Wow! I had so much fun being Writer in Residence for Open Book Toronto last month. I'm so glad they invited me. If you missed it - you can see all my blogs in their archives here: http://www.openbooktoronto.com/kim_firmston/main

But on to that writing game. So the other day I was prepping for a writing class and I needed a simple writing game that could be done either individually or as a group - and here's what I came up with:

It's called THREE THINGS

Materials: A container with objects written on small pieces of paper. Things like skirt, open CD case, saddle, glitter, tire marks, empty wine glass, a book on how to build a raft, etc. You can make these ahead of time or get the class to help you out.

To play: The player draws at random three papers out of the container. They have to come up with a scenario of what might have happened if they had come upon a scene where those three objects were and the people are no longer around. What happened, essentially. Individually, each player can either speak the scenario or write it down as an opening to a story then read it out. As a group there can be a brain storm of all the possible things that could have led to these three things being left where they were.

Example: Say you drew glitter, carrot, and saddle. Perhaps someone was trying to make a real My Little Pony for their daughter but the pony hated the glitter, and the carrot wasn't enticing enough and it bolted out of the house. The dad didn't even have time to get the saddle on the thing!

A simple, quick, fun game that would make a good icebreaker to any writing group.

Summer is the time for adventures and I’m planning on having a ton of them. I started the summer by teaching at WordsWorth summer camp week one. I ran a class called Action Scenes. We used a lot of stage blood. A LOT. But it was fun. We learned how to write action scenes by toying with sentence length and pacing both on the page and using video. We watched a James Bond scene to see the visual equivalent of short sentences. It was pretty cool and something I just realized days before the class. I love teaching because it’s what helps me to write better.
After getting home I built a bush fort with my daughter. A bush fort is kind of like a tree fort, but on the ground. Anyway, it’s pretty cool and has a secret passage and built in snacks come August. Of course that wasn’t the only thing I was doing (it was mainly an excuse not to weed the garden). I’ve also been working on writing a new book called Stupid. I’ve been doing about a chapter a day, though I’ve hit a bit of a snag lately with my knowledge and my writing has come to loggerheads. So today I’m out to do some interviews in order to fix this issue.
Stupid is about a kid named Martin who has been misdiagnosed as having ADHD when he really has dyslexia. He’s a film maker and really smart – but because of his learning disability, everyone thinks he’s stupid, until he meets Stick. Stick does parkour and thinks Martin’s movie making is brilliant. This is new for Martin and he kind of likes having someone in his life who is on his side. Then bad things happen and Martin’s dad threatens to send him away. I’m about a third of the way through. The outline went through a lot of changes. I had to really focus on the hero’s journey archetype, something I’m still learning. I think really getting a handle on this may help me rewrite my February novel. Once Stupid is done – I’m planning on working on that trilogy once again.
In a week (just over) I’m going to be writing and producing a one act play with the DramAntics kids. This of course means I’ll have a new play to put up on the website for people around the world to use. It’s kind of cool to have my plays out in the world even if I don’t get paid for them. Money has never been the issue for me. I mean I forgot to pick up my check from WordsWorth and only got paid because Lisa Murphy-Lamb, the director, ran out and handed me the check in the car.
So far the play is thus – A giant has been killed, Jack is somehow involved. That’s it. The kids will come up with the rest. I’m looking forward to seeing where their imagination takes them. The interesting thing is we all get to learn how to write a mystery – something I’ve never really done on this level.
And that takes me half way through the summer. I’m doing another camp right before school starts. I wonder what kinds of adventures I’ll have in August. It’s going to be fun – I know that much and I’m looking forward to it.

Boiled Cat is launched. I’ve managed to get another book proposal in to my publisher for a little novel I call Stupid. Now it is that time of the  year when I start prepping my classes.
I work all summer. I teach at various summer camps such as WordsWorth, DramAntics, and RIO. And what do I teach? Writing of course. But not just any writing. I like to use play to teach. So in my classes we play  writing.
That probably sounds strange. I mean how do you play and write at the same time. Well, it’s pretty easy. I think of the lesson I would  like to get across, be it incorporating more senses into one’s work, or learning to pump more tension in to an action scene. Then I think of a way to get bums out of seats and up and moving. Bringing the lesson to life.
For senses I’ve done blindfolded hiking and  tasting/smelling/touching/hearing crazy stuff. For tension I’m thinking of firing live water guns at my students while they run around trying to write in  a notebook. Not everything I do works. But I do try everything. And even if it  doesn’t work 100 percent, we have fun and writing comes off as a positive  experience. Which is success in my book.

Some of the people I most admire talk about fear. How they felt it during their work. How during a new endeavour, that later became such a defining moment in their career, at the beginning, terrified them. Many of them felt like a fraud about to be caught out. And it’s not the people you would expect. It’s people you look at now and say – wow, he or she really knew their path. But they didn’t. It was a gamble. But instead of running from their fear, they put forth extraordinary effort, stood steady in the trembling wind. And what I’ve learned from this is that you can’t fail without trying. And that failure is in itself a reward for trying. Therefore failure is not a negative thing. It is a leap. A badge proving you went forward. That you are more than the ones who turned away when the terrifying task was set upon the table. And do not forget that alongside failure is success – which you also do not gain without attempt.
So whether I succeed or fail, no matter how afraid or fraudulent I feel at the task set before me – I am going forward and I will see just what happens. Whatever it is, it may well be extraordinary.

When I was in high school the school counsellor asked me what I was going to do after school. Of course I said, “I’m going to be a writer.” At this point I had already written a novel, had a one act play produced that did quite well in the local festival and had the same play reach the top five in a province wide playwriting competition against adults. So I was well on my way. Not to mention that even with the three or more hours of high school homework and studying I had every night, I regularly managed to pound out another two to four hours of writing a day too. Mind you, I didn’t have a job. Still, I was a writer and that was that. My school counsellor didn’t see things quite my way. “You can’t be a writer,” she said. “You won’t make any money.”
I recently saw a similar conversation directed at one of the kids I met this summer. “You can’t be a writer. Why not do what your parents did? They’re successful.” I’m afraid to say, this girl is already is writer, and a damn good one at that. With no real training, she just writes from the heart. Says what is on her mind, and it blows me away every time. So telling her that she can’t be a writer isn’t going to play out well for anyone.
Besides, being a writer isn’t something we choose. It’s what we are. You don’t decide to be a writer. Not in my experience. You either are one or you aren’t. You either spend hours fiddling with words, desperately searching for a way to make your words better, to ring truer, to be brighter, or you do something else. Find excuses. Do laundry. And not everyone who likes to write is a writer. But when you are a writer, having someone tell
you that you can’t be one – doesn’t work. You can’t just stop being a writer. There isn’t any way around it. It’s like telling someone that they can’t be human. How the heck would you pull that off?
So to all you struggling writers out there. Don’t listen to the can’ts. Don’t worry about the don’ts. Just write. You have to anyway. So why fret. Trying to explain this passion to those people is a waste of time. Besides you have better things to do – like writing.

I didn’t go to university. When the time came to make those decisions I was taken into the guidance councillor’s office in my small town school, where she asked me what I wanted to do as my career. I told her I wanted to be a writer. She replied that I couldn’t be a writer, they didn’t make any money. So offered, prostitute. She gasped and said I couldn’t be that either. I told her, since she wouldn’t be satisfied with anything, I was leaving. I never got the university information. I had no idea how to apply. I had no money to go even if I could figure it all out on my own. And I didn’t even know they taught any kind of writing at university anyway. Had I known, I may have actually tried to figure out how to get there. Instead I moved into a small, one room apartment in Calgary, with the bathroom down the hall and a couple fighting in the next room, because it sounded like a place a writer could be born. Then I wrote. I wrote every day, two to twelve hours a day. I wrote plays to start with. Then I  traveled and wrote novels. I moved to Montreal, not speaking any French and  lived in the slums and wrote more. I sought out experiences and interesting people. I figured I’d be decent by the time I hit forty. Around thirty I decided to learn how to get published. And true to my career trajectory, I began to get published around forty. (I did have a few plays produced before then). Now I write full time and I’m working on getting an agent. I teach writing to youth and tell them that there are classes in University that teach all kinds of writing. I encourage the kids to go to university. I don’t know if it will do anything for them, or if it would have done anything for me. Maybe it would  have speeded up my learning curve. I can’t say, because I never went. But I’m pretty happy with how my writing life is and all the experiences I’ve had working to get where I am.

Okay, so I didn't EXACTLY fall off the Earth. But I have been really busy. No, not your usual relatives are in town and I have laundry and dishes kind of busy. I've been teaching all summer. I ran three week long summer camps and taught at one. That's four camps. Not to mention my amazing daughter won a film making award so we had to go out to Vancouver to see her animation on the big screen. Pretty good for an eleven year old. Then September rolled around and I got to breathe for two seconds before RIO started up again as well as a Theatre class I'm teaching and school. Did I mention I home school? Couple all that with a novel deadline and a few rewrites and the fact that I'm also self publishing a novel and had a play in the Calgary Fringe festival. Yeah, so like I said, busy. But things are slowing down to a low roar and I've found a long ladder to hop back up on the Earth. Hopefully this blog will come more frequently now. In the meantime, for your entertainment - here is a good review I got of Hook Up. I'm so pleased: http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol19/no4/hookup.html