#TDBookweek is an amazing opportunity for writers for children to tour a province that they don’t live in. I started my first TDBookweek tour at the weekend. On Sunday, after a beautiful day of driving, I spent the night in Port Hardy, in Vancouver Island. It was a beautiful night and I watched a rainbow over the marina as I read through my presentations for the following morning. I arrived at Gwa’sala-‘Nakwaxda’xw School early for my morning presentation. The school is on the Tsulquate Reserve. This is one of the few times I have been on a Reserve in Canada and I was reminded of our tragic and complicated history as settlers. I was toured through the school by the lovely Jackie Hunt, who talked me through the tragic past of the Reserve, and showed me the amazing steps the community continues to take to overcome and reconcile with the past. It was a deep learning moment for me. The first class of Grade 2 and 3s were engaged and actively listening, asking questions and then storyboarding with me during our time together. One of the students, kindly shared his storyboard for me to share with you. I talked about the experience of how Polly Diamond and the Magic Book was created, from inception to illustration, bringing alive the book and the process for these young writers. This was followed by a session with the Grade 6/7s where I talked about my book of non-fiction, about the life of Toronto teenager, Carley Allison, due out next year, to illuminate how a book comes to life, in keeping with the TDBookweek theme of bringing books to life.

I drove to Port McNeill where I found Cheeselakes Elementary School, despite the GPS leading me down a mining road. There I had another wonderful session with their two kindergarten classrooms who were terrific listeners as we talked about how Violet and Victor came to life, how the book was written, illustrated and born. Then I read to them from the book, took questions and heard all about the books these writers had written. After another drive of a couple of hours to get to Campbell River, I settled in with the presentations for tomorrow and a beautiful supper and view over the water.

Today, my second day of school visits, started with 150 kindergarten to Grade 3s at Penfield Elementary School, in Campbell River, who were so attentive and full of amazing questions as we talked about how they could share their best stories. I shared with them how a book was written and I must have answered twenty questions during pauses in my presentation, before hanging out with the Grade 3s to answer even more of their questions. Then I drove to Courtenay, where a group of eighty Grade 1-3s were equally full of questions and inspiration. My favourite comments of the day were: I am going to go home and write a book now. And, I have an ingrown toenail. I spend the night tonight in Courtenay, before returning to the same school as today–Arden Elementary, to meet with the rest of their Grade 2s and 3s. And then I’ll drive to Royston Elementary, before a longer drive to Parksville where I go to two more schools. As I drive, I’ve been listening to The Moth–it is such an pleasure for me not only to talk about my books with such excited kids, but also to listen to such extraordinary storytelling as I drive without the screaming interruptions of my four children. It gives me time to dream and think about stories and to, perhaps, come up with something new to work on once I get home.      

I have a lot of balls in the air–three books coming out in the next year (one on May 1st), several hundred students doing one of my online writing courses, school visits, a TD Book Week tour starting on May 5th, a regular slot on CTV which I have to read lots of books for (which I love, don’t get me wrong!), and then I have ideas for new books swirling, and all the usual dealings with my four kids and the endless to-do list looking after their needs requires. Sometimes I have to stop and take a moment to find the writer that I claim to be. See, some days it seems to me that I spend more time emailing than writing. Actually, it feels to me that most days I’m working my way through the practical side of managing my life and not getting to the actual writing part.

I know that I’m not the only one who struggles to balance writing/life/work. But here in Saskatoon, I have a little escape plan. There is a lovely retreat centre called Queen’s House of Retreat that lets out rooms for the day. Occasionally, not often, I drop the kids off at school and head here for the entire day. I tidy my laptop home screen, answer emails, write, (nap!), read, and still get back in time to have supper. At home, I have a space where I can work, but my kids love to be in there with me, and there is always the temptation at home to tidy/cook/answer the phone/procrastinate/play with the kids etc. Here at Queen’s House with my little room and my (not-so-secret-anymore) escape plan, I take a few hours to recalibrate.

Surprisingly, when I do this, I actually get some time to do the one thing I skip in my day-to-day life. Here, I spend time with my ideas. I think about what I’m working on, or my future ideas, and I look out the window and dream. It’s important for me to actually spend time with my imagination, I remember. It’s easier, sure, to work my way through my to-do list, but it’s more effective, strangely, for me to step outside my life just a little, tiny bit, to refuel for all the projects I want to work on–I’ve had the best ideas here, and I can suddenly see my way through projects that I’ve been stuck on.

I’m lucky that Queen’s House is neither expensive nor restrictive–they are welcoming and I am glad to be here, just for one more hour before I get home to make supper for five kids (we have one extra staying the night) and then to the huge pile of stuff at the bottom of the stairs that I need to tidy tonight!

I loved my daughter’s little note that she never finished as the image for this post–I always wonder what she was going to add! Use it for a writing prompt, if you would like to. If you have time….

I love answering questions about writing–and lots of you have questions for me. So I thought I’d try regularly featuring some of those questions in my newsletter and on here to see if the answers are helpful to other writers too. If you have a question about writing (or about the writing life) please email me at alicekuipersauthor@gmail.com. This question is about the links between scenes…

One of the things that I often get stuck on is how to segue from one scene to another in an interesting way. Sometimes I know what I want to happen next but I know I can’t keep going from action to action to more action. I suppose you could call these fillers or perhaps opportunities to include other aspects such as character development etc. I’d love to know if you have any thoughts on how to approach this. Melissa 

Transitions between scenes are often tricky and one of the ways I handle these is not to think about this aspect toodeeply until I get to a later draft. Partly, this is because sometimes scenes move around, or they get deleted, or it becomes apparent that a whole other scene needs to be squeezed in. Then, when I begin a fourth or fifth rewrite, I spend some timefocusing on only transitions between scenes. (I edit in layers, so in that fourth edit, I might look firstly at all the dialogue, then all the chapter breaks, then the transitions, then the character motivation etc).

When I’m focusing on transitions, I ask myself two things:

1: Does what happens next make sense?

2: Can this transition be simpler?

These questions help me think about exactly how I need to approach the gap between one scene and the next.

I think your question, Melissa, is also about what should happen in a scene. And I think here is where your scenes could maybe look at three other important elements: dialogue, description and internal voice. It sounds to me like you have action very strongly on the page (the fourth key element of a scene) but that perhaps some of the other elements could be deepened withinthe scenes. Then the transitions will be easier because each scene will be fuller–scenes should be like pearls on a necklace, as an editor once said to me. That made me think that the strands/string of the necklace itself should be the background, strong, but almost invisible. And so that’s how I think of transitions.

The last thing I do as a writer, is that I always notice when I’m reading how other writers achieve technically the things I am struggling with. So, turn to your favourite writers and look at how they deepen their scenes and how they transition between scenes. Do they use a quick narrative voice? Like this: Later that evening…

Do they delve into the thoughts of the character? Like this: He hated walking away from her… Or do they trust the white space and just move to the next scene?

I rewrite my own books about a hundred more times, smoothing each page (and transition) as manytimesas need be until they can’t even be seen.

I hope this helps answer your question.

Thanks for asking me. If anyone else has a writing based question, then send me an email!