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#TDBookWeek Day Two

5/1/2015

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PictureSadly I didn't have permission to take pictures of the kids at the high school. This my table though. We were taking bets on how quickly the books would fall over.
My first day of presentations and what a response! The kids in Labrador are just as wacky as the kids in Alberta. They are super friendly and full of amazing ideas.

The day started with me down at the Carol Inn’s restaurant looking at the menu. There was something called Toutons, which turns out to be a type of fried dough – kind of like bannock but more fluffy which you eat with syrup or molasses. I haven’t tried it yet. I figured if I was going to be teaching all day, fried bread might not be the best thing to have in my gut right off the bat. But I have tomorrow off so I’m defiantly going to give some Labrador cuisine a go!

After breakfast I was picked up and taken to Menihek high school. I did three presentations for kids in grade eight, nine, and a drama class/writing class. The stories which came out were really funny. We used the wheel of genre to randomize our genre then made characters to fit them. There was a lot of audience participation. In one story we had a Japanese drug lord who, with the help (or perhaps hindrance) of time travel, got his hands on Godzilla which he used to destroy Labrador City. Luckily our super powered hero stepped in and using a giant pizza got Godzilla on her side and saved the day. Then she went on to rebuild Labrador City into a northern New York.

After a lightning fast lunch I was off to J.R. Smallwood middle school. I had two presentations there. The kids were younger but just as fun. We learned all about story structure and made up a couple of stories including the one about Sparkle Girl who used the power of waffles to gain control of her magic wand, which had been stolen by an evil guy from Jamaica. It all worked out in the end because our Jamaican fellow learned how to fry eggs joined up with Sparkle Girl to make a sparkle waffle restaurant together. Then there was the story of the nasty hotdog vendor, who made the hero shave puppies and not return library books on time. True evil! In the end the villain turned good and the hero and the villain went into the dog wig business. I’m glad everyone had happy endings.


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The one and only - SPARKLE GIRL!!!
PictureA super enthusiastic audience!
The thing that really impressed me with all the kids was how they looked after each other. Sure, there was friendly teasing but it was easy to see that they had each other’s backs. I really liked how the more outgoing kids made sure the shy kids had a turn too. Just amazing.

Of course because I mentioned that I might bring my Red Robin action figure with me, the kids asked to see it. Some even had a picture taken with it. They were really impressed with my knowledge of teen culture too. I kept getting these looks of amazement and the statement “You know that?” Thank you Reality Is Optional kids’ writing club kids! You have made me cool. 

I think the thing that makes me laugh the most is when I read the Pokémon theme song without telling them what I’m going to read. Within two lines, kids break out in grins and laughter, some even sing along. They never suspect I’ll come out with something like that as a teaching aid.  But for all the crazy stories, theme songs, and cultural references, when I finish the kids have a clear understanding of how a story is put together and how they can write a story of their own.  

My top three highlights of today:
1)      Being told I was now a girl’s favourite person in the whole world.
2)      Meeting a really awesome youth writer.
3)      Turning the cutest little girl you ever saw into a master villain and then watching her own that role. It was the funniest thing ever.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I was also interviewed by one of Labrador City’s reporters. He was a really nice guy. Sadly I forget every name ever told to me, so I can’t tell you who he was. But he was so friendly, just like everyone else here.

I’m looking forward to my wander around Labrador City tomorrow. I’m planning on trying Toutons, tracking down the sushi restaurant, and finding the mall of shopping. Time to be a tourist. I promise to take lots of pictures!

Thank you to The Canadian Children’s Book Centre, Newfoundland and Labrador public libraries, The Canada Council of the Arts, and the schools for making this possible. I’m having so much fun and from what I hear, the kids are too.


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Red Robin makes friends with a Star Wars fan.
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Red Robin was not informed that it was Jersey day. He would have put on a Gotham Bats jersey if he had known.
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Boiled Cat - On the Bus

3/21/2013

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I've gone through so much working on Boiled Cat. I've had learn a lot, worked like I've never worked before, and done things I didn't think I had the ability to accomplish. But it's been worth it. I've never had as much fun as I've had this past half year. From building the HUGE www.boiledcat.com site - to learning how to create a Kindle e-book I've really grown as a writer.
I had two books come out this spring - both I'm super proud of. Touch is one of the best books I've written to date. It's about a hacker who, in the first chapter, takes down the schools system with a cute electronic sheep hack. Boiled Cat came out shortly after. It's about a punk rock singer trying to run from his past but learning that to keep the family he's worked so hard to get - he has to stand and fight. Both very different books, but similar in that they both have strong male teen characters and have a lower level of reading. I always try to make my books accessible by youth who have difficulty reading. After all I did when I was a teen and dyslexia isn't something you can concentrate your way out of.
Anyway, I hope my books go over well. But really, I write what I want to read. That way, at least I enjoy the results.
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Two Truths and a Lie

1/18/2013

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Two truths and a lie – ever played it? It’s a game where you say two things that are true about yourself and one thing that isn’t and the people you are with try to pick out the lie. The more detail the lie has, the more it tends to be believable. It’s like that in writingThe more details you add, the more senses you use, the more you know about your subject – the more your writing sounds real.

I was writing a creepy scene where my main character walked through a rather rundown neighborhood in London, England. I had never been to this neighborhood in my life. The last time I was in England, I was twelve and nowhere near this place. So to research I found a walking tour on the internet. It was just visuals, but it gave me a good impression of things. Then I read articles about the neighborhood, just a couple, for flavor. I found out about how the police handled things and what was socially acceptable. After that I picked one image for each of my senses to work into my scene. Then I plotted the whole thing out.

I think the resulting scene is one of my best works. One of the people in my critique group said, “I can really tell you’ve been there.” That made me happy. So bring the techniques of two truths and a lie into your work and see just what it can do.
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There's Something Wrong

10/9/2012

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My February Trilogy hasn’t been picked up by an agent yet. My readers are complaining. I have to get it sold. But, there’s something wrong. It’s just not – I don’t know – exciting enough. I mean, sure there are gun fights and poisonings and grenades, but something’s still not right. I just can’t put my finger on it.
Then I talked to my daughter. She asked me what exactly was wrong and the more we talked the more I realized – the stakes aren’t high enough. They are in the second and third book. But the first one, it kind of falls flat.
So come November – I’m going to dive into February and pump it up. Make all those things she does life or death, because really, being a secret agent, her life is against the wall most of the time.
Now I feel better about things. Now I can fix this and finally get an agent. Did I mention my daughter is super smart.
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Setting and Senses

7/1/2012

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Write what you know is an often repeated statement to young authors. But in the world of Speculative Fiction where we create other worlds, step into the future or change the past, writing what you know is harder than a simple phrase. However, the teachers of this philosophy are correct. You must know your environment before you can write about it.
So how does one get to know a space station on a distant, impoverished and forgotten asteroid? Senses and research. 
Our character’s senses are what connects our story to our readers. A derelict old space station will smell oily and musty. Head out to your uncle (the car fanatic’s) beat up garage to get to know that one. The space station will creak as things clatter and break. A trip down to the metal recyclers or into an old metal building that shifts with the wind can give you good sounds. How does stale, over-breathed air taste? Think of your school or an office building. Run your hand over some rusty, dusty, greasy metal to get the walls and floors of your spaceport. The look of your space station can come from what you’ve seen in your travels, your research from looking at real and imagined space stations and your own sketches.
To make a place that readers from here and now can imagine, we must use things they can relate to. We must take things from this world and place them in our imagined place. This will allow our readers to understand and walk within our story. Right where we want them.


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Make Every Scene Count

6/8/2012

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I've been madly editing my latest draft of Boiled Cat. This book was originally written in the 90's. I've grown a lot as a writer since then. One of the things I've noticed is back then I would write scenes I thought were funny, cool, or just sad. What I failed to do was tie them into the overall plot or theme of the book.
Every scene that goes into your book has to do something. There is no point in putting in a scene if it doesn't either push the plot forward or explore the main character(s). Make your writing work for you. Don't let it just hang out and watch TV. Push each scene to do as much as it can for whatever you are writing. Make every scene count.
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Goal, Motive, Conflict

6/4/2012

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Goal: What your character wants.
Motive: Why your character wants it.
Conflict: What or who is stopping your character from getting it.
External: The goal, motive, and conflict that is more apparent to other characters in your story.
Internal: The goal, motive, and conflict that has to do with the more emotional part of your character.
As a writer you need to be aware of both internal and external goal, motive, and conflicts of your main characters. Even with minor characters, goal, motive, and conflict are important to the story. Being aware of these beyond the surface - the bad guy is just killing people to be bad - gives more depth to your story. It can weave characters and plot lines together. It makes the reader relate with your characters. If you are getting stuck knowing just what your characters are supposed to do next - it might be because you are not completely in tune with your goal, motive, and conflict.
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    Kim Firmston

    Writer, Teacher, Mutant. What more could you want?

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