Money Baby, Money

Wow. Have you checked out the mortgage rates lately? Yeah, yesterday they just jumped around 2% at most Canadian banks. (From roughly 3.89% to 5.85%.)

Guess who was up officially up for early renewal as of yesterday? And guess who made an appointment two weeks ago for this coming Thursday to renew their mortgage knowing that rates were going to increase soon?

Yeah, that would be me. Three days too late. Dang it! Getting a literary agent isn’t just luck and timing, but apparently getting a good mortgage rate is too!
(Don’t worry though, we’ve got a five year fixed at 3.89% locked in at ING, so if RBC can’t compete, well, you know how the story goes. After ten years of loyal servitude, I put on my walking shoes. Wish me luck!)

Read Around the World: Chile

Olá!

Welcome to Chile in the 1840s. Isabelle Allende’s Daughter of Fortune has the honour of representing Chile in my efforts to read around the world.

Plot Summary: Daughter of Fortune is set in Chile and San Francisco in the 1840s. Eliza is born in Chile where she is raised and meets a lover who leaves for the gold rush in California. Discovering she is pregnant, Eliza stows aboard a ship in an attempt to follow him. She finds herself in a foreign land discovering who she truly is in a time where there aren’t many options for single, independent women.

It is said that Allende (who has lived in both Chile and the US) took seven years to research this novel and it shows in the details that stay with the reader year after year, even after the rest of the story fades.

My progress:

Book Discussion: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy has been getting a lot of tongue wagging time over on the Agent Query Connect area lately, so I have suggested that anyone wanting to discuss this novel to join in the discussion thread on March 22nd.

Have you read it?

Do you want to read it?

Join us! It’s free and fun.

It is definitely a book that will get people talking.

A little bit about the book: Set in post apocalyptic U.S.A, a father and son walk towards the coast where they hope to find people, food and sunshine. The countryside is dangerous, burned, freezing, dark, and dead. They slug through weeks of hunger, illness, bandits and close calls as they struggle to reach their destination.

And yes, it is a bit dark and depressing, however the story pulls you forward despite discrepancies (such as thunder storms when it is ‘cold enough to crack rocks’). There is something chilling, yet compelling.

Read Around the World: Columbia

Olá!

Welcome to Columbia where it is hot, the supernatural is a normal part of life, and everyone male is named Aureliano or Arcadio. Okay, maybe not everyone. Just 24 Aurelianos and 5 Arcadios.

The book: One Hundred Years of Solitude written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Plot Summary: This story rambles through time like a story passed down from generation to generation, covering the Buendia family over 100 years in the small, isolated town of Macondo.

While the story rambles with babies suddenly appearing, women living 120 years, and many people sharing the same name and the same traits, there are aspects of the story that sing, leading it to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. And although there are parts of the story that will cause you to pull your hair out, if you sit down and read this book in a short period of time and allow the story to wrap its way around you, it will dazzle you with its kind and gentle repetitions. The character traits that set the family apart as Buendias will make you smile and the ending will simply be the most perfect completion to a tale you will ever read. (Not to pin too high of hopes on it or anything.)

Tips: Do make notes on who is who. It gets confusing. Also realize that the style is such that if you don’t let yourself go, the story will frustrate and bore you. You also might want to be careful about saying things like, “I’ll turn off the light when I finish this paragraph.” or “I’ll turn off the oven when I’m done this paragraph.” as they are known to regularly go on for approximately 2 1/2 pages. In fact, there is one sentence that goes on for 70 lines! The beauty of it was, I didn’t even notice until I was about half way through. Oh, and if the book focuses on a character for more than a paragraph… they are probably going to die.

My progress:

Shut UP!

That’s right, I said, “Shut UP!” Yes, I know, I may have damaged some holding-on-by-a-hair-self-esteems out there by saying that. But sometimes it needs to be said.

Specifically, it needs to be said to that nasty little gremlin that sits on your shoulder telling you that you can’t do it. That little guy who wheezes in your ear, sharing not-so-sweet nothings like, “That’s an adverb, followed by too many adjectives, you twobit writer.” and “That makes no sense. Do you even know who this character is? You must SHOW their motivation.” and “That paragraph is too long.” and “A comma doesn’t go there.” and “Spelled that wrong.” and “Get a thesaurus, you’ve used that word three time. Who do you think you are. Trying to write? Ha! Ha! You don’t even have a good, polysyllabic vocabulary. Any ESL person could walk off the street with a better story and better writing. Just give up already, you are wasting your time.”

Whew! That’s some nasty stuff.

So, what do you do? What can you do? And you have to do something because that nasty little gremlin will smother your muse in vile tar in five seconds flat, leaving you sobbing on your keyboard.

First, you have to write. You have to show that gremlin who’s boss–and that would be you, the writer.

Second, if it is a long list of ‘rules’ you need to remember in order to be a ‘good’ writer that is getting you down, then the solution is easy. Write. Write, write, write, until it all becomes second nature. (Maybe focus on one thing at a time though–we don’t want any heads to explode as brains are very hard to clean off the upholstery.)

Third, write. Yeah, I’m kind of serious about this one. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Even if you have to type ‘This sucks. I know it sucks, but I’m going to keep writing until something good comes up. I’m going to sit here and keep typing even if my internal editor won’t SHUT UP! I won’t let anything distract me. I won’t get up until I have ten pages down. Even if they suck and it is the same sentence repeated 243 times. All I know is that there is this girl who has a problem with the Elm tree in her front yard and she ends up falling in love with the man across the street while trying to deal with the Elm.’ And just keep going until something happens. It will. Your brain will get tired, your gremlin will get lulled to sleep and things will take a turn and begin to happen. Be aware that it might not happen on day one or page one. Know and be okay with the fact that some of it is going to be garbage, but if you keep writing eventually you will run out of garbage. Sometimes it is by paragraph 3, sometimes it is page 56. Just write it down. You can always edit it later, recycling items, landfilling others, polishing hidden gems, etc, but if you don’t have it down… what have you got?

“It says here, “Calvin and Hobbes shows bad influences to little ones. No one can be that bad.”

Fourth, if your gremlin doesn’t have a day job, is a bit of an insomniac, and is always on snoopervision no matter what you do, distract him. Turn on music–new stuff might keep him busy. Talk radio so he isn’t lonely. Or the TV so he picks up useful tidbits he can feed to your subconscious to be placed here and there in your story.

Fifth, if your gremlin is really harping on one thing, let him out on someone else’s work. Now, be careful! You don’t want to rip someone else apart and leave them crying on their keyboard. Be kind! But if you are working on sensory details and your internal editor/gremlin is going nutso on you, read someone else’s work and make notes. What works? What doesn’t? How can you use what works in your own writing? Give yourself a challenge and ONLY focus on improving that one thing.

Sixth, don’t be afraid to play. Really. And let your Gremlin play, too. He’s bored. He’s there, use him. Turn him into your internal drive to always improve. But remember, when he gets to be too much, tell him to, “Shut UP!” And be firm. Spank him if necessary. (I won’t call social services, I promise.)

Seventh, if ALL else fails, get him a little bit tipsy–unless he’s a nasty drunk, in which case, bribe him with chocolate, ice cream, coffee, or whatever floats his sensory boat.

There will always be something to learn or work on when it comes to writing, that’s what’s so amazing about it. Go forth and play and don’t forget those two golden words: SHUT UP!

Good luck young grasshoppers. And whatever you do, keep your gremlin dry.

P.S. If you have handy gremlin elimination tips, feel free to share them in the comments section.