Building Blocks Starting Blocks

Friday afternoon and back at the Granville Island Stage to catch up with four novelists — make that five including Merilyn Simonds, the show's moderator, to find out about the writing process, the creative spark that gets a writer writing, where it comes from and where it leads.  I'd heard a theatre staff member advise a couple of patrons entering the theatre to fill up "gaps" or empty seats rather than, supposedly, make new ones, as audiences tend to do, because the show was sold out.  Sold out!  I was impressed.  I couldn't help wondering how many would-be novelists could be extrapolated from that phenomena and I was hoping not too many.  Not too many because any poor soul here today wanting to write novels might not fully appreciate what she or he could be letting themselves in for, namely years and years of grinding toil and poverty followed by rejection upon rejection, rejection in series, in detail, crushing and grinding and and and....  Oh hush up, Steve, I said to myself.  That's just your experience.  You're such an exaggerator, dude.

The show began with a straight up reading from Joseph Boyden, Shandi Mitchell, Cordelia Strube and Ian Weir from their latest novels which are, respectively, "Through Black Spruce", "Under the Unbroken Sky", "Lemon" and "Daniel O'Thunder".  Merilyn Simonds led the discussion that followed.  She mentioned the previous evening's event with John Irving and his well known modus operandi of always writing the last sentence of a book first, thinking back to the beginning and then writing the first sentence and going from there.  For Joseph Boyden the end is not a beginning.  He talked about the "seed" of a book, that one idea from which all else springs.  In his experience what seems like the worst idea imaginable, something that at first seems totally ridiculous can end up becoming the core of your book.  You've kind of got to dare to be bad with ideas.  Don't dismiss anything as too outlandish because you never know.  It might grow.  Cordelia Strube commented that as soon as writers start talking about process "I realize I don't have one".  Writing for her starts with "something I feel that needs to be looked at, something that needs to be examined like youth culture, or aids".  But you need to be genuinely interested because if you're not it won't interest an audience.  For Shandi Mitchell a real event is always the starting point which she then combines with a fictional character.  For Ian Weir it's the image of a character that arrives out of a voice or certain way of speaking, then imagining a core relationship that character might have with another character.  A successful playwright and screenwriter, he also spoke of delineation of character through dialogue.

No one on the stage wanted to argue that writing novels isn't anything other than a daunting task.  Creating entire worlds from scratch can take years.  "Doubt is massive," said Cordelia Strube.  Writing a novel is like "driving on a completely dark road with no hi-beams".  Joseph Boyden joked about characters being like little babies to start.  The excitement is when the characters get up and go themselves.  They take over.  Shandi Mitchell commented on her need to "reorder" her world before starting a project, obsessively tidying not only her work space but the whole house before getting on with the job.  Ian Weir mentioned that he can't go back and read a first draft if he gets that far - " it's too depressing".  He has to look at it in bits.

The discussion touched on the challenge of going to "dark places" and the need to go there because the world can be pretty dark.  Also the effect those dark places can have on yourself and those close to you, the need for balance.  "You need to draw back," said Joseph Boyden.  As a diversion Cordelia Strube said she finds interactions with complete strangers "refurbishing and refreshing".  Walking works for Shandi Mitchell.  Ian Weir commented that you need to know "when to give it a rest".

The panel took a couple of questions from the audience.  I had one too but before I could ask it Merilyn Simonds was acknowledging a hand from the back of the theatre.  Looking over my left shoulder I couldn't see it up there but heard a tiny voice, the voice of a young child, maybe at a parent's prompting, maybe not, asking Jospeh Boyden to give us a moose call, of all things.  He obliged the boy and the rest of us with a selection from his repertoire, a fine interpretation of a female moose in estrus.  No mistake, this guy's spent time in the woods.

The R word.  Rejection.  It hadn't been mentioned as any kind of building block, starting block or stumbling block but, as a subject dear to my heart, I was interested in knowing how these writers have dealt with it.  All admitted it's hard to take.  Merilyn Simonds told of receiving rejection notices for her novel from England and the United States on the same day.  The English rejection was about the weak ending although the rest of the book was deemed pretty good, especially the beginning.  The U.S. rejection was about the weak beginning although everything else was good, especially the ending.  One needs to keep in mind the pure arbitrariness of these things, and keep going.  She eventually published the novel in both countries.  Ian Weir spoke of the "naked neurosis" writing can entail and that a writer needs a bicycle pump " to keep pumping up your ego".  Joseph Boyden said rejection "reiterates the need to engage" and "gets me angry enough to carry on."

That idea of propulsion was probably the best advice any writer could take away into the rain — keep going, keep at it, let determination drive you and, oh yeah, keep that bicycle pump handy.