Hello, hello! It's Tuesday morning at five to nine and I'm feeling very lively. Today, picture book author Jane Barclay is coming to speak to my classes at Marianopolis College. That means I should have plenty to report to you on this blog tomorrow. Jane, author of the prize-winning How Cold Was It? is going to tell us how she gets her inspiration -- and how she goes about writing her books. Most people think picture books are easy to write -- but I know they're not. Of all the kinds of children's writing, texts for picture books are the closest to poetry. There aren't many words -- but every word counts. Anyway, I look forward to Jane's visit. She is also a good friend of mine and it's been a couple of weeks since I last saw her.
Speaking of authors, London YA author Meg Rosoff will be in town next week on Valentine's Day. She'll be doing a reading that night at the Westmount Library. And guess who gets to interview her for a Gazette story? Me!!! I am now reading Meg's new book What I Was. Her two earlier novels How I Live Now and Just in Case were big hits. So I'll get some writing tips from Meg -- and post them on this blog, too.
I'm still working on the rewrite. Yesterday, I wrote a historical foreword to the book. This was the editor's idea and I really like it. My editor (Sarah Harvey) thought there were too many sections in the book that sounded "teachy" -- so her idea was that I should produce a separate forward to fill readers in on the historical background to my story. Today, I start to reread the whole thing for flow. I'm hoping to be ready to re-submit the manuscript by Friday.
Talk to you tomorrow! By then, I'll have some notes on Jane Barclay's talk today. If you're reading this blog entry in Wemindji, can you tell Minnie Matches (one of the sewing ladies) that I've been wearing her sealskin pouch necklace -- and everyone loves it?! Warm wishes to all of you -- wherever you are.
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Comments
I really enjoyed Jane Barclay's talk today -- it was interesting to hear an author talk about how she gets her ideas, and also to hear her read some things she wrote. Listening to children's stories is a lot of fun, and I'd forgotten how much I liked picture books! I especially liked her personal essay on Valentine's Day :-* -- it was touching in its own way, while not being overly-romantic, and it was definitely pleasant to listen to.
About the historical foreword -- I think it's a good idea to put it in, although, when they're long, I tend to skip over forewords... so that's probably a section of the book where you'd want every word to count!!