A collection of odd ends and rare bits arise with any creative undertaking. Here's a sampling.
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Fellow writer and world traveller, David Leach, pedalled up to my office last week and signed my copy of his new non-fiction title, Fatal Tide. He was kind enough to purchase my novel and insisted on taking our picture together. For more info about David's life, career and his new book, visit his website.
David's the good-looking fellow wearing the bike gear. I'm the other guy.
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Here are two notes from a friend about how The Good Lie has travelled; in this case to a bookshop in Mexico.
Hi Don -
I read your book while in Mexico which I enjoyed very much (challenging state of mind to portray - that huge regret feeling and confusion about 'ethical' choices). In Zihuatanejo there is a really cool cafe along the promenade and it is also an English book exchange. So I left your book for another (Katherine Berg - Art of Mending) and so it will begin its journey to who knows where. Before we parted company, I took this photo.
My daughter works at Russell Books on Fort St. and is a dedicated/passionate bibliophile. She has this web site where you put a tag in a book, log it on the site and then people find the book/tag and go to the site to update where the book is. You probably know this already? Should have put a tag in your book! But serendipity, it'll probably turn up somewhere in my lifetime again.
Cheers, Anne
Don -
Feel free to use any quote - real or fictitious! I am sure that Che has some meaning in the grand scheme of your book and our lives - and I like the parallel landscape images of your book and the art above it. Of course, the entire shot took thirty seconds, was not set up or planned in anyway, and the big burly gruff owner was sitting at the table nearby about to launch into a huge plate of waffles and fruit and nearly jumped out of his skin when my flash went off. I apologized, and scurried out. So it's only in hindsight that one sees any meaning in the photo which is of course exactly what happens in life and serendipity ............and I better get back to my Monday morning errands.....OR maybe sit down and actually write a novel?!
Anne
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Here's an article I wrote about this website for the Journal of B.C. Teachers of English Language Arts in 2008.
Inside the
Creative Writing Process
By D.F. Bailey
In 1975 I began my teaching career as high school English
teacher in Qualicum Beach. From day one I was on the
lookout for materials that would show students the inner
workings of the creative writing process. It’s one thing to
read, discuss and write about short stories, poems and
novels—but quite another to reveal how authors create these
works, and to show students a constructive process they can
use in their own creative writing.
I was very fortunate when my first novel,
Fire
Eyes, was
short-listed for the 1987 Books in Canada first novel
award. The following year I was hired by the University of
Victoria to teach fiction and run the university
Professional Writing Co-operative Education program. My
quest to find a “writer’s manual” intensified when I
realized that even the most promising writers were
struggling to find meaningful guidance that they could
adapt to their own style and voice.
Over time I found a few good tools. The Paris
Review interviews
provided insight into several writers’ methods and
theories. Its audience, however, is too academic for most
high school students. A selection of Hemingway’s comments
collected in a slim volume (On
Writing) is more
suitable and very accessible to the young writer.
Jack Hodgins provides lots of practical “insider” writing
advice and practical exercises in his Passion for
Narrative. I recall when
Jack was pulling this book together in the mid-1990s, we
discussed our mutual frustration with the lack of materials
to guide our students. As former school teachers we both
knew the problem was not being adequately addressed at the
high school level. Jack’s book continues to be an excellent
resource, especially for young writers. It would suit many
advanced writers at the senior secondary school level.
When Turnstone Press published my third novel,
The Good
Lie, in 2007, I
decided to approach this issue from a different
perspective. Rather than offer a how-to guidebook, I
decided to collect all the materials that went into
creating a novel—from the day I typed the first words onto
my computer screen—to the book launch and book reviews that
followed seven years later.
I refer to this collection as a “book archive” and it’s
freely available on the internet at www.thegoodlie.com. The
book archive is comparable to the special features found on
many movie DVDs, where you’ll find the director’s
commentary, the actors’ insights about mastering character
motivation, or the screenwriter’s view of the production
process.
These were some of the parallels I considered as I worked
on thegoodlie.com. The genesis of the site came from a
diary I kept as I was writing the first draft of my new
novel. As I wrote, I made diary entries about themes I was
considering, character development and my own stamina and
focus. Furthermore, since all of the final editing process
was conducted via email with novelist Wayne Tefs, I had a
complete digital record of our editorial dialogue—which
became a centre-piece of the site.
Next, I added the book proposal that I’d circulated to
various Canadian publishers: the cover letter, novel
synopsis, the sales pitch, etc. Later the book cover, the
“jacket blurb” (contributed by Marilyn Bowering) and other
marketing elements were included in the site.
The end result is a collection of materials that shows
students the entire process of book writing, editing,
marketing, promotion and selling—including a list of book
club questions that will guide a book club (or creative
writing class) through a discussion of the novel.
The website’s value, I hope, is that it reveals the entire
process of writing. Ultimately, this process extends far
beyond the initial creative inspiration, which is too often
both the beginning—and the end—of student writing
experiments. By expanding their awareness they can begin to
develop an appreciation for the pleasures of the complete
writing experience: editing, polishing, publishing, and
much, much more.