After thinking about it for weeks and some encouragement from my friend and blogger, Tranquil Dreams who has done it at least twice, I finally found the courage to sign up for NaNoWriMo. Continue reading
Category Archives: Writing and Publishing
World Teachers Day
When my first book, The Fragrant Garden, was published, I got a phone call that I will never forget. My fifth grade teacher, Miss Rubin, had called to congratulate me and to tell me she was proud of me. She had read the article about me that had appeared in The Montreal Gazette that week.
Church Humour
This is a hilarious post from The Highland Shepherd that shows the importance of good writing and editing.
Church Ladies and Typewriters
Thank God for church ladies with typewriters. These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services:
- Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
- Announcement in a church bulletin for a national PRAYER & FASTING Conference: “The cost for attending the Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.”
- The sermon this morning: “Jesus Walks on the Water.” The sermon tonight: “Searching for Jesus.”
- “Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.
- The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict.
- Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say “Hell” to someone who doesn’t care much about you.
- Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.
Happy Birthday Dr Seuss!
Dr Seuss on Writing
It has often been said
there’s so much to be read,
you never can cram
all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.
That’s why my belief is
the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh
of the reader’s relief is.
Intro to Copyright in Canada
We are well into 2015 and some of you may be following up on one or two resolutions that you’ve made.
Want to lose weight? Can’t help you there. For the last ten years, I’ve been trying to lose ten pounds, and ended up gaining ten pounds instead.
Want to quit smoking? Can’t help with that either. I never smoked.
Want to write a book? Ah-ha, finally, something I can help you with.
One of the things I’ve heard people say is that they’re afraid someone will steal their idea or story. This fear keeps them from talking about it to anyone or even from sending it out to an agent or publisher because they’re afraid their work will be published under someone else’s name. Sadly, what eventually happens to some of them is that they never finish writing the book and the idea never sees the light of day. But, this fear can be overcome by being informed. Continue reading
Walking Tours with the Museum of Jewish Montreal
Doing research for a project can either be a chore or a pleasure. It was the latter for me recently. I’ve been researching Jewish history in Montreal when a friend mentioned that the Museum of Jewish Montreal gives walking tours. It sounded like a lot more fun than just reading about it, so I signed up for “Making Their Mark,” a tour of the Jewish community that existed in the Plateau area from the turn of the 20th century until the 1950s.
I met Laura, my tour guide, at the corner of St. Laurent and Milton. Since I was the only one who signed up for that day, it would be a private tour. We spent the next two hours viewing buildings that were formerly synagogues, schools and hospitals which Laura brought to life as she talked about the immigration of Eastern European Jews and how they established their community, culture and what was once Montreal’s thriving schmatta industry.
Hanx Writer App Brings Back Typing the Old-fashioned Way
Everything old is new again.
I learned how to type in high school. Only the girls took typing
in those days. The one boy in my year who took the class was
considered to be either brave or an oddity. I remember the huge
manual Underwood typewriters we used. I never thought I would be
able to stretch my fingers far enough to reach the upper keys.
The room filled with the slow clack… clack of the keys as we
memorized where the letters were. And if anyone made a mistake,
there’d be a groan from the student and the grinding sound of the
carriage moving backward to correct it.
Well, thanks to Tom Hanks’ vision, I can relive the good old days.
He launched his app called Hanx Writer this week. The basic
version, Hanx Prime Select, is free at the iTunes store. It
combines the sound and experience of pounding away at the keys
with the convenience of the digital age. I’m figuring out how to
use it as I write this. One thing for sure, it’s a heck of a lot
easier to fix mistakes than on the real thing.
Best Books for Kids and Teens for 2014
I’m pleased to announce that GUITAR HERO is named one of the Best Books for Kids and Teens for 2014 in the category of Junior and Intermediate Fiction for tweens ages 8-14. The annual award given out by The Canadian Children’s Book Centre is announced in the Spring Edition of their magazine.
Guitar Hero named Best Book for Kids and Teens 2014
My Writing Process Blog Tour
I want to thank Stella Papadopoulos for inviting me to take part in this blog tour. We met at YES OUI CANSCAIP, a writers’ group for writers and illustrators of children’s and young adult books. She is an artist who is adding writing to her list of talents. Read her post on her writing process at http://inspirationsbystella.blogspot.ca
And now, on to the blog tour…
My Writing Process
What are you working on?
I have a few things on the go. I’m putting together a collection of previously published short stories called The Red Pagoda and Other Stories and will publish them as an e-book. I also have to revise a play which is based on the title story in the collection, The Red Pagoda, and revise a rough first draft of my next young adult novel.
How does your work differ from others of its genre?
I don’t know if it does. I’ve been inspired by so many authors and have read a wide variety of books. I don’t think about being different and just work on telling a story the best way I can.
Why do you write what you do?
One of the Most Important Things a Writer Can Do
One night last week, I was sitting and staring at the computer screen as usual. No, I wasn’t working on my next book or the play that I started writing last year, but it was one of the most important things I could do for my writing career.
You see, a couple of days before that evening, I had one of those scary moments when my writing life flashed before my eyes. I was sitting in my usual chair with my laptop working on an outline when the screen blanked out and then a blue screen with white text momentarily popped up. The only words I caught before it blinked out were “hard disk” and “crash”.
My heart stopped. I could feel the blood draining from my face. Flashing before my eyes were the files I had stored on the hard drive, possibly gone forever. Logically, there was no need to worry about the stories that were already published, but I kept drafts of them in various stages as a reminder I suppose, of the hard work that went into them. Then there were the gems of ideas in the beginning stages that I envisioned as someday being fully formed novels or plays or scripts. There were outlines and maybe two or three chapters of bad plots and weak characters that would now never see the light of day, the short story collection that I planned to publish as an e-book, photos from the past several years and videos that I had created for special occasions.
Did I back them up? I couldn’t remember. I did at one point copy the file folders onto a USB key, but had I done it recently? These thoughts flew though my mind in a matter of seconds, and then, miraculously, the computer rebooted and was back up and running in a couple of minutes.
So that was why I was staring at the computer screen that night last week, not writing, but setting up an external hard drive that is now connected to my laptop. The only New Year’s resolution I made this year was to get my writing life in order and finish a couple of these projects. Now I know that it includes making sure that my work is backed up. And, my laptop has a date for a check-up with a computer technician.
Have you ever had any close calls?
Day's Lee 