One Time, One meeting

Every Thursday I volunteer at the Lyceum in Vancouver. It's this really great place where writers of all ages come together to workshop, discuss and read. Usually I help out the little guys with their writing which means I scribe these elaborate stories they invent and try really hard not to burst out in giggles at their wonderful and fantastical imaginations. It's sort of my dream job (aside from being a writer) with only one catch, I don't get paid. Still, and I mean this without a cent of corniness, it's the satisfaction of helping children explore their imagination through prose that is the true reward.

Another exciting aspect of the job is setting up for events like book launches and Meet the Author evenings. Last month I got to meet Roberta Rich, author of The Midwife of Venice, and bond over writing about cultures abroad. She was very interesting and had me wishing I could jump the next plane to Turkey to explore the rich setting she had written about. This evening I met George Bowering. Admittedly I had not heard of him until I went to volunteer today and then I was glad I didn't blurt out, "So is Pinboy you're first book?" when I met him for he is the author of over 100 books! From plays and poetry to memoirs and history books, Bowering is as prolific author.

There is a saying in Japanese ichigo ichie that means, one time, one meeting. It refers to a chance encounter with someone and advises to treasure encounters for they might nor recur. Today I treasured an encounte

I spent most of the evening setting up, preparing food, arranging tables and cleaning. When people started arriving I took a break from house duties to have a glass of wine and chat. Quite by accident I found myself suddenly in this bubble with Bowering himself. Everyone was off in their own little conversations and it was just me and this famous writer. I stumbled over a few not-so witty comments at first before I found myself enjoying this wonderful conversation almost effortlessly. Telling people "I'm a writer" can sometimes be a difficult thing for me to do as I feel I have not yet earned such a title but around him it just slipped out. I don't know what I expected but at 27 (looking as though I'm no older than 16) I expected him to brush it off. Instead he spoke to me as an equal. It was an amazing experience. We share the theory that to be a writer you must be willing to read and cannot use the excuse that you are worried you're writing will be influenced. In fact we discussed that the best way to become a writer is to emulate favourite authors. Write like five or six of your favourite writers and soon you have blended all their voices into one of your own. There are no original ideas out there. There are however, original ways to express and improve on them. We talked about how as writers we take from books we have read and turn it into our own. I've read a lot books that had potential but never quite amounted to what I had hoped, so I've sometimes taken those ideas and developed them into my own plots.  Is that not the essence of writing? Constantly finding new ways to tell old stories?

I asked him if it was harder to write memoir or fiction and he replied that memoir was easier because the story had already happened. In fiction there is always that element of everything needing to happen for a reason but not in memoirs because it's the truth. Sometimes life happens without explanation. I enjoyed his thick laugh as he shrugged and simply said, "Sorry that actually happened." I had never thought of it that way. In a way writing nonfiction gives more freedom because you aren't having to constantly justify why the plot is written the way it is.  No one can justify why things happen the way they do in life.

Ten minutes of this easy conversation passed and slowly the bubble dissolved around us. I thanked him for his time and apologized for stealing him away from everyone else. He laughed and told me that we had just talked about all he was going to say that night and he might as well just go home. I returned his laughter and promised I'd pass along what we'd discussed. It was one of those fascinating moments where you meet someone so brief but the meeting was rich. It was one of those moments I actually felt like a writer.

Making a Career of Professional Writing

Four years ago I was in my final year of my Journalism degree when Chris Labonte, acquiring editor of Douglas & McIntyre Publishing, came to my university to give a lecture. Back then I was the arts & entertainment editor for the school paper and I was all over the story. For two hours he described the slush piles that a writer must wade though if they were going to succeed the painful process of getting published. I should have walked away frustrated and convinced I would never make it but instead I left inspired. Less than six months later I had written my first book, attended a writer's conference and even had requests to see my manuscript. Nothing ended up coming from the first novel but I learned so much and have learned so much since and I think a lot of the credit goes to Mr. Labonte.

His top ten pieces of advice to new writer were:

1. Commit. Do it and do it now.
2. Write a lot. You don't find your voice until you have written a million words. Read a lot. If you don't like reading you're going to have a hard time.
3. Start to think like a writer. Carry a journal to jot down ideas.
4. Observe like a writer. Even walking down the street can turn into a creative narrative.
5. Write everyday. Let it be a day of good writing or bad writing as long as it's a day of writing.
6. It's important to get feedback. Build writing relationships.
7. Stick with it.
8. Learn about the business.
9. learn to market yourself.
10. Take the long view. You are building a career, but act now and make sure you are leaving time to renew, refresh and review.

Without even realizing it, until I found this article I wrote, I emulated all the advice he gave into my writing routine. I write and read a lot even when it sucks. I learn a lot from bad writing and even more from bad reading. Sometimes identifying what I don't like in a book helps me to avoid it in my own. I've written well over a million words by now so hopefully I have a voice that's all my own. I've spent many years researching the business of writing and am using this blog specifically to market myself. So maybe four years later I'm on the write (get it? write instead of right!) track. I know at the very least I've followed step one: I'm committed.