Writers’ Panel at Burlington Public Library

by Sylvia McNicoll | Feb 8, 2015 | Sylvia McNicoll

People came! Always a speaker’s first concern but when you initiate and help organize a writing panel, you can lose sleep over it.

Frankly, I panicked when both our local book store A Different Drummer Books and our community paper The Burlington Post thought the event was only for those who submitted blue pencil copy.

Thanks to Joyce Grant for her tweeting efforts. To Royal Botanic Gardens (Burlington) for retweeting. To our panel Jennifer Maruno, Jennifer Mook-sang, Lana Button and Rebecca Bender for Facebooking and tweeting.

To Burlington Public Library for enduring my panicky emails.

To Oriana Marsh, a genuine fan and brilliant writer, for coming and making me remember why I write and why I do public appearances at all.  And why we set books locally. “You can’t believe how huge it is when you’re a kid and read a story set in your own town.” I am paraphrasing.

Back to writing now.

Writers Studio At Alton Public Library–Creating a Writing Community

by Sylvia McNicoll | Feb 4, 2015 | Sylvia McNicoll

Writers share a common passion, a kind of living-in-our-imagination-and then-pouring-it-on-paper- pastime that can make us lonely. If we’re lucky we find each other. In Burlington, my home base, I have found Jennifer Maruno, Rebecca Bender, Jennifer Mook-Sang and Lana Button. We get together, we critique each other’s work. This Saturday we’re hoping to create a larger community between other writers in the Burlington area. Where better to find it than the Burlington Public Library. Whether you are a teen, a senior or in between.  If you love writing, we hope you will come out and listen to us give you our hard won secrets and…find each other. If you are reading this, you are welcome to attend: Saturday, Feb 7 1:00 p.m. The Writing Studio Alton Public Library, Dundas St and Tim Dobbie Drive You won’t be alone any more.

The Netgalley Review & a Book Launch Invite

by Sylvia McNicoll | Jan 27, 2015 | Sylvia McNicoll

It starts off politely enough with the disclaimer freebie readers are required to use: “Thank you Netgalley for the free review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.” Then it launches into “Mother******g piece of s**t, this to describe my newborn baby piece of literature. (One that young preview readers have told me is my best ever, ever.)

Really? Feel free to be less honest. Or at least less profane.

He’s an 18 year-old reviewer reading (and ranting) about a YA with 16 year-old female protagonist, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Still it’s clearly not for his demograph.  He would never have purchased this novel from a bookstore.

But he wants to be outrageous. He has a blog to populate.
Swearing will maybe draw people to his website now, lure them to buy his upcoming selfie story, hook them into offering him a book or movie contract.

No.

He is everything that is wrong with the Internet. And he’ll never read this because all he wants to do is express himself, not listen to others.

He deserves to be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Fifty Shades of Grey over and over.

In other news, you are invited to my launch of Best Friends Through Eternity, Sunday, February 15, 2:00 p.m. at A Different Drummer Books, 513 Locust, Burlington, Ontario.

To pre-order your autographed piece of literature please call 905-639-0925

Fresh and Local Artists in your community

by Sylvia McNicoll | Jan 20, 2015 | Sylvia McNicoll

I am your local author.

To celebrate Family Literacy Day 0n Saturday January 24, 10:30 to 11:30 I will read from my some of my favourite picture books at Tansley Woods Library, 1996 Itabashi Way in Burlington.

When I first began writing middle grade and young adult novels, I dreaded being labeled with those words. I wanted to be a best selling international writer not the one that needed the neighbor’s pity purchase. Hard to be avoided though, every time a reporter said something about me in the Burlington Post or the Hamilton Spectator, the header included those two words, Local Author.

At least reporters said things about me and that ground roots support cleared bookshelves at the local stores.

My last novel Dying to Go Viral, sold close to 50,000 copies in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany. In Canada it sold,1,200. Maybe they were all to my neighbors, who knows. Still maybe I am less of that local hero than I used to be.

But now, older and wiser, I cherish a sense of community. That is why I will be reading to a young audience who have nothing to do with what I write. I won’t wear a t-shirt with the covers of my book on, which I used to do at the beginning of my career. I certainly won’t bring books to sell, show or tell about.

I  will just curl up in a chair at my favourite library and read the picture books I love to the children who live in my neighborhood.

Spoiler alert,at the top are my glowing grandchildren who hold the books I will read : Linda Bailey’s Stanley at Sea, Rebecca Bender’s Giraffe and Bird, and Patricia Storm’s The Pirate and the Penguin.  Rebecca lives in Burlington, Patricia used to live here and Linda lives in Vancouver which is just a short flight away.  Amazing fresh and local talent.

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The Readability Factor-Writing the Hi/lo Novel

by Sylvia McNicoll | Jan 1, 2015 | Sylvia McNicoll

 My core belief is that everyone should enjoy reading. At the beginning of my career I would have said kids who don’t like reading either a) have a difficulty/disability with reading or b) haven’t found the right book. A difficulty could be as simple as having English as a second language or as complicated as any of the various learning challenges, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder etc.

In today’s reality I would probably add a c) they may have too many distractions to develop the love and fluency for reading.

Still the core of writing a “reluctant reader” as they can be called or hi/low (high action, low vocabulary)  remains the same. Right from the opening sentence the writing must grip and compel the reader to keep going.

Well, now how does that differ from writing any other book?

If you’re writing for a lower attention span, beginning with description may not work; description is often what a less able reader will skip over to get to what’s happening in the story. (Although I have a couple of writer friends, Rachael Preston and Jennifer Maruno who write incredible description that sets a scene and creates drama) I personally like starting with dialogue because who doesn’t like eavesdropping on a stranger with a strong problem.

Dialogue does jump the reader into the middle of something and with reluctant readers a straight linear plot can be key. No flash backs or even too much back-pedalling to explain said dialogue.  So the talking and the action must compliment each other and tell the story together in a very clear forward moving fashion.  My upcoming YA novel Best Friends Through Eternity will compel my audience but there are some complex time switches that could confuse a weaker reader.

When I write a reluctant reader, it’s in partnership with a publisher who has strong structural guidelines and I will confer on topics first.  Hi/low books are shorter, as are their chapters. I would aim for a uniform word count in the chapters where possible and stronger end hooks than I might in a regular novel.  Once my reluctant reader puts the book down for a rest, I need to be able to pull him back to my work.  I have no magic formula for syllable count or sentence length but I myself suffer from “clause-trophobia”–whichi is an aversion to sentences that have so many modifying clauses they force you to re-read them several times to figure out the main subject and action and therefor the true meaning.

The publisher may run a readability check on the work.  In Survival, my recent plane crash story, a major medical drama occurs with words like intravenous, tracheotomy, epidural layer, artificial resuscitation and I worked with a medical doctor as well as the publisher to come up with the best way to simplify procedures and cut down on multi-syllabic words.

Survival also includes very real looking black and white drawings–Greg Ruhl did a fabulous job–which will give my reader a visual break.  By the way, a dialogue driven story as mine often are, provides the reader with much more white space on the page, another visual break. The pace becomes quicker. The reader will feel more successful.

An interesting fact about Survival is that I pitched it as a regular read to my Norwegian publisher.   What needed to change to secure the deal was more of an maturity of topic issue rather than word or syllable count, a simpler shorter plot can be easier to translate after all. The Norwegians want stories for 10 year olds rather than the 14+ that HIP asked for this time.   Less on-page graphic medical detail (blood squirting on to the snow for example), a happier outcome, (spoiler alert, no death) and I added an emotional subplot geared at the female readership the Girl-It bookclub targets.

So really I don’t struggle to write differently for reluctant readers.  First and foremost I write the best story I can and then I think about how it should differ depending on the target audience. Mostly the target audience is me.  I have to like the book I work on because I will be with it a long time.

Now what about all those distractions our readers face?  I’m going to have to turn that problem back to parents and educators to tackle.

Technology and the Writer

by Sylvia McNicoll | Oct 27, 2014 | Sylvia McNicoll

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My birthday present finally came–my most expensive phone to date. A phone that I will use for taking photos and movies, porting presentations, keeping notes, storing addresses and dates, reading and listening to books, texting, Skyping, googling and much, much more–rarely, rarely actually making or receiving a telephone call on it.

Change is good.  An efficiency expert once told me, and I believe her, that any small change in her office such as dimming the lights increases productivity.  Months later raising the lights will do the same.  I’m hoping my new device will actually help with my Internet addiction.  I will separate my writing instrument from my diversion device. At the very least I can catch up on email during grocery line-up time, or read a book in a dark theatre instead of watching the commercials.

Enter a©eCreator.ca

November 12 is the day after Remembrance Day but it’s also Look Forward Day at the CANSCAIP meeting (7:30 p.m. 40 Orchardview, 2nd floor, Northern District Library)

Garner Pridmore, a Digital Services Specialist from Access Copyright, will talk about a©eCreator.ca–a free cloud storage and organization service for “affiliates” or published authors/illustrators/photographers and designers who are signed on to Access Copyright.

I was one of his first guinea pigs.  Not because I am excessively technological but rather the opposite. I am that author who wants to dip their toe into new medias and opportunities but hangs back, even gets overwhelmed by the ever pulsing new, new, new.

What I enjoy about a©eCreator.ca  is that there is unlimited free storage and I can organize and keep track of what I’ve done with my work on it. So,for example, I can keep my beginning chapters through to my contracts and cover drafts all in the same file. I can also send drafts out to agents and/or publishers or invitations to download drafts and see when I’ve sent different versions and if they’ve read them.

Why I really signed on to be the test rodent is because I hope to help a©eCreator.ca achieve extreme simplicity. Also to be ready for when we will need to upload our work to that Access Copyright pipeline in the sky supplying educational institutes with quality Canadian content to browse and enjoy.

I wanted to become fluent with tags and metadata. I want to be more organized with my work.

The light is turned up this month in my office.

Now let’s hope I don’t let my phone go through the wash and spin cycle.

Here’s to increased productivity.

PS Can’t make the meeting and want to know more?  Visit http://www.accesscopyright.ca/creators/ace-creator/

Hot off the Press!  Two webinars will be offered to train you in a©eCreator

January 13, 10 a.m. EST

January 15, 3 p.m. EST