by Sylvia McNicoll | Apr 12, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
 |
| Because so many children in Burlington are under the witness protection plan, I can’t include a photo of them. |
Teams from nineteen schools met at Burlington Public Library to battle over book knowledge.   They needed a timer.  I’m their “local author” and frankly, I just love this competition so I was happy to do it.  What happens is two teams face off in four different rooms of the library.  Each takes turns answering a question.  They must answer with the title of the book for three points and the author for two.  Lots of times they just recite a rosary bead sequence of Canadian authors although they often begin with Eric Walters.  The rest of us seem to only be known by our surnames.  Often the kids would include “McNicoll”in their prayers with  one bright lad starting straight at me to detect any clue by my expression.  “Bah, Eric Walters never wrote anything about dragons,” I thought during the fantasy questions. Or did he?  Maybe I should suggest that to him.Â
The team had 30 seconds to answer and then the other team got a crack. Â It was a tough job frought with technology anxiety. Â “Can’t I just use my watch?” was the first thing I asked about the job. Â But no. Here’s the timer.
 |
| Note the almost exact timing of 30 seconds here. Â For thirty-eight extra seconds I pondered the answer myself.. |
I practised clicking on, off and clear. Â All set to go, pumped even. Â Here’s one of my favourite questions.
 “In which book does Luke’s friend Gracie disappear during an unexpected tornado?”
The kids, of course, blurted out the same answer that popped into my brain. Â “Eric Walters. Â Safe House.”
“Try again,” said Marnie, our volunteer inquisitor.
“Little, McNicoll.”
“Time!” I called expertly, I must say.
The answer. Â I wish I could put it in tiny letters upside down so you would have to turn your screen upside down to read it:
Valerie Sherrard, Â The Glory Wind
I’m looking forward to reading the book, and many more mentioned during this fearsome battle. Â I return in a couple weeks for the final showdown and to introduce them to my new title crush.candy.corpse.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Apr 8, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
 |
| Erica K., my first
customer of the day emailed to tell me she read the book in two hours and loved it. |
Pressure and anxiety–that’s what an author feels when approaching a signing. Years ago a Coles bookseller told me that selling 19 or 20 books on a day makes a successful event. Remembering that an a writer clears about a dollar a book, that’s $20 for four or five hours. You never look to these as a cash cow.
You can’t just sit back and read or write either and rarely will anyone approach you. You have to coax people to come to speak to you. So I made my new favourite treat, Mars Bars Squares, and stood offering people these if they were anywhere within shouting distance. That served as a warm up exercise.
It was the Saturday after a legal holiday, Good Friday, so there was an initial spurt of shoppers who felt deprived of a whole day of the retail experience. Within an hour and a half I’d sold seven books and all the squares (there were tons) were gone. Now the fall back line was, “would you like an autographed bookmark?”
Because of social media, you can count on some friends showing up. Three in my case–that was nice. Deb Loughead, a great writer herself, sat and kept me company for an hour or so.
A high moment for me was when someone approached me to find mugs and Deb said she should buy a book at Chapters and go to Home Sense next door for the cups. They were way cheaper. High fives.
My supportive editor, Carrie Gleason showed.
After that spurt though, the shoppers seemed to part around me. My target audience often seemed so distant, without throwing myself on teen and preteens like some stalker, it was difficult to get their attention. Deb watched as I asked the same young person about five times as she scurried around me in different directions whether she wanted a bookmark.
She was deliberately ignoring me, right?
No. Because the sixth time, she opened up like the sky at sunrise. She was delighted to chat about my books and receive the bookmark that in turn led to an autographed book.
Another time a young Indian girl with her dad, seemed oblivious to me several passes and then excitedly took the autograph. No book. Later as she left the store she made a point of coming back to me to thank me for the signed bookmark. A warm fuzzy, that means a lot to me, no kuching for the publishing industry, however.
At five with a score of about 18 books if you count the promised ebook purchase, I was all set to pack up when a beautiful young woman (Donna A.) sat down with a laptop sat down opposite me. She looked up from typing and asked me if the books on display were mine. I told her I was, indeed, the author. One thing led to the other and I ended up reading her poetry and chatting about books and writing.
As I was leaving, she told me she wanted to write novels and become a writer, but she didn’t think she could survive a no–rejection in other words.
Oh boy, give up, I thought. But that’s not great mentoring advice. So I thought for another while.
Then I told her that I had sat there since one o’clock and approached strangers with squares and bookmarks, lots declined. The only reason I could face that ordeal was because I was convinced that the story I had written if it landed in the right reader(s) hands would make an impact that could even be life changing.
She ran to ask her mother if she could buy the book, and honestly that had not been my intention. In the end, she gave me my quota sale but she gave me something way better. I enjoyed meeting a younger me, excited and nervous about her work, loved chatting with her about writing and books, loved reading her poetry. I won’t know if my particular book changed her life but the signing experience definitely clicked at that moment. And the advice I gave her, resonated in my own psyche. I believe in my stories. Even if every shopper clutched the Hunger Games trilogy in their hands, I believed that they could still read my book and love it. If no one else on this planet would handsell my book on this particular day, then I would because of this belief.
Still, please don’t ask me to do this every Saturday.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Apr 2, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
It’s been four years since my last book came out in Canada. Â I have had six released in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Germany but it felt like there was no reflection in my mirror anymore. Â With the publication of my thirtieth book, crush.candy. corpse (Lorimer) and this one in Canada, no less, it definitely seemed time to celebrate. Â Especially since, Ian the owner of A Different Drummer Books, kept offering to host. Â My main reason to stage the launch was simply to celebrate.
But every writer knows, a lot of nerves get played, during the days leading up to the event. Â You add up your wine tab and the price of the cookie ingredients, and you realize the royalties from sales may never cover your expenditures. Â
Besides won’t friends and family buy the book anyway? Â The biggest fear, by far though, is that no one will show up. Â We live in a distracted world. Â
And so many of my fellow writing friends live too many traffic hours away. Â If indeed no one shows up does that curse the book to failure?
Well, it was a dark and drizzly day and I awoke fighting a cold. Â We headed for the store later than I had intended but still were able to enjoy the lovely ambience and great display of all of my books in advance of “the crowds”. Â Then my immediate family arrived, Robin and Kevin, bartenders with the backup books (oh, we only wish we needed those), Craig, my book trailer producer son next, and then Adam, my invite designer, and Jennifer, my social media director. Â (The Burlington Post had also devoted a small corner to letting the general public know about the event.) Â Three quarters of the grandkids came (one was celebrating her 2nd birthday and couldn’t make it). Â Already this intimate store came alive. Then the supportive writers arrived, some teachers, long lost relatives, people I had met on dog walks, students I had talked to on career day. What was especially heartwarming were the friends of my kids, now all adults with babes of their own, lining up to buy books for themselves. Â Every birthday they used to get autographed books from us along with the trinket of the day. Â My own kids cringed. Â Little did I know I was building a fan base.
 So I will declare this booklaunch a huge success. Thanks to all who came out, thanks to Ian and his daughter Laura for setting everything up.  For those of you who couldn’t make it, you can watch my presentation here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUzhM_2vJzg  or check out Jennifer Filipowicz’s blog on it, to the right of my blog entry. Or you can raise a glass and celebrate Canadian books in whatever fashion you care to. ( But you can order a copy from A Different Drummer or order online from the box book stores, soft, hard or e-version, just sayin’.)
by Sylvia McNicoll | Mar 20, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
Before last Friday a lot of writers were watching the inbox on their computers or even their regular snailmail box for a notice about the status of their Canada Council Grants. I couldn’t get a picture of anyone of them looking this hopeful. But Mortie trains his eye every day on some birds nesting in a cross tube on the baseball fence in Brant Hills Park. He became their metaphor. Mortie must know he’s likely not to nab one of those birds but he goes through this exercise every day. I know writers don’t apply for grants as often. But they slog away at stories that may or may not be published, lauded or appreciated.
I don’t know what Mortie will do if he every catches his elusive prize. I had a list for my grant funds. The money is supposed to be used for “subsistence” but what ever cash you normally use for mortgage and food can be channeled into VISA payments, dental work, computer upgrades, tickets to, say, War Horse.
But I didn’t win the lotto this time. It was lovely to receive the verdict “Highly recommended but we ran out of funds.” It
reminded me of how sniffing close I sometimes come to the bird.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Mar 5, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
Getting ready for author visits to discuss the writing process involved in the creation of my new book, crush.candy.corpse What really happened in the forty-first hour? I decided I had to make a coffee bean necklace. My character, Sunny Ehret, suffers from a hypersensitive sense of smell and when she visits Paradise Manor, she’s troubled by the “methane gas” odour. Certainly, I have been troubled by this smell when visiting my mom’s residence back when she was alive. Sunny’s best friend suggests dabbing Vicks VapoRub under her nose. When Sunny visits the perfume counter instead, the clerk waves a coffee bean under her nose to clear the palate in order to better be able to smell the nuances of the next perfume sample. Bingo, Sunny decides a coffee bean necklace might be a better solution than medicine up her nostrils. The medicine idea was something caregivers in Mom’s residence had suggested to me.
How does this tie in with writing process? Well the primary question every author needs to try to address is where to you get your ideas? The easy answer is always from a) my brain (and I carry a rubber brain around with me) b) from my real life–enter the coffee bean necklace and my anecdotes.
Another tie in–a practical prop to encourage using your sense of smell in writing.
And here’s another way to tie in the coffee. Laura Peetrom, one of my favourite editors, when reading the book in its infancy, suggested a plausibility issue. Coffee bean necklaces, is that possible to make on your own? Had I tried this? Eek. No. I had just imagined it possible. So I googled and found out you needed to stick the beans in putty (see my lovely homemade purple playdough) and then drill holes on a slow speed.
Okay, I didn’t try it at the time but I trusted the Internet and wrote that solution in. Her brother Wolfie suggests the drill when she finds it hard to poke a needle through. Now, when I actually have time to make the necklace, not really but I felt I needed to, I found that nine out of ten coffee beans cracked.
My designer daughter Robin Forsyth from Rubicon Publishing suggested soakiing the beans. I tried that. Eight out ten beans cracked.
Progress was very slow.
Then out of desperation, as I was threading what few beans had made it into bead form, I poked a needle through. It didn’t split. I tried it again. And again. Some still split and I needed to kind of push the needle through with something hard that wasn’t my finger. Eventually I strung two great necklaces.
So you can see the second application of my coffee beans to writing process–the plausibility editorial comment. To my readers who make their own necklace without seeing these blog corrections, I
apologize. “Course they’ll never read this apology either. To my fab editor, Laura Peetrom, thank you.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Feb 29, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
Eighty-two stories came by Purolator from the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. Â That’s not an overwhelming amount, in other years I’ve received boxes, well over a couple hundred. Â The difference, however, is that these are from grade 10 students. Â These stories are not just a packet of writing exercises assigned by a Toronto private school teacher and turned in.
These are poems, essays, and stories about holocaust, suicide, werewolves, dragons, bullying, Canada geese, lobster fishing and more. Â They come from students from Nova Scotia, B.C., the Northwest Territories, and all the provinces in between. Â Some are from homeschooled writers, others from urban collegiate students.
What’s more all of them are good. Or let me correct that and say all have kernels of greatness in them, lyrical moments, an emotional turn of a phrase, a funny line, an profound insight, a window into a different kind of life or thinking.
When you receive that many entries, the temptation is to read until the first grammatical error or lapse in view point etc. Â The first moment you’re taken out of the storie by a miswrite, you flip it down on to the pile.
Not this time. Â These entries deserved better. So I’m only reading them ten at a time, right through. Â Sticking on little yellow post it notes to remind myself about the topic. Â The best ones of the days go to the top of the pile. Â Sometimes all ten go to the top.
Then I’ll reread the top ones again.  While they all deserve applause and certainly this top pile, even more, I will have to be subjective in the end and just choose the story or poem that captures my heart the most. Almost there.
Recent Comments