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Ruth Daniell

~ poet, writer, editor, teacher

Ruth Daniell

Tag Archives: writing process

Days of unicorns, fancy teacups, fog, rain & pretty books

03 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by Ruth Daniell in Poetry, Publications, Teaching, The Writing Life

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Ann-Marie MacDonald, Anne Kennedy, birthday, books, Canlit, Days of the Unicorns, Echolocation, fairy tale life, fairy tales, Garth Martens, glow-in-the-dark nail polish, Halloween, Jeffrey Ricker, Joelle Barron, magazine, nail polish, Neverland, Phyllis Webb, Poetry Bash, Prince George, Sina Queyra, Swoon, teacup, Vancouver, Vancouver Writers Festival, writing process

I can’t believe it’s already November! What a whirlwind fall’s been so far. I’ve been so busy, but having so much fun, too!

First up, the Vancouver Writers Festival happened at the end of last month. Due to my work schedule, I took in a bunch of events concentrated into just a couple days, but they were all lovely events. (Besides, if I went to all the events that I wanted to, and bought all the books I wanted to, my wallet would be whining inconsolably.)

IMG_5981I went to Pure Poetry on Friday morning, where I got to hang out with Garth Martens, who was in town to catch some of the Festival’s events. I remembered to bring my copy of his book with me, too, so that I finally got my copy signed. (Garth read for Swoon back in April.) At Pure Poetry, six poets read from varied and fascinating work: Kris Demeanor, Eve Joseph, Christopher Levenson, Anne Kennedy, Katherena Vermette, and Sina Queyras, whose performance of her quasi-found poem “Elegy Written in a City Cemetery” convinced me to buy her new book, M x T.  When I met her after the reading as she signed my copy, Sina Queyra complimented me on my dress. Yes!

On Saturday morning, I went to the reading of Ann-Marie MacDonald‘s new novel, Adult Onset. I mostly went to the event because I was introduced to her work in my first year of the English Honours program at the University of Victoria, in the same class where I met my sweetheart, James. Some of our first conversations about literature and the world began with discussion of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s work. On Saturday, MacDonald was a good reader–very funny, but also honest about the gravity of some of her subjects. I haven’t read the book yet and I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it because I have such an intimating stack of books in my “to read” pile, but I do intend to read it!

Peacock BlueIn the afternoon, I went to the celebration of Phyllis Webb, which was also a little bit sentimental for me because I grew up reading her poetry and performing it in speech arts festivals. The event was well-curated, I thought, with video and radio clips of Webb interviewing other writers and reading her own work interspersed with very felt and moving tributes to her by a bunch of other talented poets. Phyllis Webb was also in attendance, and spoke a couple words at the end, and signed books. I got my copy of her collected, Peacock Blue, signed, and got to tell her that I performed her poetry as a kid. Have you read her poem “Days of the Unicorns” before? I’m in love with that poem (I’m also in love with the man who hasn’t ever requested that we take my unicorn blanket off our shared bed).

Finally, I went to the Poetry Bash in the evening on Saturday, an event that I haven’t missed since I moved to Vancouver. It was enjoyable, as always. Billeh Nickerson is always such an energy onstage, and it was lovely to hear readings by other poets I’ve heard read before and those I hadn’t. I enjoyed Sina Queyra and Katherena Vermette again, and it was good fun to hear Patricia Young’s poems about the mating rituals of animals and insects.

It was a rainy, but lovely, weekend on Granville Island for the Writers Fest.

It was a mostly rainy weekend on Granville Island for the Writers Fest, but I got this lovely shot looking towards False Creek on Friday afternoon.

And now I interrupt your regularly-scheduled blog-reading with an excerpt from my real fairy tale life:

The other thing that happened that weekend was that I celebrated my birthday on Sunday (that’s October 26, if you’re taking notes for next year). My amazing parents actually surprised me by showing up on Saturday afternoon (right before the Phyllis Webb reading, so, because I had two tickets, I brought my mom as my date instead of my husband). Inbetween Festival events, we all spent the day together and it was wonderful.

On my birthday, I worked all day, and then met up with them for dinner. I had had a day full of thoughtful messages, little gifts, and kind words from dear ones near and far, but none from my brother, which occurred to me was strange but I was not suspicious and so completely flabbergasted to see my brother at the restaurant table. He drove all the way from Prince George (10 hours) so he could surprise me for my birthday, even though he just had to leave again first thing the following morning.

After dinner and dessert, I opened up presents from my family, and among them was a beautiful set of fine teacups from my sweetheart.

I exclaimed over how much I love them and said, “Ah! And I was just admiring the pretty teacups at Neverland!”

This sentence was too much for my brother to take (“Neverland?”), who laughed, snorted, and then proceeded to choke on the pink (!) sparkling wine that we served with the cake.

The rest of my family laughed too, and James commented, “Yup. That is an actual sentence that describes Ruth’s real life.”

It’s a good life, guys. Love is good.

Teacup from James

Speaking of Neverland–which is an amazingly pretty little teashop in Kitsilano–I want to remind you all of Joelle Barron. She’s the one who introduced me to Neverland, over a year ago, and she’s also the amazing writer I tagged in the writer tag and blog hop in my post with all the photos of the robin. At the last Swoon event in April, Joelle brought Jeffrey and me each a single long-stemmed rose for being good hosts. Ah! Talk about swoony. Anyhow, on her blog post she wrote some fascinating stuff about her own writing process (writing in bed?! I really need to fuss up and get a laptop) that you should really go read. She also wrote some really kind things about me that make me blush a lot. Joelle is such a lovely person–if you don’t know her work, I really suggest you start following her now. I think she’ll change your (reading) life.

CBC BelongingA few of my teenage students from The Bolton Academy of Spoken Arts are published on the CBC website right now with their entries in the youth category for the “True Stories of Belonging” writing challenge. I’m honoured that these students entrusted me to help them decide how to tell their stories, and so awed that they are brave enough to share them with the world. My colleagues and students at Bolton are doing all kinds of exciting things right now; check out the school’s website to find out more.

What else can I tell you? Well, I am very excited that my contributor copy of Echolocation arrived in the mail (just one day of shy of my birthday). I took some pictures of it this morning, looking all seductive against my rain-streaked window.

Echolocation 14 photo

If you squint, you can also see a little gnome with a pickaxe in one of my planter pots. My father-in-law bought him for me for Christmas five or six years ago.

Echolcation 14 I've never readI also had a lot of fun with my family this Halloween, with one last spooky hurrah at my childhood home in Prince George, BC. It was appropriately foggy and atmospheric that night, which added to the fun of our hyperbolically haunted decorations. I had been planning for weeks to just dress up as a witch (I’d packed my carry-on suitcase almost exclusively with black clothing and striped tights), but then my mother re-discovered a really ridiculously frilly pink prom dress in our old costume boxes, so I went as a lady ghost. (It is always really hard to convince me to wear 1. anything pink or 2. frilly. 3. a dress.) I was pretty pleased with how my make-up worked out, all white and ghastly, and the fact that I finally got to wear glow-in-the-dark nail polish.

Haunted House 2014

Don’t forget that Swoon is happening again soon, on Saturday, November 15!

The Writer Tag and Blog Hop, or: My writing process, complete with a robin in the garden

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Ruth Daniell in Interviews, The Writing Life

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amwriting, blog hop, Canlit, garden, gratuitous bird photos, Jeffrey Ricker, Joelle Barron, poems, revision, robin, secrets, sharing secrets, sharing stories, Sierra Skye Gemma, stories, The Brightest Thing, writing process

I find it endlessly fascinating to know about other writers’ processes, so I am pretty pleased with the current Writer Tag and Blog Hop that’s going on! I get to read everyone else’s trade secrets and decide which ones I want to steal–and so do you!

You also get to look at some photos of a robin who’s been hanging around my garden this fall, so that you are not intimidated by a wall of text. Some of my best writing days recently have included looking out into my garden and seeing this little guy. Having natural light is really important to me as a writer, and I feel super blessed that my writing desk faces a window into our garden.

Some of my best writing days recently have included looking out into my garden (my writing desk is directly facing our patio windows) and seeing this robin.

Look at how regal he is next to one of my surviving petunias!

I like, too, that this blog hop not only lets me collect new ideas from other writers, but also makes me consciously articulate the way my own process works: so thank you to my dear friend, Jeffrey Ricker, for asking me to participate!

If you don’t know Jeffrey yet, then I can happily introduce him to you as one of the kindest guys I know. He’s the type of guy who pretends to hate humanity but only because he cares so genuinely about all the horrible things that happen on this earth and wishes it would just stop. It’s this unapologetic earnestness and bravery that I love most about his work. A recent Lambda Literary Fellow and MFA graduate from UBC, Jeffrey is a two-time novelist and a wonderful short story writer. Jeffrey is an excellent consumer of poutine and chocolate (separately, of course), and although he’s back living in St. Louis he still helps out with Swoon, my Vancouver-based reading series on love and desire.

Because so much of the fun of this blog hop is that it’s such a great opportunity for readers and writers to learn about new writers, I’m tagging another good friend, Joelle Barron. She read at last April’s Swoon event and recently won the Malahat Review’s Open Season Award for Poetry, although she also writes spellbinding fiction and nonfiction. I should probably stop defining my friends based on what they like to eat and drink but I still find Joelle’s excellent taste in tea and cookies to be noteworthy. I’m looking forward to reading Joelle’s musings on the writing process so I can adopt any of her writing habits that involve the aforementioned cookies and tea.

Now, onto the questions!

Robin 3

1.) What am I working on?

I’m working on several things at once, with varying amounts of productivity. My poetry manuscript, The Brightest Thing, dramatizes devoiced princesses from fairy tales and explores the challenges of the contemporary search for true love. I began the manuscript as my MFA thesis (although, if I’m honest, it was germinating for much longer than that) and I’ve been fiddling with it for a good year since then, so it is pretty much complete, with the exception of a couple difficult poems I want to finish writing to fill in some gaps.

I also keep writing all these other poems that I don’t think I’ll be folding into The Brightest Thing, so I suppose I’m collecting those poems for my second collection.

Right now, though, I am especially busy with an exciting, secret collaborative project that I can’t tell you about yet! But trust me, it is really exciting.

Strike that. Make that two secret exciting projects. Yikes! When I write it all out like this, I understand why I feel like I’m so busy all the time. And excited!

I’m also slowly gathering together a collection of children’s poetry and even more slowly plugging away at some fiction. With so many projects competing for my attention, I am never bored.

2.) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I agree with friends Jeffrey Ricker and Seirra Sky Gemma that this question is a bit pompous-sounding, and I’m not quite sure how to answer it. The bulk of my work is in the tradition of contemporary lyric poetry. I’m quite interested in narrative. I also write a lot of dramatic monologues. I’m really engaged by unique or unheard voices, and I’m especially compelled by strong imagery. I love metaphor. If my work is different from others of its genre, I’d like to think that it is especially honest. I’ve been told before that my work is emotionally honest, and I would like to believe that that is true, because it’s important to me.

Robin 4

3.) Why do I write what I do?

Because I want to, because I need to, because I want to help make the world a better place and writing is the best way I know how. It sounds hopelessly naïve and romantic of me, but I want to help spread the word that love—despite how perverted it can get, how it can be twisted and harmful—is above all a positive, healing force. I want to expose the fact that the fairy tale isn’t true—and that it is. (You can actually read more about some of my preoccupations with writing in my Q&A with CBC about my dramatic monologue, “Ophelia, Attending a Garden on the Ground Gloor of a Vancouver Apartment Building.”)

Another big reason why I write is probably because my mother used to read to me and my brother every night before bed, and I have yet to encounter an activity that’s quite as much fun as sharing stories with others.

4.) How does my writing process work?

I’m not quite sure how my writing process works. Sometimes, I just feel in the mood to write and without having a specific idea that urges me to sit down at my desk I can sit down and just start writing. Most of the time, though, I’ll get an idea for a poem—an image, a turn of phrase, a glimpse of a memory—and then I’ll jot it down (in a little palm-sized notebook I carry with me everywhere) and attend to it as soon as possible. I try to listen to what the poem (or story) wants, though: sometimes, I’ll get the idea for something but I’ll somehow know it’s not ready for the actual putting-words-on-the-page stage and so I’ll wait for weeks or sometimes months and let it gestate. I do quite a bit of my composing inside my head; road trips are really good for this. I love being a passenger in a car, staring out the window, connecting images and ideas together.

Oh my goodness how can you not love this little guy? That little feather sticking out? Too cute.

Oh my goodness, how can you not love this little guy? That little feather sticking out? Too cute.

When I am actually sitting in front of my computer and writing something, I prefer to work in long, uninterrupted periods of times. A full, commitment-free day is best, or an evening home alone when I’ve already eaten dinner and the dishes are done and there are no daily chores competing for my attention. Though I’m usually most productive if I’m home alone (despite how much I love having my sweetie around), I do like having music to keep me company. 99% of my writing is done with music in the background. I’m a little embarrassed about this because I’d like to say that I can only write to really classy instrumental music but that is not true: I have a bunch of dorky, thematic playlists I’ve made for myself that speak to particular places and people and moods and the weather. Often I consciously play music that has a similar emotion to what I am writing… I have a teen angst playlist that I’ll put on if I’m writing adolescent characters, an achey mix that makes me think of rain and another for sunshine days. I’ve got a playlist for my hometown that has a healthy amount of country music on it. I’m not distracted by music lyrics as long as I’m not listening to anything too peppy. I don’t like obtrusive music, music that cannot be ignored. I like listening to music that I can slip into and out of at will. This is why I find it slightly embarrassing to admit: if I’m listening to music that can be easily ignored, then I’m probably not listening to especially good music, am I? All my musically-talented friends (not to mention my famous opera singer sister-in-law) would probably be really unimpressed with my bad taste if they knew!

Robin 6Another confession: although I do most of my composing on the computer, I still need to have a connection to the actual page, and especially in revision I print off drafts and start the revision process by marking up the pages. I also read my work out loud a lot. When a poem or story is fresh, I will often keep a copy of it with me at all times and then whenever I go for a walk by myself, I bring out the page and read it out loud, fine-tuning. I also read the work out loud a lot during its initial composition. I put my nerdy writing playlists on pause and try to find the music in the piece itself. It may be my speech arts training influencing me here, but regardless I think it’s important for a piece of writing, especially poetry, to maintain a connection to its oral literature roots.

Finally, yes, I usually keep a bar of dark chocolate by my desk. And if my sweetie is at home on a day when I’m working, he’s conscripted to fetch me tea.

The Brightest Thing (Poems)

Boobs (anthology)

Boobs: Women Explore What It Means to Have Breasts

Four Portraits (chapbook)

Archives

Swoon Reading Series

Ruth Rhymes

Bolton Academy of Spoken Arts

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