UPDATE: Here's a link to a communication method used by literary agent Janet Reid - could be useful for question # 3 in the Q & A. Now, every writer out there will know what call I'm talking about when I say THE CALL. It's the one many authors dream of. The one where an agent is considering YOU as a client!!!! And yes, it WILL be hard to keep calm so by all means, indulge in some furious dancing (maybe just not during the call). THE CALL: Q & A (If an agent calls you) The table in the link below includes questions, which according to wonderful organizations and agents’ blogs, you should consider. This said, please select appropriate questions to your specific situation. DO YOUR HOMEWORK FIRST. You don’t want to ask questions to a potential agent that they’ve already answered on their agency website. Be professional and don’t waste their time. Think about it like planning your kids’ names on a first date: likely not the best strategy. Also, you should always be polite and save your questions for the second half of the conversation. The agent is the one calling you. They should set the tone of the conversation, not you. LINK TO TABLE (p.s. good luck) I'd love to hear about any successes or tips about your own CALL. If I've missed some important ones, I'd love to hear from you. Hope you're all having a fabulous summer & getting lots of reading & writing done! TartanFrog (aka Dina)
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I don't think I've written a poem in 15 years, but this morning I penned something (poem?) that I'm thinking of workshopping at writers' group this week.Source: http://www.awakeninthenow.com Reflections The rise & fall of the wind swells like the ocean Trees dance in the wet morning A pulsing symphony of movement Sway, swing, surge, Quiver, throb. Can you see each tree? One majestic, another splayed; One simple, another lush Some stiff & cramped; Others more delicate, but flexible. I can’t I can’t see them apart. I can only see them connected. Centuries of feeding off one another’s rhythm They continue their dance. All except-- Wait, I spot a tree apart. It’s not dancing with the others It’s the one with no life left. Grow a Vagina!!Source: imgur.com What does growing a vagina have to do with joy & creativity, you might ask... Well, here' s a snapshot of the uncreative things many of us have done due to our weakness in the face of social pressure: 1. Picked up a cigarette for the first time because we wanted to look cool; 2. Gone on unhealthy fad diets striving to attain the impossible image that media reflects at us (here's a good article to read on self-image if this is you now); 3. _________ Insert one of your own here. We can even go to the saddest places like the amount of teenage suicides amongst the LGBT community due to 'not fitting in'. So what makes social pressure so powerful? Mostly, it's our need to be liked, cherished, and understood which is a wonderful social trait. However, when we start living our lives in order to gain society's approval rather than living according to our deepest instinctual values, that's a recipe for chronic dissatisfaction. (IMHO) Or, absence of joy. What's scarier is when that voice of our values begins to drown completely in other people’s opinions and advice. Here's the good news: Source: hesitanthousewife.net To withstand other people’s influence and make the right decisions in life, we need to build a strong foundation. We need to know what brings us joy & satisfaction as opposed to what we can do to pacify other chronically dissatisfied people who are apt to judge our every action. When we meet people & make friends, instead of asking superficial status questions like "What do you do for a living?", perhaps we should focus on questions that really matter, like: What do you believe in? What are your values? The earlier we all get this clarity & know exactly where we all stand the better. Sometimes in order to improve our life we have to do something unexpected or even irrational that we know other people may not support. (incidentally at the root of many creative breakthroughs) No matter how strange your ideas or actions may seem to some people, there will always be someone who understands and shares your point of view. In creative pursuits, for example, I have my writers' group to turn to & I know I can always count on them to encourage and support me. But what about our families? I think the best way to avoid judgement from the people that you love is to show them that you respect and value their values (while making it clear that you have your own). I try to be the person that they will turn to when they need support & acceptance. My personal experience is that this simple act is reciprocated. Dealing with social pressure isn't easy, but living according to someone else’s expectations is a lost game - even if we did succeed at pleasing others it would be at the cost of our own happiness and well-being. So go ahead & grow a vagina! As Dr. Seuss wisely advises, those who love us would never want us to conform at the expense of our happiness. Those that would want that don't really love us. Here's to BEING WHO WE ARE! And to allow joy & creativity to suffuse our being! Dina (aka TartanFrog) I warned you all at the start of my journey (drafting this manifesto) that I was both inspired by, and would likely copy from Bruce Mau's Manifesto.Source: vimeo.com 7: __________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others. Bruce Mau, you're oh so right about the critical importance of freeing up some mind space. The best we have to offer rarely ever comes when we've filled every nook and cranny of our mind-space and every waking nano-second of every day. Creativity more likely comes crashing in when we disconnect from tasks and reconnect to some sort of ubiquitous space, be it mind space or something even more shoreless. Today's a great day for the _______ blank. With post-tropical storm Andrea upon us in serio, my mind space has nothing better to do than open up... Well, that's not entirely true. My mind space could concentrate on housecleaning, but that would go against another of my core beliefs: To One & All: Here's to a fabulous weekend, Wishing you mindspace, creativity & joy! Dina Can you guess what rule this is??Source: http://www.thefrenchtangerine.com THE ROAD TRIP!!!!Source: stresscasey.blogspot.com I love the collage above of one of the many road trips I've taken. (coastal mainland Nova Scotia) A longer road trip on our honeymoon. From Venice, Italy to Cassis, France (with side trips in Provence) Two of our favourite stops along the way: Bobbio, italy and the brasserie on the med where the bordeaux, the homemade frites and the huge marmite of mussels brought us back again. And then, there's plotting a road trip.... Here's to joy & creativity Friends, Dina (aka TartanFrog) In case you're tuning in late... Source: www.tripadvisor.com.au Number 2: Drifting (aka 'Il dolce far niente') Source: www.adventuresauce.com Number 3: Experiment Number 4: READ!!! And today, is rule # 5....drum roll please, it's a good one....it's terribly significant in upping my joy & getting my creative mojo pumping: NUMBER 5: COFFEE!!!!! As I've said before: Given the temperature & humidity expected, I may be switching to ice cold white wine for the next few days... Do not fret coffee bean: you will always be my first choice in the morning. Here's wishing one & all a fabulous weekend!! Dina (aka TartanFrog) This week I'm taking part in a:Source: schoolweb.tdsb.on.ca - Once in awhile we come face to face with an act of kindness that changes our life forever. And although I spent my entire life watching my parents bestowing this very sort of kindness on complete strangers, I'd never been the recipient of such selfless & overwhelming compassion... Until one very cold December night. That night our family was struck with a tragedy that changed us all. My sister's 30-year old husband was killed in a horrific & senseless accident. Now, my sister & I had fought like cats & dogs as kids, I mean really fought, as in my father insisted at one point that we take turns sharing in family meals so he wouldn't have a coronary. My brother delivered the news to me in person and I screamed at him. Sorry! My brother offered me a lift, but he was leaving to go in the morning and I needed to get to my sister NOW. It was early evening, she was a 5-hour drive away and my boyfriend of the time and I had no car. But we had friends. When Andre, the boyfriend, realized how crazed I was to get there, he called Kathy & Greg (who had a car). They rushed over to our apartment, but due to the extreme cold outside, their car was not working properly. Andre suggested that if we could only make it to his brother's house an hour away, we could then borrow his Jeep. Turns out, Kathy & Greg had a friend who lived in our building. His name was Mark. Mark worked at the airport which was about halfway to Andre's brother's place. They made the call & Mark who was supposed to work the midnight shift agreed to drive us to Andre's brother's place. You'd think that was kind enough--driving an extra hour for complete strangers. But Mark was about to take a trip he never expected. When we arrived at the brother's garage, the Jeep would not start either. Seriously! And so, we began the drive back toward the highway where a right turn would bring us back in the direction of the airport where Mark worked and Halifax where Andre & I lived. And, here's where things (and by things, I mean me) got a little crazy. Quite calmly, I announced to Andre & Mark that when we got to the highway, Mark could drop me off. Andre looked at me, and then exchanged a look with Mark (good grief, the look said, she's lost her mind). "Look, I'm one hour closer to my sister & there's no way I'm backtracking. I'll hitchhike. [It was -18 degrees celsius] We kept driving until we got to the highway, at which point I said: "This is good - you can drop me off here." Mark & Andre exchanged another look & Mark turned his signal light.... ...going left...going in the direction of my sister, not toward the airport where he was scheduled to work in less than an hour. We stopped once in a town called Truro so that Mark could call his boss to let him know he had a mad woman in his car that needed to get to Cape Breton. He would therefore be missing his shift. This complete stranger, Mark, drove us to Cape Breton so that I could reach my sister. It was both the saddest & most beautiful thing that's happened to me in my life. Mark, wherever you are, I hope you know that your kindness will never be forgotten. Thank you, thank you, a million times: THANK YOU!!! Sincerely, Dina Desveaux For anyone who hasn't been following: I'm trying to come up withSource: feelingfitwithdana.blogspot.com As a writer, it likely won't come as any great shock that one of my passions is reading. I love navigating the tightrope, that delicious edge that seesaws between escape and the more realistic journey back to my most authentic self. When I started this blog I used to post my reviews here, but more recently, I've begun posting them on Goodreads. My latest review: Source: saltyink.com Why oh why won't Goodreads give us 1/2 stars? This is definitely 4.5 stars. I can't quite bring myself to rank it alongside Marquez or Murakami, but damn it's a fine novel. And, if I were ranking on its ability to make me laugh out loud and cringe simultaneously, there it ranks at 5 stars, no contest. The Antagonist: “Do you remember that asshole from high school? The one who strutted tall in the halls, walking with a such a wide swagger you’d think he had a dick the size of a Volkswagen between his thighs?” (from Andrew Wilmot's review) Meet Gordon Rankin Jr., aka Rank, the refreshing protagonist, self-loathing misfit and hockey enforcer (goon) who tries to resist the roles thrust upon him by society's stereotypes of appearance and class. We all recognize in Rank the antagonists of our youth, and many of us recognize in his nemesis, Adam, that same antagonists of our university years. I believe fewer readers recognize or resonate with the specific roles thrust upon Rank due to the combination of undesirable class & the kind of atypical appearance that begs pigeonholing. I am one of those readers. Coady's epistolary novel fuses comedy and pathos seamlessly. Premise: Rank has just read a novel written by his old university pal, Adam, and he's infuriated to find himself further pigeonholed and misrepresented as “a dangerously unbalanced thug with an innate criminality”. The entire novel is one long rant (via email) from Rank to Adam. I loved this book. The writing is deliciously sarcastic. I’ll admit, as some reviewers pointed out, that the book sagged in the middle. However, just when I started feeling a little dragged down, two of the best scenes pulled me back in—the Heraclitus scene that ends with Wade asking, “Is it the same foot?” and the scene explaining how Catholicism soaks into your skin like vitamin D—both of these scenes had me laughing so hard, my cat stared at me in disbelief. My feeling is that readers will either love this novel or they won't connect with Rank at all. I can't imagine anyone not recognizing the skill of a masterful storyteller and writer in Coady. Mau says:Source: www.tripadvisor.com.au Ahhh drifting...not something I'm good at, I'm afraid - probably why I love 'the idea' of hot air balloons (bucket list). Looks like I didn't stay in Italy long enough to capture the drifting motto of 'Il dolce far niente' (the sweetness of doing nothing). Remember Eat Pray Love? (yes, I confess I read the book & saw the movie) There's a scene in an Italian barber shop - in the movie, Julia Roberts feels guilty because all she's done in the past few weeks is “learn a few Italian words and eat.” In this 1-minute clip the men in the barber shop explain Dolce Far Niente - the sweetness of doing nada. Sadly, I have more in common with my neighbours in the US than I do with my Italian amigos. As Melissa Gilbert wrote: "I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind'—the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. The problem with all this swinging through the vines of thoughts is that you are never where you are." That's where music comes in (& weeding): Source: janedh.blogspot.com I think we all need to find what helps us drift and bliss out? For me, most of the time it means an active meditation like weeding (I can feel productive while blissing out at the same time). On the best days, it's music. On Saturday nights, for example, I love to experiment with cooking while I listen to A Propos, a CBC radio music show on World Francophone Music Here's one of my favourite drifting songs from A Propos Dédé Fortin Les Colocs Tassez Vous De D'là On writing days, I stick to instrumental music only, like Yo-Yo Ma - Bach, Cello Suites And today, being Dylan's birthday is a perfect day to listen to one of my all-time favourite drifting songs Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan When do you drift? Is achieving Dolce Far Niente easy or hard for you? Here's to drifting, Have a great weekend all! Dina (aka TartanFrog)
Source: www.adventuresauce.com
I warned you that I'd likely steal some of Mau's Manifesto. And yes, this is #2: "Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Explicit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day." This is pretty much a requirement for every writer, shitty first drafts & all... PS It's the Wired Monk Writers Group tonight!!!!!! Cheers, Dina (aks TartanFrog) |
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December 2015
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