arrived, June 1912, it’s the most eerie feeling. I think I’m being possessed by his dead spirit when of course he’s a fictional character. Of course, I usually write first person
and do the method acting transfer till I become the character. But this time I’m writing in third person and instead I feel like he’s trying to tell me something. It’s fascinating and yet spooky.
Anyway, Central Public is the school Will would have attended. Next week I hope to step inside and see what he felt like when he attended on his first day.
by Sylvia McNicoll | May 24, 2008 | Sylvia McNicoll
This weekend May 23 to 26 is The Writers’ Union of Canada general meeting and I went to a workshop
entitled “Everything I wanted to know at the beginning of my career”. There were a few interesting things that came out.
How at the start Nino Ricci’s creative writing instructor W.O. Mitchell thought he should quit. Nino actually grew more determined.Another speaker said that you might have a great story inside you but you really needed to hone your craft.
Paul Quarrington spoke about how arbitrary awards were. So awards now act as reviews used to–if you don’t win or shortlist
your book gets pulled from the shelf after a couple of months. And yet these same career building or killing awards are handed out with a fair bit of randomness. He also talked about humility and how you always found yourself next to a writer with a long line up of fans while you yourself had none or few, or how you had readings or signings where no one turned up except the librarians or booksellers.
I think what’s humbling is when a writer starts out way after you and suddenly vaults to the top. Writing is subjective so everyone can say, well that writer’s better and so deserves the quick rise. But I think we all have to accept that for whatever laws of the universe sometimes you’re not the flavour of the month and, point of fact, sometimes you never will be. Despite whatever promotion you do or how hard you work. Another amazing truisim, to me anyway, is that I work just as hard at a book that gets rejected as one that wins an award.
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