Month: March 2012

“The Science Project” — and the Lucky 7 meme

/ Ev Bishop / 8 Comments

Hello, all! 🙂

In her great blog, A Life Less Ordinary, the inimitable Story Teller has tagged me to participate in the Lucky 7 meme, in which I’m supposed to post seven lines from page 77 of my current work in progress. I’m going to bend the rules (as usual, heh heh!) because my work du jour is a short story. Here are 7 lines from page 7 of “The Science Project.”

11-yr-old Joshua has just explained to his younger sister that adult Nematomorpha (an organism he discovered in a drainage ditch on their farm) are free-living but their larvae are parasitic.

“What does that have to do with me?” she asked.

“Maybe nothing.”

“Maybe?” Janet scratched her arm and frowned. “I’ve been itchy lately—I don’t have a larva in me, do I?”

He considered pretending that she might, but thought better of the idea. Science wasn’t a joke. “No. I haven’t figured out how to trigger that mutation.”

“What?”

But the dishes were done. He squeezed out the dishrag, folded it twice and hung it over the tap to dry, and started out of room.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she called behind him.

“You can go to the science fair,” he said.

Duh-nuh-nuh-NUH!

I hope you enjoyed the sneak preview. . . .

And now for the basic rules of this meme:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP

2. Go to line 7

3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.

4. Tag 7 authors

5. Let them know

I tag . . .

Angela Dorsey

Jen Brubacher

Jennifer Neri

Kathy Chung

kc dyer

Rebecca Emin

Shannon Mayer

These are all writers/people that I hold in great esteem. They may be too busy to play, but you never know. In any event, it’s really worth checking out their blogs and/or their books!

When words fail me

/ Ev Bishop / 2 Comments

How’s that for a grabbing blog post title?

It’s a bit of misnomer, however, as words rarely fail me (more like I occasionally fail them!). I do, however, like to dabble in other forms of artistic expression and while I would never call myself an artist, more and more often these days, I find myself taking a black Sharpie (TM) to paper or playing with paint.

And seeing as I think this is going to be a regular part of my life, I decided to dedicate a page on my website to sharing some of my creations. There are only two pieces up right now (“Family Portrait” and “I am your mother!”), but I’ll add more as they come into being (and when I take digital images of existing ones).

How about you? Are you strictly a writer or do you create in other modes and mediums as well? If the latter, do you feel it adds to or detracts from your writing? How so? Inquiring minds want to know. 😉

The Wonder of Writing by Leigh Russell

/ Ev Bishop / 1 Comment

Dear All,

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things I love about the Internet is the writing community it can foster for those of us who live in remote areas or small towns where there aren’t as many opportunities to meet with other artists and writers.

A few years ago a friend of mine introduced me to a new author she’d discovered by sending me (excitement, excitement!) a signed book. (That friend was Jen Brubacher—and if you read my last post, you’ll see a theme to her gifts. Books, books, glorious books—and I couldn’t be more grateful!) The signed book a few years back was Cut Short by Leigh Russell. I liked it, and I think what happened is that I wrote a short e-mail to Leigh telling her just that.

Long story short, we’ve kept in touch (a bit anyway) and I’m excited to announce, especially if you followed my previous recommendations (here and here) and sought out her novels yourself, that her latest Geraldine Steel book is out: Death Bed.

She shared these words with me recently, so that I could share them with you:

I wrote somewhere that I fell into writing like Alice down the rabbit hole. That analogy seems increasingly apt. Alice truly enters a different world in Wonderland – and isn’t that the joy and the magic of fiction?

The comparison seems to be following me around. I continue to pursue a back-to-front writing career, as though working through a Looking Glass.

Many writers start with short stories before tackling a full-length novel, then sign an agent who finds a publisher to produce hardbacks followed by paperbacks. All of that happened to me in reverse. I found a publisher before signing an agent, was offered my first three book deal after writing only one manuscript, and now that my books have all become bestsellers in paperback, my publisher has produced the first hardback of the latest book in the series, Death Bed.

As if to put the finishing touch to this writing career in reverse, while I was signing the limited edition hardback copies of my book last week, my publisher asked me if I would consider writing a short story. It’s a real challenge to an author accustomed to writing novels.

My advice to aspiring writers is to work hard, be brave and be lucky, so good luck if you are going through the submission process at the moment. ~Leigh Russell

An encouraging author is Leigh! If you haven’t already checked out her books, you should get on it.

And if you want a bit more of a serious bio on her, your wish is my command. 😉

Leigh Russell writes the bestselling Geraldine Steel series of crime novels. Among other accolades, her books have been shortlisted for a CWA Dagger Award, in the Top 50 Bestsellers list on amazon kindle, Number 1 Bestseller around the world for Female Detectives, in the Top 10 Best Crime Books on Crime Time, and a Great Crime Sleuth on Lovereading. Her books, in order, are: Cut Short, Road Closed, Dead End, and Death Bed. For more information about her, or her novels, visit her website:
http://www.leighrussell.co.uk

p.s. Did you drool over the gorgeous chair she’s sitting in for that photo? I’d be beaming, too.

In the nick of time, a hero appeared. . . .

/ Ev Bishop / 3 Comments

Sometimes I have days (or weeks, or months!) when I feel a little less than enchanted with the whole business of writing. Not the writing itself—sometimes I’m neurotic, insecure, impatient (etcetera, etcetera!) about my process, but that’s different. The work of writing, when I remember to refocus on it, is good. Is the whole point, actually. But the business part? The querying, submitting, receiving rejections—and the acceptances and publications that don’t magically change everything? Well, that whole affair can get a bit tedious.

Anyway, yesterday was one of those days. And then, out of nowhere, a hero appeared. He was wrapped in Manila paper and bubble wrap (Okay, get your mind out of the gutters. This is not that kind of story!), but it was, as ever, what was inside that counted.

(Okay, enough with the sexy, mysterious stranger metaphor.)

My friend Jen Brubacher had sent me a present from the UK: A book I’ve been dying for that doesn’t get released here in Canada ‘til May, 2012 (How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran—I figure, since I turn 40 in a few months, it’s about time I figure out this skill of being female), and—wait for it, wait for it—a total surprise book.

An ancient book. A treasure. A tome first printed in 1926. The Truth About Publishing by Stanley Unwin.

It’s hard to explain how gorgeous this book is—from his rough-edged, slightly discoloured with age pages, to faded, well-worn linen cover, to gold-lettered spine—gorgeous. And serious. (None of this author name and title and loud picture spilled gaudily across front and back for this fella.)

(Am I still personifying this book? I meant to stop! I seem to be unable to help myself.)

His soft, authoritative voice enthralled me from the very first page and I found myself oddly comforted, so much so that I was compelled to remove the shrug of discouragement I’d been huddling under this week.

Despite the book’s age, a surprising amount of details surrounding the business of writing (querying, submitting, presenting your work) are still pertinent.

And let me share just one inspiring tidbit—as timely and true to writers now, me thinks, as it was to writers 86 years ago:

“The growing commercialism of literature—inevitable though it may be—does not tend to promote more harmonious relations between authors and publishers. It is based on the assumption that manuscripts and books are mere commodities; dead, not living things. Such an assumption ignores the peculiar and indeed parent relationship of the author to his work, the realization of which is the beginning of wisdom in a publisher.” ~ Stanley Unwin

I found the above quote—in this day of doom and gloom about the future of publishing and rumours of the death of literacy, and so on—very encouraging. The future of books—the desire and “need” for their commercial success—has always been a source of angst and conflict between booksellers and book writers.

Yet if we question why we even bother to write then, turning to a quote on the title page reminds us:

It is by books that mind speaks to mind, by books the world’s intelligence grows, books are the tree of knowledge, which has grown into and twined its branches with those of the tree of life, and of their common fruit men eat and become as gods knowing good and evil.                                                                                                                               – C. Kegan Paul.

Us writers write what our hearts compel us to (or, at least, we should). But if we’re honest, often we have hopes of at least some sort of financial reward—if only so we can work less at a day job and write more.

Publishers also publish for two reasons (I really believe): to bring books into being that they believe should be read, should exist, should add to the world experience in terms of entertainment, pleasure, thought, growth and knowledge, but also to make money.

We authors may dislike the latter, especially if it appears to outweigh the other motivation in current culture, but that’s okay and is as it should be: we need to write regardless of what comes of it. By necessity, so it can continue, publishing has to be about dollars. Equally by necessity, writers need to be uncomfortable with that as a primary goal.

And so, another inner-writer crisis averted, the hero gently takes his place in her heart and on her shelf, snug amidst his brothers and sisters—all those reasons she keeps keeping at it.