Melanie Marttila

First, a few notes

/ Melanie Marttila
Flight from Vancouver to Toronto

Flight from Vancouver to Toronto (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My flight was seven hours.  I had to be at the airport (a 20 minute drive) an hour ahead of time, fly to Toronto and have a brief layover before boarding my connecting flight to Vancouver.  There’s a three hour time difference between Ontario and BC.

Having arrived in Vancouver, I had to then make my way to Surrey.  I asked hour much it would be for a shuttle.  Even the flat rate was more than I was prepared to spend.

So I back-tracked, bought a train ticket, and rode the sky train for another hour and a half.

At the terminus station, I still had to catch a taxi to get to the hotel.

So, altogether, I spent about ten hours in transit and though it was only four-ish when I got here, I was done.

I checked in, got to my room, and discovered something:

I had to pay for internet access, and I could only pay for either in-room or meeting room access.  I opted for room access, hoping that my smart(-er than me) phone would have enough connectivity to tweet.

After supper and a bath, I went to bed, about eleven pm Pacific, but about two am Eastern time.

I woke up at 3 am.

Though I did my best, I only managed to send one tweet before my phone bogged down altogether.  I haven’t been able to send or receive much of anything since.

Also, Kristin Nelson was unable to attend, her flight from Colorado having been cancelled due to the weather.

I dealt with these small disappointments and have since had an absolute blast (so far).  Will be posting the day’s sessions and my notes as I go, but these will likely be at least a day late.

Sundog snippets: In the midst of chaos

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

I may be on a leave and relaxing may be on the agenda, but the rest of the city won’t cooperate 😦

I live on a busy street corner to begin with.

TheHicksAcross Marttila Dr. from me, my neighbours are renovating.  Their second floor is completely redone, and they’ve added a sunroom out the back.  Truthfully, it was a top to bottom gut and has been underway since June or July.

The site is quiet now, but there has been equipment and noise and all sorts of stuff happening.

Across Regent St., the city is not only resurfacing Bouchard and Southview streets, but is Bouchardalso replacing all the sewer and water on the way.  20 foot holes have been appearing and disappearing all along.  Since this is one of the routes I walk Nuala along, it’s a bit inconvenient.

Also, the supplies and equipment are stored along the side of Regent, further down, and the gravel, sand, and crusher dust they need to prepare for the resurfacing has been piled into an empty lot off Arnold St., about a block away.  Dump trucks and back-hoes are constantly moving between the lot and Bouchard.

This infrastructure improvement is scheduled to move on to Regent in the spring.  Already they’ve been upgrading the hydro and routing the power for the streetlights when they move them.

AutumnwoodSuitesCatty-corner to us is the retirement residence, The Breezes.  Well it used to be called The Breezes and was a motel at one point, but the corporation renovated.  After a few years, the corporation renovated again, building a four-storey addition that was actually bigger than the original motel.

After two years of construction, it’s now Autumnwood Suites, and they are refinishing the old motel so that it matches the new addition.  This too, is in its final stages.

OneoftwonewaptsBehind Autumnwood is an apartment complex (three of them) which is now constructing two new apartment buildings.

A block north, my old elementary school, MacLeod, is being rebuilt.MacLeod

A block south, blasting is occurring to clear the ground for another mini-mall.

I’m really feeling like I want to move.  It’s just too much chaos.

Sundog snippet

Sundog snippets: Pupdate October 2013

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

Sundog snippet

Yes, my friends, Nu’s health adventures do not yet seem to be at an end.

Poor pup has now contracted some kind of infection in her eye/nose.  She started sneezing a few weeks ago, and then, after a couple of days, she started shedding these honkin’ boogers from her eyes.

And yes, we figure they were, in fact, boogers because of what happened next.

In any case, we went to the vet and got some eye drops, because at this point everything seemed to be limited to her right eye.

After a couple of days of the treatment, however, I noticed that Nu’s nose was crusty (eeeewww).

A second visit resulted in antibiotics and after the full course, she’s still got a crusty nose and opti-gook.  No infection, though, which I guess is the good thing.

If the inflammation/whatever-it-is didn’t clear up, the other option that was presented to us was a foreign body.  In all likelihood, Nu snorted something up her nose hole and that is what has caused the sneezing, opti-gook, and crustiness.

She’s otherwise happy and healthy, and we hope to continue in that vein, but every once in a while, I have to wipe my dog’s nose.

Nuala in her hidey place

Nuala in her hidey place

The leave begins

/ Melanie Marttila / 12 Comments

I’m going to be a bit scarce, or scarcer that I have been recently.

I have my time off and I’m going to use it to catch up on a few projects/straighten out my head.

What’s up:

It’s taken much longer than I intended, but I am coming down to the final, final, FINAL revision of Initiate of Stone before I send her off to the editor who expressed interest last year and to a few select beta readers.  I’m going to be revising my pitch/query and start targeting Agents and small publishers.

I’ll be attending the Surrey International Writers’ Conference from October 25-7, and I have a pitch session booked with the wonderful Kristin Nelson (squee!)  I’m very excited, but after putting IoS to bed (for now) I will likely spend the next week prepping for SiWC.  I’m going to be reviewing my idea files for what I want to work on next.

While I wait to hear back from editors/agents/publishers about IoS, I’m going to be starting on/returning to other novel-length projects like Gerod and the Lions.

Come November, though, I’m going to be tackling another project for NaNoWriMo (!)  I only have until the 19th off, but I’m thinking it’s time to get something else up and out there.  This may be the idea file project I choose to prep for SiWC.

So that’s pretty much my writing ambitions.

I have said that I would participate in Khara House’s October Submit-o-Rama, and even participated in Kasie Whitener’s Just Write 2013 challenge for the purpose, but I’m not going to go out of my way to get a pile of short stories submitted.

If it happens, it happens.  I have some markets targeted, but I want to focus on my novels.  That’s where I need to be.

On a more personal note, I’m going to be trying to work in a little more physical activity.  I’ve gained weight just in the six weeks since I quit smoking.  It’s not good.  The clothes are tight.  And I haven’t been as faithful with implementing new habits as I was with changing the old.  I need something that will work with my life when I go back to the day-job.  This bears some thought.

I have no doubt that when I do go back, things will be as hectic as ever, so the new fitness routine has to be something that will let me get the sleep I need, get all the housework and daily chores done, and still accommodate work and writing.  And then there’s all that TV I like to watch 😛

I need to finish off my household clean-up (which stalled in September) and try to get the gardens into some kind of order before the snow falls.  I have a few projects I’d like to get to as well: 2 ceiling fans to install, my office door to strip and refinish, and one of our external doors to repaint.  I’m also looking at some storage fixes, cabinets for the bedroom and bathroom, and a new bookshelf for my office.

These last I’m not going to rush, since I think I’ll have enough with my trip to Surrey, another shortish trip to visit a friend in southern Ontario, and all the writing I want to do.

And then there’s Writerly Goodness.  I’m thinking it’s time for a face-lift, and maybe a new

English: Epic Win title card.

English: Epic Win title card. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

name.  My domain will remain the same, but I’m thinking that a more appropriate name might be Totally Epic, or Epic Win (for my interest in epic fantasy).

I could go with something more general because I’m not just about the epic fantasy, I have urban fantasy, YA and MG, science fiction, and even some cross-over type novels in my idea file.  Plus I still write poetry and short stories, some of which are not speculative at all.

How about Improbable Possibilities (one definition of SF), or Speculations on Fiction?  There are some old suggestions: Phigment’s (Phigment is an imaginary dragon—the site would belong to her), or MelanieM/Millennium.  This last was from a friend who realized saying MelanieM sounds an awful lot like millennium.  Does something else present itself to you as clever?  I think I might just put a poll in my post this week 😉

A number of recent writer interviews have been delayed, perhaps indefinitely, so I probably won’t be posting much more than once a week (outside of SiWC, which I hope to blog and maybe even Twitter).  If I have nothing to offer by way of updates, I may not post at all in any given week.

Just to let you know.  I’m still here, but I’m going to be trying to shift my focus away from the interwebz for a bit and get back to the reason I started this whole platform-building gig in the first place—my writing.

I’ve been seeking balance for some time.  Maybe I’ll find it in the next five weeks?  Who knows?

Thanks for your patronage, and for your patience.

Lauren Carter: Deep Character Workshop, Oct. 6, 2013

/ Melanie Marttila / 7 Comments

I spent the afternoon with Lauren Carter, her mother, Laura (a visual artist with a good feel for story), and five other wonderful writers talking, and writing, about character.

SwarmcoverLauren is on a tour to promote her literary dystopian novel, Swarm, which was released in September by Brindle & Glass publishing.  She’s been to Orillia and Blind River (both places she used to live), and has made a stop in Sudbury for a couple of days before she heads south to continue her journey.

As part of her Sudbury leg, Lauren agreed to offer a writing workshop for the Canadian Authors Association Roving Writers program.  Tomorrow night, she will be giving a reading at the south end branch of the Greater Sudbury Public Library as part of the Luminaries reading series.

Lauren indicated that nothing she had to teach was proprietary and so I’m going to offer a bit of a run down of her workshop.

  • Lauren is a firm believer that there are no rules in writing.
  • People come to writing as artists – organically.
  • Character is important in prose, even in plot-based fiction, someone has to be at the heart of the action.
  • The reader (and therefore the writer) must know those characters intimately.
  • Each writer will have her or his approach.
  • All great art begins at a point of absolute confusion.
  • Writers make decisions about their characters.

Eric Maisel – characters are not people, they are in the novel to serve the writer.

We then reviewed two writing samples: Matadora, by Elizabeth Ruth and Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  We looked at the clues the writers offered about their characters, their backgrounds, the techniques used to engage the reader in the character, how descriptions were used, and so forth.

Lauren passed out a character development questionnaire put together by Kathy Page.  We didn’t use it, however.  Not yet.

Then followed the first of several writing assignments.  This first focused on character description.

Next, we wrote specifically about a possession or place specific to the character, like a purse, car, or room.

Then we focused in on a specific object within the last writing assignment and worked with that.

Finally, after having gotten to know our characters a bit better, Lauren guided us back to the questionnaire and focused the next writing assignment on that.  Having written through a few iterations of describing our characters through physicality, place, and possessions, it was not easier to enter into the details of the list and discover even more.

The last writing assignment took all that we’d learned about our characters and focused on plot. This was set up by another reading from Eric Maisel about “The writer as Experimental Psychologist” taken from his book, What Would your Character Do?

Essentially, plot is a matter of answering three questions:

  1. What does the character want?
  2. Why does the character want it?
  3. How will the character achieve his or her goal (or not)?

After that, it’s a matter of the author rigorously testing the hypothesis she or he has developed until all three questions are answered satisfactorily.

So first, we explored our characters’ psychological make-up; then, we answered the first of the three questions.

Each writing assignment was a free-write and delivered with the instruction to follow the writing wherever it led.  In several cases the characters did, as they are notoriously known to do, their own things 😉

It was a good workshop, and I was happy to have been part of it.

Workshop alert: Lauren Carter Oct 6, 2013

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

You may remember that I’ve become a member of the Program Committee for the Canadian Authors Association.

The committee is responsible for the annual conference, the Literary Awards, professional development of the membership, and something called the Roving Writers program.

I volunteered to be on the sub-committee for the Roving Writers and our first event will be in a scant week!

Author Lauren Carter will be coming to Sudbury as part of her book tour.  So on Sunday, Oct 6, from 1-4 pm at the Parkside Older Adult Centre in the YMCA building, she will be delivering a workshop on Deep Character.

Here’s the poster with the deets (including how to sign up):

RWTP_Carter Poster

The CAA office will be sending me a copy of the participant list and I will be taking payment (cash or cheque only, please) at the door. The discounted fee of $25 applies to members of the CAA only.

Light refreshments (fruit, muffins, water, and juice) will be provided.

I can’t thank the Sudbury Writers’ Guild enough for their assistance in getting this event off the ground.

Following that, on Monday, Oct 7, Lauren will be at the south end branch of the Greater Sudbury Public Library as part of the first LUminaries reading series.  This has nothing to do with the CAA or the Roving Writers, but I thought I’d spread the word.

She will, of course, have copies of her dystopian literary novel, Swarm, available for sale and signing.

Have a lovely evening!

Caturday Quickies: The launch of Spooky Sudbury

/ Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments
Spooked authors :)

Spooked authors 🙂

Barnaby

Barnaby

What was I up to today?

Between 11 am and 1 pm, I went to Chapters to celebrate the launch of Mark Leslie and Jenny Jelen’s Spooky Sudbury: True tales of the eerie and unexplained, which just happens to feature a wee tale from yours truly as well as a number of my friends: Kim Fahner, Mat Del Papa, Charlie Smith, Rob Sacchetto, and a pile of other local contributors.

Upon my arrival, the gracious Mr. Leslie brought me my contributor’s copy and my Spooky

My Spooky Sudbury swag

My Spooky Sudbury swag

Sudbury Swag Bag.  I met Jenny, and hung out with Scott Overton, Kevin Closs, and a crowd of other people.  Really.  It was a crowd.

An hour into their three-hour stint at Chapters, Mark and Jenny were sold out.  Fans were heading down to Costco to buy copies and bring them back for Mark and Jenny to sign.

This afternoon, Mark and Jenny were at Coles in the New Sudbury Centre, and tomorrow morning, from 10 am to 12 pm, they will be at Costco.  This will be your last chance, Sudbury, get your copy of Spooky Sudbury before they’re all sold out and read the true tales of the unexplained through the month of October.

Getting interviewed-yes, the media was there too!

Mind you, you can always go online and order a copy.

Either way, it’s scary stuff, kids (in my best, Count Floyd voice)!

What writerly fun have you been up to this weekend?

Caturday Quickies: Brian Henry workshop Sept 22, 2013

/ Melanie Marttila

Last Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013, I attended a Brian Henry workshop here in Sudbury.  The Brian HenrySudbury Writers’ Guild brought him up for a visit.  This will have been my fifth of Brian’s workshops, I’m thinking?

I used to attend the workshops he delivered in North Bay, take the drive over in the morning with my mom, drop her off at the mall for a day of shopping, and pick her up at the end of the workshop.

Brian Henry is an experienced editor who now teaches at Ryerson University.  He also conducts workshops on a regular basis across southern Ontario.

If you don’t know about it, you should really visit Quick Brown Fox, Brian’s blog.  He blogs about agents and editors and publishing opportunities for Canadian writers (here and in the States).  Sign up for his newsletter.  It’s full of great information.

Brian has also been instrumental in developing the talent of some well-known authors – anyone heard of this woman named Kelly Armstrong?

This workshop was about plotting short fiction and novels, the differences, and markets.  If you have access to one of Brian’s workshops in your area, I would recommend attending.

As a fellow member of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild says, you have to be open to learning about your craft, even if you’ve already been published.  It’s a lifetime commitment.

Oh yeah, he set us an assignment to write a short story (preferably one of the ones we worked on in the workshop and submit it to CommuterLit.com.  We were supposed to do it before the week was out.  I don’t have much time to get cracking on my submission 🙂

Have you attended any workshops recently where you learned something new about your art or craft?  Maybe it reminded you of something you already knew, but temporarily forgot?  Please share 🙂

All’s quiet on the work front

/ Melanie Marttila / 10 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about the day job.  The reason: I’m burnt.

Crispy critters.  Toasty-oats.  Done like the proverbial dinner.

I’ve been burned out since April or thereabouts.  It was about the same time that two things occurred to me:

  1. Regardless how well I plan and how hard I work, someone will inevitably ask me to throw everything out the window and do something completely different.
  2. Regardless how well I do, I will never be a regional consultant on a permanent basis.

I was just coming down off the high of achieving my training certification and eager to begin the next phase of my development as a certified trainer.  First, I’d have to assess a few other candidates, and then I could begin to coach.

In the next breath, I was told that the certification program was on hold.  Our internal college was in transition and it was unknown when the program would resume.  To date, I have heard nothing.

Though my performance and learning agreement (PLA) was fairly glowing, I knew I would not remain with the team.

I knew this to begin with.  My assignment was part of a deal and was never intended to be permanent.  It was difficult to hang onto this reality when everyone on my old team was telling me that I wouldn’t be returning.  My star was ascending.

Everyone on my new team was eager to keep me.  To his credit, my  new manager never so much as implied there was a possibility.  Fair enough.

I applied for two other positions, both of which I was screened out of because I lacked the requisite experience.  The only way to gain said experience?  At-level assignments, staffed through unofficial expressions of interest.

By the time summer arrived, I didn’t really want to remain a consultant, at least not in the position of regional training coordinator.  The landscape of the program I administered was ever-changing, and, as I mentioned above, all my hard work was largely disregarded.

Then I had to work even harder, and those efforts, too, ended up going to waste.

I began to hope that I would return to my substantive position, despite the reduction in salary.

Unexpectedly, the consultant pool I was in was extended to the end of August, incidentally the end of my acting assignment.  A couple of consultants had retired, and I felt that I might obtain one of those positions.

Until I learned that regionally, consultants were being centralized.  Now, if I wanted to be a consultant, I’d have to move, disrupting Phil and his job, and leaving both of our mothers (still independent, but aging) without a significant part of their support systems.

I’d already made it clear when I made the pool that I would not be moving.

So now, due to geography (ridiculous because most of our work is virtual) I am out of the running, even though my pool has been extended again, to the end of September.  It’s sad, because I have skills that are in demand.

Despite fishing my wish and getting back on the training team, it’s not the same.  I can’t help but feel that it’s a kind of failure.  I know that this is not the case, but my feelings are what they are.  I also feel bitter.

There was a time when I thought I would never be able to rise very far in the ranks.  Though my office is a hub, there weren’t very many opportunities for advancement.

That changed and I moved up two pay grades in as many years.  Now I feel that again, I’m “stuck.”

Don’t get me wrong, the training team is great and our manager is awesome.  The phrase “force of nature” comes to mind when I think of her.  I used to be so happy.  I thought I’d found my work “home” and was content to stay there.

It’s hard to go back when you’ve had your world expanded, though.

I’m just totally burnt out.  Most days I wake up asking myself if I can, in fact, go to work.  I’m so disappointed when I can’t find a reason to stay home.

So I’m going to be taking some time away from work starting October 15.  I’m hoping that the time off will allow me to address some of the negative feelings I have and return to work in a positive and productive frame of mind.

Priorities.  While I have debt, I need to keep them straight.

Does your day job get you down?  Do you have any options that can help you to recapture your love for your job?

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Sundog snippets: The shape of things to come

/ Melanie Marttila

The gazebo is finally up.

It’s been a bit of an odyssey.

Last year, Phil thought he’d like to put a permanent gazebo up on our patio.  He set about drawing up plans and figuring things out.

This spring, rather than building the wooden gazebo with roof and shingles, Phil opted to purchase a metal gazebo.

It was supposed to be 10’ by 12’ and our patio was only about 10’ by 10’.  After we got the birches and the poplar removed in the spring, Phil determined that he would dig down and pour sono-tubes full of concrete to serve as footings for the new gazebo.

Then it rained.  Then it got super hot.  Then it rained again.  Then Phil bought Bucket.

It wasn’t until August that he got those footings poured, 10’ by 12’, on centre, levelled.  They should have been as perfect as Phil could have made them.

Then Phil opened the boxes (there were several) and located the instructions.  The first issue was the manner in which the directions suggested the gazebo be assembled: put the roof together, and have 6 people on ladders hold it up while 2 more people assemble the structure beneath it.

We both had a hoot about that.

Phil chose to put together the part of the frame that should have confirmed the proper placement of the footings.  The gazebo turned out not to be 10’ by 12’, even though every measurement in the instructions and on the boxes indicated that it was those exact dimensions.

It was 9’ 7” by 11’ 7”.

So Phil went out and got even bigger sono-tubes, excavated the ones he’d poured, stripped off the cardboard so that the new cement would adhere to what he’d already poured, and positioned the tubes so that the expanded diameters should have supported the posts.  Even then, the posts rested on the very edges of the footings.  He’d have to start over.

Phil was not a happy camper.

So more sono-tubes and more quick-crete later, and the gazebo is finally up.

Phil putting the roof on and Nu in the shade

Phil putting the roof on and Nu in the shade

It's up!

It’s up!

As I was helping Phil out yesterday (handing him roof struts and bolts), I found this lovely little heart-shaped stone.  I think that says it all.  He still loves me 🙂

The random, heart-shaped rock I found

The random, heart-shaped rock I found

I’ll show you what the finished, finished gazebo looks like next week with the curtains and the patio set.  I’ll have my outdoor office for fall.

Any reno-misadventures to share?

Sundog snippet