A Grade Six student recently asked me these questions, and I answered them, and in turn asked her if I could please use her questions on my site. She said, “Yes!” and so here they are… (if you have questions in addition to these, please email, and I’ll add them to the list.)
1. Why did you begin writing?
I began writing because I loved to read and I wanted to be on the other end of the experience. There seemed to me to be something almost magical about creating story. There still is something magical in it.
2. What motivated you?
I like to sit and think and write. I struggle to process how I feel about things and what I think about things if I can’t write about it. Writing helps me to work through ideas I have about life and family and friends and the world around me.
3. How do you create a character in your mind? How do you develop them?
Usually, characters start with some sort of an emotional pull. There’s something that’s bothering them, something they’re trying to work through. I knew that Abi in Mud Girl was intensely unhappy at home, living with a father who suffered from depression. I knew that she was pulling away. I knew that Og Kidd in The Half-pipe Kidd couldn’t understand why he had an urge to write poems–he was ashamed of that urge and wanted to get rid of it. Then I begin to write the story, and the characters develop as I ask questions about them. Questions such as: what is it that they do want? Why? What’s going to happen if they don’t reach the point they want?
4. How do you deal with writer’s block?
I don’t often have writer’s block, though there was a time when I did. When I was in my late teens, I knew I wanted to write, but sometimes I just couldn’t. At one point I realized there were times when I felt I didn’t have anything to say, so I would try to relax about it. I would ride the bus, letting ideas, bits of conversation, somebody’s body language, start an idea. Or I’d go for walks around the Stanley Park seawall and think. Something else I used to do was try to take part in an art form that didn’t involve language. This has always been good for blocks–as if the wordlessness pushes words out of me. I’d go see a dance performance or listen to some instrumental jazz or go look at visual art. I’d also go through periods of reading books about writing. Sometimes I’d read the same book over and over until it began to bore me. That too, would push me into finding some story to write. But now, I’m very busy. I work full-time from September to April, teaching writing, and I have three busy sons. So my writing time is precious and I usually have more than one project happening. If I’m blocked on one, I move on to the next…then back to the first. And so on. Much of writing is making yourself sit in your seat and write. Even when you’re blocked. It’s important to learn not only about writing, but about HOW you write. That way you know when to push–or write–through a block. And when to get away and take a walk.
5. How much real life experiences go into your fictional writing?
This is a good question! Often, I’m not even aware of just how much. Sometimes none…it seems. Then something will pop up, some memory will surface, and I realize the image or thought or name–or some fragment–came from that. Other times, it might be a substantial chunk of storyline. If it’s a character, I’ll take another look, and realize that I’m working with my idea of what a person is, and not who they actually are. Of all fictional elements, my settings are most likely to relate to my real life experiences.
6. How long have you written for?
I wanted to write in grade two. Through my teens I kept a journal every day. When I was eighteen, I took a night school writing course, and began to write fiction and poetry.
7. Which novel or story is your favourite?
Do you mean of my own or of other writers? For my own, it’s usually the one (or two or three) I’m working on. I do have a picturebook manuscript that has taken me years to write, and I suspect it will always be the exception to this, with a softer spot in my heart. I have sent it out many times, trying to find a publishing home. Editors have loved it and marketing people and publishers have felt differently about it. It’s something like giving birth to a child who no one wants to play with, and makes me sad. Someday it will find a home, though, I believe!
As for others’ books, there are many. I love work by Cynthia Rylant, and Cynthia Voight. Martha Brooks and Hilary McKay, are favourites. As a kid, I loved Heidi and Anne of Green Gables. As a mother of sons, I’ve so enjoyed reading Treasure Island, which has been an amazing book for over 150 years.
8. Will you write more books in the future?
I’m always working on something. I hope I never have to stop writing. I get rather grumpy if I can’t write.
9. What advice do you have for young, aspiring writers?
Write. Write some more. Write all the way to the end. Start another project.
