IFOA Notes 2
Mood:  bright
Topic: Writing Outings
More Notes that I made at the International Festival of Authors...

Round Table Discussion

A writers obligation to an artistic truth
- remain faithful to the truthfulness of your representation
- turning up where you're supposed to be.
- look at contradictions within own family.
- another history that you were not being told

You write out of your imagination.

Make your character contradictory.

David Mitchell & Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey:
- Chrono displacement disorder - a character that jumps around in different times of his wife's life.
- playing with time, taking a cubist's approach

David:
- playing the genres like different sections of an orchestra
- use of diary entries, interviews and letters in one novel
- examining the world by changing one little thing.

Ursula Leguin

- The rage to do to other people in fiction what they've done to you.
- making up worlds and peopling them

Jasper Fforde

- taking a strange premise and making it credible.
Who killed Humpty Dumpty?

Round Table Discussion - Belonging and a Sense of Place

- feeling suddenly inferior because of colour of skin - Nadeem Aslam. Nadeem's parents told him "go and live a passionate life." Look at what other artists have done with their lives in order to make sense of your world, the world.

- what's the affect of having a sperm donor as a father, never knowing your real father - Tessa McWatt

- conflict between love and belonging and rootedness - Jan Zwicky

Comments from above writers

- Where do I belong? Who do I belong to? How do I want to belong?
- Writers feelings about not belonging, being outsiders, onlookers
- Where does this poem take place? nowhere, in my mind, in narrator's mind
- I don't belong to any of the places that I come from anymore
- a definition of self tied to a country
- I don't belong anywhere, I belong everywhere, I belong to my language (writing)
- the community in my mind w/ the intellectual writers.
- Setting - Toronto - no old buildings, no sense of history, a nation of immigrants
- We always produce a new past.
- We write about difference whatever that may be
- Understanding the world through writing

List the books you feel you ought to have read and read them

What is worthy of risk for your writing

What is the quality of the attention you bring to what you are writing.

You take up writing for a lifetime not for a living.

Baby Steps - Dreams
Mood:  cool
Topic: Living on Purpose
I've decided I have multiple personalities:

I'm living my life like a 20 year old starting out for the first time. I never quite got myself organized enough when I was in my twenties but I've learned a lot over those two decades. So I've decided on a do over.

Financially, I'm a 20 year old that had the kind of parents that gave strong, sound advice on what to do as in save the maximum amount allowed into RRSP's (Registered Retirement Savings Plans for my American readers), save up for your purchases, donate 10% to charity. For those of you who don't do this, it really does make a difference in your peace of mind. When you can give, you open yourself to receive. When you save, you know you're taken care of. When you save up for your purchases, you appreciate what you have.

In love, I may still be a teenager - the teenage virgin who isn't ready to go all the way. The teenage virgin who wants to take her time, who wants a boyfriend that understands that she's a virgin so he won't rush her. She wants the kind of boyfriend who will wait 8 months if he has to without mentioning it, asking for it, pushing for it. A boyfriend who by his silence lets her know that it has to be her decision when it happens. She has to be the one to say, to announce, "I'm ready."

It's about giving her "precious" self to the right boyfriend not to any boyfriend. That's the concept of having a do over. Clearly I'm not a teenage virgin nor do I sleep around but I am picking and choosing what it is that works for me. Instead of beating myself up for not achieving the milestones that "normal" people my age have reached.
In love, it's waiting before I give over my preciousness ( my heart, my self, my body) to someone.

A man with patience is sexier than one who coerces, or makes you feel obligated or makes you feel guilty. Sexiness is in the patience, knowing that it doesn't come easy and that the wanting is more than just sexual. It's just so much better after the anticipation, I think.

In my writing, I'm going back to beginner's mind. I'm going back to where everything about your new interest is fascinating and you look in all areas to learn, reading voraciously, making people that you meet characters, looking for the story in every incident.

When you see people as potential characters you find them fascinating, you want to know what makes them tick, what's their back-story. How did they become who they are now, what drives them? With beginner's mind, every aspect of life becomes interesting because every aspect of life pushes you to investigate more out of curiosity and relates back to the writing.

I have the imagination of a child with unreasonable dreams. I am able to imagine being a Billionaire writer if I want to. A child's dreams are unreasonable only to adults because the child is far removed from the realization of that dream but with baby steps all things are possible. With a child's imagination we are taken out further than what seems possible right now but that's how dreams begin right? The unreasonableness of belief is based on your current reality and makes it impossible for anyone to ever see that it can become what you want it to become. That's why people, adults, friends tell you, "Don't dream so big. Why don't you try a lesser goal? Why don't you become a nurse instead they need nurses more than writers. Are you sure you can deal with the rejection? Are you sure you can handle that?"

With baby steps, persistence, an unwavering belief and a multiple personality, all things are possible.

EY

Living an Inspired Life
Writing2Live

Notes from IFOA
Topic: Writing Outings
Tuesday 4July06 3:12pm

I've decided to be a smart money person and save up for the things I want to buy rather than buying in advance and being in debt. So in keeping with that, I have the money together for the Patron Membership that I want to buy for the International Festival of Authors in October. I'll buy the membership mid August to be prepared to get all the tickets I want.

I came across my notes that I've kept from the author interviews I've attended over the years and thought I'd post some of them. Most of the notes are just fragments that popped up at me, ideas I'd like to delve into in my own writing or just something to think about.

Pierre Berton:
He read all the books he could find on one subject before he wrote a book. He would read letters, original diaries and documents etc.

He wouldn't write a book that he wasn't interested in reading. "Would I buy this in a book store?"

Anita Desai and Bharati Muhkerjee:
Unexpected events - life going along and being blown apart.
Natural Property - doing what you are naturally supposed to do,

Anita:
You cannot live anywhere until you find out why you are there - delving into the past.
going back and exploring your roots.
it's an act of discovery to go back to your country of birth (your home) because it's new, a new country.
Anita spends time at her desk every morning. She writes longhand - writes on one side and corrects on the other side.
She read poetry to end writer's block.
She writes short stories between novels.

Bharati:
getting perspective on what's going on around me.
You never know how you are going to be tested.

Russell Banks:
Likes to start from certainty and moving out into uncertainty
Interested by the voices of working people.
"How come I escaped and they didn't?"

David Young
Everybody is born with two questions.

Round Table Discussion on Writing
Discipline is important
Write everyday, 7 days a week, when you are on to something.
Writing begets writing
A writer is a reader moved to emulation
Do your time.
If you want to be a writer - you write.

Writer's block is a fear of failure, a failure of imagination. Lower your standards.

Write what you don't know about.

"Finish it"

Your loyalty is to your book.

Convince the reader that the world is real.

Susanna Clark
gave up on 3 projects before completing her first published novel.


EY

Mercury is Retrograde
Mood:  happy
Topic: Writing to Live
4July06 Tuesday 12am

Mercury goes retrograde by the 5th of July. When mercury is retrograde one of the things you're supposed to do is revisit old projects that you may be stalled with. My project is my novel White Wishes.

Saturday, I went through all my digital recordings and transcribed the notes for White Wishes. It feels like it's time to battle through it.
It took me about an hour to come up with a summary for White Wishes. I kept asking, "What is White Wishes about?"

The Summary
Rachel plans to escape her husband and the choices she's made in the name of survival while Kali's sense of belonging is jeopardized when she discovers that she is one of the secrets that Rachel is keeping.

It's a start. At least now I have a better focus when I work on the chapters. I rewrote chapter one and started work on chapter two. I feel like I have a better handle on it. Thank goodness!

It's hard when I have time off from work. It's hard to know how much time I should spend enjoying myself and how much time I should spend on my writing. Finding a balance is always a challenge.

I do have to lose some weight so I do need to move to do it. I've been fasting this weekend using the Sambu Deep Cleanse because I've been having digestive problems. I didn't leave the house today or yesterday but I feel like I've got a direction for White Wishes.

I just don't want to go back to work and feel like I haven't made good use of my free time.

I cleaned up my website yesterday, Poetic Pieces and went through my digital recordings. When I walk to work, I carry my digital recorder and talk my ideas into it. I get embarrassed sometimes because most of the people I pass on the street look at me like I'm crazy. Or better yet, "Who does she think she is talking into a recorder?"
I'm not a freak. I'm just trying to find ways to help me to write...

EY
Writing 2 Live

Changing My Blog
Topic: Writing to Live
28June06 Wednesday
In my stupidity I thought that there was something wrong with this blog cuz I couldn't get the feedblitz subscription thingy to work properly. Turns out I needed to give my RSS URL not my normal URL. sigh!

So last night I copied this blog onto a new one... The EY Page.

It took me many hours and I don't have the heart to delete it. But being that there is a benefit to everything, I decided to keep this blog for info on Writing... writing conferences I attend, plus notes on how I'm doing with my own writing...
blah blah blah.

So that's the scoop. You know me, Wild Ideas!
So over the next little while I'll be deleting my old entries from here (the ones that do not pertain to writing) and all that.
Thanks for reading and go check out my new house... so to speak.
The EY Page

EY