It’s been a busy few weeks in my writing life, which has left little time for Substack. I have a long list of things that I’d love to discuss here, but it’ll have to wait until things slow down. For now, just few quick updates about how all the writing is going.
Last week, my favourite writing podcast, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, critiqued the first five pages of my novel, as well as a query letter I wrote (the sort of letter one might send to a literary agent in the hopes of attracting their attention and representation - they critique them on the show every week). I’ve never written one before, but certainly might have to once this novel’s ready to sell, so I thought it would be fun and helpful to submit to the weekly segment.
You can listen to the episode here, if you’re curious!
It did end up being fun and helpful, but I was unprepared for how emotional I would feel about having the hosts, who I have listened to weekly for a couple of years, actually talking about my work. I was in a daze all day.
They gave me the sort of actionable, practical feedback that you get from experienced professionals, and I gained a few really useful, unexpected insights. First, that my explanation of the actual plot of my novel holds way too much back. I was about 25% concerned about spoilers and 75% unsure of how to pack a comprehensible explanation of all the complicated events into such a short letter (in the 400 word range), so I opted to stay a bit vague, and they were all confused. Lesson learned.
There were also several things in my first five pages that the podcast hosts didn’t understand, which I should make more explicit in the query letter.
One small example: the main character mentions something about her family’s “life in Canada,” and one of the comments was “nobody would refer to their life that way if they’re from Canada.” My protagonist is not from Canada - a fact that clearly wasn’t obvious from those five pages. It would be too info-dump-y and expository to put an explanation of her whole past into those first few pages - her family’s history unfolds in a more organic way through the first few chapters. But, I could make this clearer in the letter. I’m not used to the idea of someone judging an 80,000-word piece on the first 1500 words. There’s a lot to explain!
A few months ago I decided that I needed to get back to writing short stories, for the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes from actually completing something. Since the novel is taking years to complete, a few small victories along the way might help me feel like I’m somewhere. So, on a whim, I decided to enter the NYC Midnight short story contest. It’s a multi-round contest in which everyone is randomly assigned a genre, a theme or situation, and character, and given a limited amount of time to write a story. For the first round, my assignment was “drama / restriction / a fixer,” and in one week, I wrote a story about a young starlet with an eating disorder getting into a car accident and having an interesting interaction with the man sent by her agent to help her evade the paparazzi.
Last week, I found out that I made it to the second round, and some of the praise and feedback I got from the first round judges was really encouraging. One of them even started their comments with “what a fabulous, original story, and what a phenomenal storyteller you are!” which … I mean …
For the second round, I had to write a story (suspense / an interview / a divorcée) in just 72 hours. The same 72 hours during which we were preparing to host 15 kids at our house, to make slime, for our kiddo’s birthday. It was a lot, but I did it. My story is about a divorced woman who discovers something shocking about her kid during a parent-teacher interview. I’ll find out in June whether I’ve made it to round three.
Last (but certainly not least), I’m just about 10,000 words away from finishing the second draft of my novel, and I have to do it before mid-May, because my mentor/editor is getting a knee replacement at that time, and understandably wants to wrap up this project and clear the decks for a peaceful recovery period. So, the clock is ticking, and I’m eager to dig into the big climax of the story.
The wildest thing about all of this is that tomorrow is National Canadian Film Day, which for the past many years would have consumed my every waking and sleeping breath for weeks (if not months). As Director of National Canadian Film Day, I usually spent the day before working for 12 to 15 hours, stressing out about a million last-minute details that need to be figured out. This year, my old colleagues are managing remarkably well without me, and I’m very proud of them. I’m playing a small part in the day tomorrow, and attending the party in the evening, but I’m not stressed. Yesterday, instead of working a double shift, I checked in with the CanFilmDay team for about an hour and then went off to donate blood and have dinner with a good friend. Today, I’m working on the novel. It is truly mind-boggling how much my life has changed over the past year. Here’s to even bigger changes in the year to come.
Getting them to critique your query - how brave!