Meeting the muse: my summer retreat

Wooded trails, meadows of wildflowers, big skies. I’ve been surrounded by nature for the past week. And far away from telephones, editors and all the other demands of work-a-day life.

I’ve just returned from five days of recharging my writer’s batteries at Rosemary Aubert’s annual summer workshop at Loyalist College. It was a wonderful experience. Not only is Aubert, the award-winning author probably best known for her five-book Ellis Portal mystery series, a fabulous writer, but she’s also a terrific teacher who is passionate about writing. Her workshop gives writers at every stage of their careers structure and guidance to spark creativity.

In the summer, Loyalist’s Belleville campus is a lovely, peaceful setting in which to nurture creativity. The dorms are basic but, hey, it’s summer and there’s no need be confined to our rooms. The 200-acre campus has gardens, woods and meadows. Best all, there are few students around, at least during the week I was there, which means plenty of space and plenty of quiet in the lounges and library.

Our days started with an hour-long lecture on some of the cornerstones of novel writing: character, plot and the like. An animated speaker, Aubert often digressed from the topic at hand, and her digressions were usually brilliant, moving from books she’s read, to people she’s met and places she’s visited. Our days also included afternoons critiquing the writing of the workshop’s ten participants, one-on-one discussions about our works-in-progress with Aubert and plenty of time to get down to our own work.

The reason for a writers’ retreat is to carve out time and space for writing. Sacred time and sacred space is how I think of it. Time and a place to calm down, down, down ― down into your characters and where they’re going in your story, your settings and new ideas to work with. Time to be alone, and time to be in the company of like-minded people.

I’ll have to do it again.

#crimefiction #writersretreats #RosemaryMcCracken #RosemaryAubert #LoyalistCollege

Writing contests can launch careers

Creative writing contests and competitions can jump-start a writer’s career. While cash prizes are usually small, winning and even short-listed entries are frequently published in a magazine or an anthology, thereby launching a newbie writer into print. Two of my stories – “Putting Mother in Her Place” in Room of One’s Own, and “Crazy” in Kaleidoscope Books’ anthology, Mother Margaret and the Rhinoceros Café, – got into print as a result of being shortlisted in writing contests.

Some larger contests, such as the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers First Crime Novel Competition for unpublished traditional mystery novels, have even bigger stakes. Writers of any nationality who have never had a novel published can enter the annual contest, and St. Martin’s Minotaur will publish the winning manuscript. (http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisher=minotaurbooks&id=4933)

The Debut Dagger, Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association’s prestigious award for unpublished crime fiction novels, launched the writing career of Alan Bradley when he took top place in 2007 for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. By the time Bradley had returned to Canada from the awards banquet in London, his agent had sold rights to the unfinished book in Canada, Britain and the U.S. It subsequently sold in 32 countries.

There’s a lot of buzz around the annual Debut Dagger competition, which some years attracts more than 1,000 English-language entries from all parts of the world. Winning the Dagger doesn’t guarantee publication, but contest organizers send out the shortlisted titles to any agents and editors who want a look at them. This has resulted in many shortlisted writers getting publication contracts.

After sending Still Life to publishers and literary agents for two years without success, Louise Penny found herself on the Debut Dagger shortlist in 2004, attracting the attention of London agent Teresa Chris. Within weeks, the book had sold internationally, and it scooped up a host of awards upon its publication in 2006. Penny has put out a new novel in the Three Pines series every year since then.

But don’t overlook smaller writing competitions. Just winning judges’ attention can be the fuel a writer needs to spur him or her on. Shortlisting in Crime Writers of Canada’s inaugural Arthur Ellis Award for Best Unpublished First Crime Novel in 2007 did that for me. I realized there were people out there who actually liked my work!

Be careful, though, about what contests you enter. Be wary of those that promise instant publication and big awards, and those that ask for large entry fees. Fees should cover the cost of sending material out to judges and small honorariums. One good source of many, although not all, Canadian contests, is The Canadian Writers’ Contest Calendar is a good source of many, although not all, Canadian writing contests. It’s a magazine of almost 80 pages of contest listings, not a wall calendar. Find out more about it at http://www.cwj.ca/cwcc.htm

(Rosemary McCracken’s mystery novel Safe Harbour was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger in 2010.)