Colleague or Journalist: So do you… play games?

My routine sees me writing every weekday morning, in the same cafe, for one hour, like clockwork. I also write at [...]]]> We opened our fourth workshop with a chat about writing routines and practical goals– whether you prefer to set yourself a word count limit, or spend a set amount of time writing every day.

My routine sees me writing every weekday morning, in the same cafe, for one hour, like clockwork. I also write at other times- lunch, in waiting rooms, on trains, etc… but the morning routine anchors me to my practice. For years, I’ve accomplished this by carrying the tiniest computer I can find with me at all times. Right now, it’s an iPad with a keyboard case, and I feel very spoiled.

Canadian novelist Ray Robertson gave me the simple, magic formula that helped me get into a routine. He told our workshop group at U of T that what he did when he started writing, was to promise himself he’d write for, say, 45 minutes, twice a week. When he wrote, he’d mark it down in his agenda. Once he’d met his goal a few times, he’d gently increase either the duration or frequency, congratulating himself with check marks, every time he succeeded. He said he worked his way up to about 3 hours a day this way.

I did the same thing. (Albeit far more loudly, on a wall calendar, with markers and glittery fish stickers… hey, whatever works… you have to satisfy your inner nerd.) It was difficult at first to stay still and just write– not fiddle with anything, get up and clean, play with the dog, fix another hot beverage– and this was before social media exploded all over our lives and writing stations. I had to tell myself “well, you have to sit here for an hour… I bet the time is going to go a lot faster if you’re typing…”

And it did! And by doing that, I also taught myself to let my mind wander– to be happy with typing antyhing just to get the words flowing. To be grateful for any snippet of inspiration or memory that might wander across my desk, and “distract” me from what I otherwise thought of as work.

Of course it was all valuable work. This is what routine has to give us and teach us.  Outer constraints (word count, time limits, quiet rooms with nothing but desks in them) don’t inhibit creativity, they protect and foster inner freedoms by quieting our surroundings so we can draw our attention inward to see what’s already there. 

We’d discussed action and setting, and read the wonderful Underwear Incident from Natale Ghent’s Gravity Brings me Down. (I think I almost succeeded in bringing maximal Nataleness to it in my interpretation, but for a few points where the giggles [...]]]> I had an eye-opening moment in last week’s workshop.

We’d discussed action and setting, and read the wonderful Underwear Incident from Natale Ghent’s Gravity Brings me Down. (I think I almost succeeded in bringing maximal Nataleness to it in my interpretation, but for a few points where the giggles got the best of me.)

Then came time for the in-class exercise:

• Option A – Neighborhood:
  Look back to your childhood. Describe your neighborhood, from the perspective you had at 12, 15, and 18. Focus on what made your neighborhood distinct, and what details mattered to you the most at each time. How did your neighborhood affect your life? How did your life unfold within your neighborhood? Take your time. This is an introspective, quiet exercise, that can have surprising results. If a story seems to emerge, see where it takes you.
• Option B – Halloween Variation:
  Since the workshop took place on Halloween, I thought it would be fun to do the same exercise, only to describe Halloween at 12, 15 and 18.

Participants had far more trouble with this exercise than I had anticipated. Some didn’t want to start the exercise because Halloween wasn’t a “big thing” in their neighborhood. Others claimed that 12, 15 and 18 were too long ago, and they had NO memories from this time. Some wrote down a short list of bullet points as quickly as possible, and then stopped and sat, arms crossed, staring pointedly into space. Others said nothing, but rather than doing the exercise, worked on their manuscript critique for the week instead.

The point of this exercise, more than the detail of setting is:

• to notice what’s different between our adult perspective, and how we saw things as children and teenagers
• to identify the most vivid memories, and get to the heart of what makes something memorable
• to see the inherent difference between what we remember and what we invent, in order that we can learn how to make the things we invent read as authentically as the things that really happened
• to be free enough not to require something to be “interesting” enough to write about. To be at peace with simply describing what’s really there
• to discover how when you start remembering, it leads to more memories, and how this is a refreshing alternative to having to “think up” ideas

The first point is important in YA. If you can’t remember what it’s like to be a kid, then why do you want to write for kids? How can you hope to speak to kids on their level, if you don’t know in your gut what that level is?

As it turns out, with a little prodding, participants did actually have memories. They had just decided their memories were boring. They didn’t fit with contemporary ideals of what Halloween is supposed to be, so they got frustrated and didn’t write them down.  

The real memories were the opposite of boring.

• “I was past trick or treating. I would have been at a party somewhere, liqor treating.”
• “In the 80s there was so much fear about the dangers of trick or treating, we stopped doing it. People started having parties indoors. It wasn’t the same.”
• And if it was a contest, this one would have won: “My sister was choking. She coughed and spat the candy into the bushes. We went up to the door and no one answerd. But as we walked back down the steps to the driveway, the owner was standing there, completely naked.” Um, hello, major incident in a short story or middle grade novel! Please, please, please expand a story around this memory.

Maybe as a writer, it’s not up to you to decide what’s interesting. Not in the first draft, anyway. Certainly not in a no-strings-attached memory exercise you won’t even have to share with anyone. 

The exercise wasn’t to write an expected Halloween, an exciting Halloween, or a Halloween that matches the Halloween of today. It was to write a real Halloween, and true to form, the most “boring” parts of reality were more entertaining than anything that could have been invented, simply for being personal and true.

Despite all my hard work, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us worry too much about plot. There are very few musts as far as plot is concerned.

So yes, make [...]]]> Last week we discussed the one thing I’ve had to work hardest at in my own writing: plot.

Despite all my hard work, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us worry too much about plot. There are very few musts as far as plot is concerned.

Plot Musts

1. Have one.

So yes, make sure you have one. But don’t fret too much over whether you’re doing it right.

A plot arc, at its most basic, requires just two points:

1. A character who desperately wants something.
2. The same character, having changed as a result of trying to get it.

In between, the character is acted upon by forces internal and external- his own psychological makeup, and the people and circumstances of his life.

To arrive at a satisfying plot arc, you need to get real about this character and what he or she wants. You need to be honest about your motivations for writing the story. You need to care enough to get to know all the characters of your story well enough that their actions ring true.

Do that, and your characters will generally act and react together to create story. Characters are pretty good at group work if you let them do what they do.

If you don’t, you can really mess up your sense of direction, and make plot practically impossible for yourself. Plot-destroying habits appear in the following forms:

• Overprotecting our characters. Keeping them out of harm’s way, or resolving conflict as quickly as possible.
• Endowing our characters with too many positive qualities. If her journey is complete before the story begins, how can there be any story? For instance, a hero has to overcome something in order for us to understand why his actions are heroic.
• Leaning too heavily on a message or lesson. When was the last time you sat down and thought to yourself “boy, I could really use a talking to. I think I’ll read a lecture on human behaviour.”
• Refusing to make decisions, or rejecting what our characters are suggesting to us.
• In YA, letting adult characters interfere to the point that the young character can’t or won’t do anything.

It comes down to embracing imperfection. Life is messy. A story takes disorder and conflict and builds towards resolution. It takes discomfort and turns it into problem solving. It takes a stagnant situation and fills it with new ideas. That’s what makes it satisfying. Fiction is a tool that lets us explore the great WHAT Ifs of life.

And teenagers crave WHAT IF?! In fiction we can give them a safe place to test out ideas and ideals, even the terrible and impractical ones, via our characters.

We can train ourselves to take decisions that allow plot and story flow more easily.

• Amplify. The thing your character wants– make her want it badly. The hang-ups she has, make them deeply ingrained and hard to overcome. The conflicts she runs into- make sure she has to work to resolve them.
• Push your characters. Test them. Let them fail so we can find out how they recover.
• Nurture conflict. Let your character have a bad day, and snap at his sister. Let your character be awkward and embarrass herself in front of the school bully.
• Make the decision you’d avoid in real life. Step into the haunted woods. Chug that beer. Punch that girl in the face. Yell at the teacher. Ask the guy out. Whatever.
• Look closely at your own motivations for writing. Are you horrified at something that’s happening in the world. Afraid? Angry? Mischievous? Push it. Don’t pre-correct the situation by trying to write a perfect example world. Explore your darker emotions and give them to your characters. Instead of making a character righteous because he’s angry, make him ANGRY, and give him the blindness, impulsiveness or shortness that comes with that anger.
• Let the story just happen. If a character seems to “suggest” something you never planned, let her follow through with it. Don’t tie her hands behind her back and tell her to suggest something more like your plans.
• Try things out. Mess around. You have to bring a sense of play to figuring out the story.
• When you edit, take out the boring parts. More on this in Revision week.

But wait a minute, you might think. “I thought this was supposed to be about plot. Why are you talking about character again.”

Aha, you’ve got me. I think all fiction is about character.

The Practical, How-To Part

Now, the nitty gritty of dealing with plot, especially in subsequent drafts.

I know that the most training most people have had with plot is in high school, where they show you this graph, with the beginning, climax, and denouement. And then they tell you to write an outline of the story, and then write to the outline.

But it’s not usually that easy. I say, rather than try to be clairvoyant, just take good notes.

Go ahead and write down the start point and end point of your arc. Do it in bullet points. no one really cares what your final graph will look like. We read stories not graphs.

If you have some idea about where your character is going to get into trouble, learn, or triumph, write those in too. Don’t panic. You can change them later.

As you fumble and play through your first draft, revise your list and add to it. This way you can keep an eye on where things are going, or if you’re missing anything that needs to be filled in.

When I write, I go back and forth. I’ll write for a long while. Then after a week or two of that, I’ll feel exhausted and not know where to go next with my story. Then I’ll go back to my list, fill in the blanks with all the new stuff I just wrote, and see if it suggests any natural direction. Then I’ll write those points down, and then try out new scenes to fit them. Back and forth, exploring and plotting.

In a nutshell:

1. Do keep an outline.
2. Let the outline change.
3. There’s no wrong number of drafts.
4. You can’t possibly know the whole story up-front before you write it.

Writing Exercise

For either:
- The book you’ve been using for reference
- A fairy tale you know well

Analyze the plot. Write down a bullet point list of everything important that happens. Pinpoint the major choices characters make, and make note of the rising and falling emotional pitch of the story. Let’s take our favourite stories apart and see what gears are inside, making them work.

Resources

If you’d like to get all technical and read up on different approaches to plot, consider the following:

1. Kurt Vonnegut on the shapes of stories:

   Kurt Vonnegut at the Blackboard from Lapham’s Quarterly.

2. How-to books and advice from The Plot Whisperer
3. Seminars, books and workshops by Robert McKee, on whom the screenwriting instructor in the film, Adaptation was based… he’s a real person, who actually gives that seminar in real life.

Parting Words of Wisdom

“When designing a profluent plot, the writer works in one of three ways. He borrows some traditional story or action drawn from life; he works backwards from his climax; or her works forward from an initial situation”– John Gardner, The Art of Fiction

“Two final points: Embrace Drama. Just as important: Embrace improbability.”– Stephen Koch, Modern Library Writer’s Workshop

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”– E.L. Doctorow

“The development of relationship creates plot” – Flannery O’Connor, Mystery & Manners

We began with a discussion of first drafts, and how they’re supposed to be difficult and awful, but you have to finish them anyway to find out what your story’s about, and of course because it’s the only path to the next draft. I won’t share those [...]]]> We got a lot done in week two.

We began with a discussion of first drafts, and how they’re supposed to be difficult and awful, but you have to finish them anyway to find out what your story’s about, and of course because it’s the only path to the next draft. I won’t share those notes in detail in this post because a lady needs at least a few secrets, and I also have too much to say about Voice.

Much is made of the importance of the authenticity of voice in YA. In reality, voice is important in all writing. It just stands out more in YA because kids have a lower threshold for bullshit. The moment something doesn’t ring true, they stop reading. They won’t soldier through because your reputation preceeds you, you won an award, or everyone’s tweeting about you.

So how do we make stories ring true to young ears?

I build my characters by first listening for them. I start with a bit of context, like “it’s about a tough inner-city girl who breakdances, and wants to win more than anything, but then her parents move her to the suburbs and she has to build a new crew with girls she is initially revolted by.” Then I try to picture this girl. Once she starts talking, I listen to what she says and build everything that. Clothes. Tastes. Her name. Hair texture. How she does at school. Who her friends are. What’s the root and nature of her toughness. Is she for real, or just posturing? What’s she afraid of? In my writing, everything begins with the sound of her voice.

Many writers have told me this is flaky voodoo advice, and not helpful in the slightest. Here’s a set of principles that are a little more practical:

• The point of view you choose for your narrator must be one that allows you to show your story from a teen’s perspective– one that will show the reader things a teen would notice and care about, and one that priortizes a teen’s interest, and approach to solving her own problems.
• If you’re not sure you’re hitting this voice squarely on the head, try rewriting a chapter from a first-person present protagonist-narrator perspective. It’ll force you to concentrate on only those things your teen protagonist would notice and care about.
• “Authentic” voice is a matter of knowing who your narrator is, and inhabiting her world completely– of first learning to look at everything through her eyes, and next, describing it as she would.
• You need to be empathetic to teens. You can try remembering your own childhood. You can take to heart how your children or cousins see the world. You can sit on the Metro with earbuds in, and your iPod muted, and listen to the way teens in groups relate to each other. You can watch their movies and play their video games and listen to their music, trying to hear what makes it important to them.
• You must work hard not to let the portrayal of teens on TV and in movies colour your own idea of what kids sound like, or what the teenage is all about.
• Above all, you must remember that teens are people first and teenagers last. You have to know your character inside out as a human being. Then you can consider how this person’s inexperience and present hormonal and social circumstances might color his decisions and perceptions.

Reading & Class Discussions

We had an interesting discussion about The Hunger Games, and whether the sophistication of Katniss’s vocabulary matches the education level you’d expect her to have. It was generally agreed that she’d be wise beyond her years, forced to grow up fast, and that that could bring with it an unexpected sophistication. But we were unable to come to a consensus on whether her vocabulary is as true to her character as it could be. Food for thought!

We then read the first chapter of Coe Booth’s first book, Tyrell. I chose it as an example of a story that’s propelled entirely by voice, and of just how much a writer can communicate through voice alone– what’s said, not said, and how it’s said. In one fell swoop, Booth establishes age, gender, economic and social class, backstory, and complex emotions and relationships with the people and places that make up his world. She boldly rejects any notion of self-censorship, and garnishes the whole thing with an implacable undercurrent of peril that adds suspense to an ostensibly simple portrait of a kid going to his girlfriend’s house after school.

It’s online, so you can read it now, too! Do it!

Writing Exercises

I gave everyone a choice of two exercises:

1. Every August, YA author, Laurie Halse Anderson runs a Write Fifteen Minutes a Day challenge. Every day, she posts a new topic and writing prompt to shake things up and get writers thinking about different aspects of life and the writing process. I borrowed* a terrific one for our workshop on Voice, in which your character has five minutes to throw his most important things into a backpack before evading a hurricane, and a mysterious box comes into play.

   You’ll find it here: http://halseanderson.livejournal.com/339258.html

   I wrote the exercise too, and discovered a benefit that wasn’t obvious at the outset– throwing things in the backpack is action that happens in the present. What’s in the box is back story. What fun!

2. Take that chapter you wrote– the one where you’re not confident you’ve got the narrative voice right. Now choose one of your teen protagonists. Rewrite it from his or her perspective, in the first-person present.

*She’s OK with it. I checked: “You have permission to reproduce them for classroom use only.”- http://halseanderson.livejournal.com/331958.html

I opened the class with a reference to this Ira Glass video I love, about storytelling, and how our amazing taste mingles with our aspirations to both guide our work and inspire self-doubt.

These videos (there [...]]]> Monday night marked the kickoff of the 8-week YA writing workshop I’m leading for the Quebec Writers’ Federation.

I opened the class with a reference to this Ira Glass video I love, about storytelling, and how our amazing taste mingles with our aspirations to both guide our work and inspire self-doubt.

These videos (there are four in total) are like a soothing nerve tonic, even to the experienced artist.

Onward!

Writing Exercise – Mind Maps

In On Writing, Stephen King says

“There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas, but to recognize them when they show up.”

It’s my conviction that most of us have more ideas than we know what to do with. Because we don’t know what to do with them, we let our minds get evasive. We don’t write ideas down, or we tell ourselves they probably aren’t worth pursuing, or we start a project, and when the going gets tough, we bail on the idea. Or we get stuck on one idea, and devote ourselves fanatically, letting all our other ideas woosh past us through space as we toil away trying to make something of that first thought, like we have something to prove through our loyalty.

I have a solution! We must devote more time to noting, pondering and exploring ideas for the sheer pleasure of it. We must forcefully set aside the anxiety that tells us we have to make something of an idea, and spend more time hanging out with our ideas, lounging around the house in our PJs with our ideas, sitting on the couch with them until they believe we’re comfortable having them there in the room, no big deal. Through time and familiarity, BFF ideas will emerge naturally.

Step 1: Carry a notebook and a pen at all times. (Or your phone with a nice note-taking app if you’re like me.) See something cool? Think something profound? Write it down! Do not stop to question whether you will think it’s cool or profound later. That is what later is for, and you will get there eventually. For now, just enjoy the jolt. Enjoy it in ink.

Step 2: Mind-mapping This is the exercise we did in our first workshop session. This one is for learning to see the ideas we already have, but for some reason aren’t 100% aware of. They’re like lizards, some of these ideas. They sit there soaking up sun and blending in with the boring rock they’re perched on. You have to relax your mind and let it wander. Only then, out of the corner of your mind’s eye, can you start to see the lizards for the rocks.

This is where the map comes in. Get ready to wander and meander and discover as you go.

1. Get out the biggest sheet of blank paper you can find, and your favourite pens. (Or use an app like iThoughts if you’re like me).
2. Write your first heading or idea in the middle of the page. (It could be the title of your novel, or the name of a character, or on really good days, just “ideas!”)
3. You’re highly likely to then have at least one thought connected to that first heading. Draw a line from your first heading, and write down your next idea.
4. As ideas sprout more ideas, write them down in this fashion, letting them branch out like a tree, or great crazy bush, or out-of-control galactic map.
5. Do not pause to narrow down your ideas, edit, or focus in any way. Do not force yourself to choose one path or option. Write them all down. (This is particularly good when you’re trying to work out a plot, and need to consider all the possible options.)
6. Feel free to turn the page around as you work, use colours, or drawings… whatever keeps the ideas flowing.

It should look like this, only messier:

Get-to-know-you Books

YA is such a vast reading umbrella (I would never call it a genre. It contains many genres.), with room for many different tastes and interests. Rather than assign one text for everyone to read, each participant contributed a list of three-to-five beloved YA books, or books they remembered loving as teens.

The resulting list is as diverse and varied as I had hoped. These are the books we’ll be drawing on for analyses of voice, character, plot, setting and all that other good stuff, throughout the workshop. I’ve compiled them into a handy Goodreads list that will no doubt grow as the session continues.

The first rule of good writing is READ, READ, READ, so I hope everyone will select an unfamiliar title or two to curl up with as the fall weather conspires to create ideal reading vibes all around us. HINT, HINT!

Workshop books

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

Wintergirls

by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Last Unicorn

by Peter S. Beagle

You

by Charles Benoit

Forever

by Judy Blume

Tyrell

by Coe Booth

The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins

Gravity Brings Me Down

by Natale Ghent

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

Hold Still

by Nina LaCour

A Spy in the House

by Y.S. Lee

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

by E. Lockhart

Walkabout

by James Vance Marshall

The Hunter’s Moon

by O.R. Melling

The Year of Secret Assignments

by Jaclyn Moriarty

Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel

1984

by George Orwell

A Handful of Time

by Kit Pearson

Lumière blanche

by Anique Poitras

The Golden Compass

by Philip Pullman

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

by J.K. Rowling

The Day Before

by Lisa Schroeder

Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze

by Alan Silberberg

Welcome to Dead House

by R.L. Stine

Forbidden

by Tabitha Suzuma

The Boxcar Children

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

 

Submission Schedule

Workshop participants, these are the dates you agreed to (except for you, Yael. I assigned you the last open date.) I look forward to reading your work!

October 10 – Maria
October 17 – Christine
October 24 – Helen
October 31 – Melissa
November 7 – Stephenie
November 14- Darcy
November 21- Yael

The guidelines again: 10-15 pages of a short story or chapter of a novel-in-progress, double-spaced, single sided. You can email them to me (mail@jillmurray.com) and I’ll distribute them to the group.

Hand-Outs

Lost your course outline? Can’t find those critique guidelines? NO PROBLEM. Here you go:
Workshop Outline & Critique Guidelines

Homework for Week 2!

Next week, we’ll be discussing voice, and therefore also character and point-of-view.

Participants, please choose one of the books on your list, and have a look through it, and re-familiarize yourself with it. Have a think about character and voice. We’ll be using this in the workshop, so it’s important to come prepared.

Note: you need a specific book for this one. No generalizing. No hazy book memories. Read up!

Yes, it’s a QWF workshop by [...]]]> From the voice that brought you writing advice like “get some sleep” and “don’t worry if it takes a long time” comes a writing workshop for aspiring and practicing Young Adult writers Writing YA: Making the A Stand for Awesome.

Yes, it’s a QWF workshop by me, Jill Murray, on Monday evenings in Montreal, starting October 3rd.

Here’s the complete description. If it sounds like fun to you, head on over to the QWF’s website to register. I hope to see you in class!

Eight Mondays, 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. (October 3 to November 28 – no meeting Oct. 10)

1200 Atwater Avenue, Suite 3

Workshop fee: $175; $155 for QWF members.

For more information, or to register: 514-933-0878 or julia@qwf.org

Young Adult literature is a growing market, and for good reason. Encompassing great diversity in the genres it includes and the types of stories it tells, it attracts teen readers and adventurous adults alike.

Whether you aim to tell contemporary stories rooted in the issues that matter to teens you know, or pen the world’s first eight-volume blockbuster dystopian alternatereality zombiemermaid epic, you’ll need the same basic building blocks of the writer’s craft—brains, yes, and coffee, but also memorable and lucid plots, well-developed characters, dialogue that rings true, evocative  settings, finely-tuned voice and point-of-view, action and pacing that keep the pages turning, and of course, heart.

Using writing exercises and examples from current YA literature and notable blogs, this eight-week workshop will cover all the basics, as well as important issues in the YA writer’s life, such as How To Write While Everyone Else is On the Internet, Your Options for Publication, and Trends & How to Ignore Them Without Panicking. The format will be a studio workshop, with a lecture, writing time, and weekly critique sessions. Each participant will submit a 10-20 page  short story or chapter of a novel-in-progress for in-class critique.

In Week 7 (Monday, November 21), Cecil Castellucci, author of, at last count, seven acclaimed works for young adults, including graphic novels, The Plain Janes and Janes in Love, will drop by to discuss the ins and outs of writing graphic novels for teen audiences. There will be a  related writing exercise, and fun will be had.

I am more like “write 6 paragraphs, reread, edit, write 6 more paragraphs, [...]]]> Writers: some of you are like “woo, outline, then fast but complete hair-pulling first draft, followed by hard-working but clearly sequential 2nd, 3rd (&4th, etc…) drafts.” You can schedule your manuscript to take 4, 6, 12, 18 or 24 months to complete.

I am more like “write 6 paragraphs, reread, edit, write 6 more paragraphs, reread all 12, edit, write a 6 more paragraphs… get to 107 page mark and rewrite whole novel twice…” I can schedule my process to take place 5 times a week at 8 in the morning, and the rest is a mystery.

My way is slower, but for novels, it’s the only way I can work.

I mention this for the others like me, fretting over when your manuscript will be done. Write however you need to, as long as the job gets done. “Your public” isn’t timing you.

I’m hoping I’ll also get to hear the second set of readings at [...]]]> I’ll be reading at the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival on Sunday, September 18th, in the Young Adult venue, at 1:30, with Scott Chantler and Natale Ghent. Then we’ll sign books and answer questions at The Bookshelf outside Jenny’s Place.

I’m hoping I’ll also get to hear the second set of readings at 3:30, with Adwoa Badoe, Tish Cohen, and Richard Scrimger.

Doesn’t that sound like a great day? I’m filled with absolute YA nerdy glee- totally psyched to meet all of these authors– and you too. So if you’re near Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, come on out and say hello, and help me savour one of our last great summer weekends in full-on bookish style.

INGREDIENTS: