Working on the Next Big Thing

A friend of mine, Frances Greenslade, recently tagged me in an interview series asking writers about what they're working on now. I'll post my answers and tag my own writers in the next week or so, but the effort of finding writers to tag, and who hadn't done the blog interview already, and who blog, has been quite instructive.

It reminds me how energizing speaking with other writers is, but also the difficulty. Maybe it's only that the weather in Saskatoon has been, with windchill, dipping below minus 40 the last few days, but I kind of miss Kelowna. It's partly the weather, but it's also the conversations about writing with my colleagues at the college.

Now and then I attend readings or talks by writers (and ostensibly for writers) but am often a bit put off by the tone of a number of the speakers. There is always something positive I can take from it, and I continue to go, but there is always something a bit depressing in the patronizing attitude toward the audience. Too often there it follows the model of a religious service, with the writer in question giving testimonials about how much writing has meant to her in her life. It baffles me.

Let's assume the worth of our work from the beginning.

So I miss beginning conversations with writers I know with ideas about the actual craft, and Francie is one of those writers (who also, as an aside, seems especially relevant to me and my wife right now as new parents, which her book By the Secret Ladder really prepared me for, and helps me to feel like a normal person instead of an insensitive brute when I'm exhausted) with which I have these conversations and always find them energizing.