Writing Riffs – Page 2

06May

Page 41, Painting, and Politics

World leaders’ paintbrushes

It’s not often that one of the books I’ve written as a work for hire project ends up having something that’s close to my daily life in it. That’s because a work for hire book has been thought of and planned out by someone else and I just fulfill the project parameters.

But this small life/project overlap happened with a photo on page 41 of a few world leaders talking at the G8 Summit in Huntsville, Ontario in my book The Legacy of the War of 1812. And the overlap? This world leaders’ meeting happened in my corner of the world and I see a commemorative display to this particular G8 quite regularly.

Painting containing world leaders’ brush strokes

It’s a wall display of a painting and the paintbrushes used by the world leaders when they added their brush strokes to the artwork. The artwork itself is a large wall mural replica of a famous Group of Seven painting. I made myself stop and look at it carefully not too long ago. Usually I walk right by it as I hurry to and from the community centre for my kids’ sporting activities. But I was glad I decided to stop and really look at this display for once.

There’s a nice YouTube video of part of the process of the leaders actually adding their colors here. And there’s lots of information behind the whole Group of Seven Outdoor Gallery mural project, which puts mural sized replicas of Group of Seven paintings all over parts of Muskoka, available online.

So what’s my point? Don’t know. It’s nice to see painting and politicians mix. Most likely the photo on page 41 just happened because it was a recent current event…or maybe the universe is telling me to stop and admire paintings more often.

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.

22Mar

Dedication Dilemma

Oh happy day when I realized I needed to write a dedication to Counting on Fall, my forthcoming Fall 2012 picture book. But then I realized I had a dilemma.

How do I dedicate it to someone without offending someone else? The first book I got to dedicate to anybody was easy. It was Let’s Go! The Story of Getting from There to Here and I dedicated it to my mom and dad. I mean, as a first dedication who could blame an author for dedicating it to their parents, right?

Now, though, the choices expand: kids, hubby, two crit group friends who’ve been with me a long, long time, other writers who have encouraged me, fabulous editors, two sisters, nieces and nephews…. Yeah.

But the more I thought about it the more I felt like I had to recognize my immediate family. You know, those people who live with me day in and day out and put up with my various moods, various piles of laundry left unfolded around the house, various thrown together meals because I was too busy writing all day, various other chores left undone, and so on.

Even in my immediate family there are several people to choose from. So who is first? Uh-oh. But the concept of first rattles around in my brain:

interestingly Counting on Fall is the first of a series
and it’s about counting, so the concept of first is in there
and I have a firstborn child
and I like to write my dedications in a way that they have a bit to do with the book itself (as opposed to just a “To Soandso”)

Is this all starting to gel?

But what about the other three books in the series? Three? Why yes, I have two more kids and a hubby which of course equals three more people. This is looking better and better.

Now what about alluding to the book content in the book’s dedication? I roughed out some ideas for matching content to people…yes, it might work!

So I wrote the first dedication as an allusion to firsts for my firstborn and it’s now set in stone. I’ll have to do the second one shortly and I’ll have my fingers crossed that this plan works out.

And from there, because I don’t want anyone to feel left out, I guess I’ll just hope I have to face more dedication dilemmas in the future.

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.

09Feb

Cabin Fever But By a Better Name

Saved in: Life at the Library, There's a story there...somewhere, Writing Riffs
by Lizann Flatt
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At the library the other day we kept a couple ladies waiting when we opened the library doors a few minutes late. (We were having a health and safety talk). So we got to talking with those ladies about how much the library is needed in peoples’ lives in our small community—for a minute there they were thinking we weren’t going to open, and that would be a bad thing. One of the ladies even suggested that the library was essential because she lives in the bush, and without the human interaction the library provides she’d easily go shack wacky.

Say what?

Uh-huh, shack wacky. I’d never heard that expression before. My writer’s brain turned the phrase over, tasted it, tested it. A new expression! A funny expression! An expression that succinctly and superbly expressed its meaning.

Okay, so you’re probably thinking I’m acting a little shack wacky for gushing over a couple of words. But part of the fun of being a writer is collecting these little tidbits wherever you can. No, it’s not a new expression as I see it’s out there and part of the urban dictionary. But it was new to me. I would’ve just used the term I was more familiar with: cabin fever. But isn’t there an interesting difference in feel, in nuance, to the two expressions? Yes, I’m tucking “shack wacky” away for future use. Maybe you’d like to, too.

So yes, believe those PSAs because it really is true: you never know what you’ll learn at your library.

16Dec

A Big Backstory

Saved in: Transportation tales, Writing Riffs
by Lizann Flatt
with 2 Comments

Last Friday morning I walked my son into the high school’s office to sign him in as late. The first secretary looked up and pointed out the late registration secretary around the corner of the desk. This second secretary looked up from her keyboard and said, “Is the reason for the lateness: family, weather, an appointment, or something else?”

Um…what? Which category? Which one category? My brain couldn’t process that. My reasons fit into a bunch of those categories. In fact, I had a whole backstory full of reasons. So I stood there like an idiot. How the heck could I distill my morning to fit into just one category? So out spilled the whole sorry story.

What I told them went something like this:

I got up early, got the girls breakfast and drove [in treacherous snowy weather] to skating rink for 7am. I found out my son had missed the bus because hubby was stuck in a ditch and didn’t get home to wake him up. After arranging for another mom to take the girls to school, I drove [in treacherous snowy weather] past home to find hubby at the roadside getting his vehicle towed. I drove [in treacherous snowy weather] hubby home to change clothes, also picked up son, and drove [in treacherous snowy weather] to town to drop hubby at a critically important appointment in one end of town and then drove [in treacherous snowy weather] to the other end of town to sign son in at school. And I needed to leave immediately because I had to drive back home [in treacherous snowy weather] to the village library where I was now likely to be a few minutes late for my annual job evaluation, after which time I could expect hubby’s text so I could drive back into town [in treacherous snowy weather] to pick him up, and then drive [in treacherous snowy weather] back home again. Did I mention that town and home are like 20 minutes apart in good weather?

Gad, no wonder those secretaries laughed at me. And no wonder no one wants to have an entire backstory dumped on them at once.