first drafts and writing longhand

I was looking for something else a few weeks ago, when I found the original manuscript of my story "Mother Superior" (the first and title story of my first book). I wrote the story in 2004. Here's a photo!

In this one notebook, there were actually lots of first drafts of the stories I ended up publishing in that collection. I'd sort of forgotten that I didn't initially write them on the computer. Maybe I should write in unattractive spiral notebooks more often.

I like seeing the evidence of the instantaneous editing that happens in the initial writing of a story. Choices and quick changes like this happen all the time when you're writing (of course), but they disappear just as quickly on the computer and leave no traces. 

Up close and personal

It disturbs me a little that it has been so long ( a couple of years?) since I've written any fiction by hand. I like seeing it on the page like this. Why does it feel like such a novelty? 

Mother Superior goes on vacation

A professor in my department went on vacation last week and sent me some photos of my first book relaxing in St. Lucia.  I got a big kick out of them!

 A photo of my first book, Mother Superior, in St. Lucia, soaking up the sun.

On the subject of my first book, it is getting a little bit of a new lease on life thanks to Bone & Bread. I’m really grateful to Jay Miller for this review of Mother Superior on the fantastic Literatured.com.

Some of my favourite phrases from this review include “morally piebald” and “the damaging innocence of adults.”  I really like the last sentence, too: “Nawaz’s emphasis on the importance of mothering raises the question of how vulnerable children truly are, as well as the adults they become.” I’ve never described the collection that way (but I find talking about my own writing, especially in a summarizing or thematic sense, very difficult), but this strikes me as very accurate. It really is more about the vulnerability of children than it is about bad or indifferent mothers. Jay, I will probably be quoting you on this for the indefinite future, if that’s okay.

Itty bitty radio studio at CBC

In other writing-related news, I was so happy to be invited in to CBC Radio to take the 5 à 6 Culture Quiz as part of the show's 2013 round-up. I’m kind of a disaster at thinking on my feet when it comes to these things (What’s your favourite boutique? Uhhh…I blanked. Most intriguing artwork you’ve seen this year? Uh, art? What’s that?!?), but I’m hoping the magic of editing will remove some of my ridiculousness on that front. The lesson learned from this is that spontaneity is not my friend (which I already knew). In spite of feeling like no amount of coffee could make my brain work properly, it was really fun to go in and do the taping in a teeny tiny little studio and meet the lovely Tanya Birkbeck and Jeanette Kelly. From what I understand, it will air on the show tomorrow. 

 Jeanette Kelly and I at CBC!

book blogger love

Another haphazard recapping of some of the lovely reviews of Bone and Bread that have cropped up over the internet. One of the best things about stumbling upon these reviews is finding new great book blogs to read! 

 

From Mrs. Q Book Addict:

"As a fellow Montrealer, the atmosphere of this novel really brings it to life. Nawaz writes about a Montreal I know, and live in. This has not always been the case when I’ve read other books that are set in Montreal..[...].. I highly recommend this book, especially for those who have a sister. I believe the story would be even more powerful. Great for book clubs!" (excerpted...click for full review) 

Mrs. Q is a tremendous reader, by the way. Check out her impressive 2012 and 2013 reading lists if you want to feel unexpectedly guilty about how much television you're watching.

From Lindy Reads and Reviews:

"Bone and Bread moves back and forth in time, revealing a unique family and a strong sisterhood bond. I found Nawaz's portrayal of attitudes towards immigration and a plural society in contemporary Quebec particularly compelling." (excerpted...click for full review)

(Lindy, by the way, reads over 250 books a year! That would be a feat in itself, but taking the time to write about what she reads is next-level amazing.)

And this is actually a review of Mother Superior on Buried in Print, which I was so elated to see, and it even includes a brief outline of each story that somehow manages not to give anything away. There is nothing more gratifying than a reader who gets it... I think this is at the heart of why writers write.

Buried in Print's review of Bone and Bread therefore brings into play what happens in "Bloodlines," the story from which it developed, and I was really curious to read what impression the novel would make on somebody who already knew the characters.

"Fundamentally Bone and Bread is about loss, and the connections that one makes in the face of loss. But, which loss? A father. (A husband.) A mother. (A friend.) A sister. (A lover.) An aunt. (A father.) Some of these relationships are more parenthetical than others, but there is always an absence, so lasting an absence that it becomes ever-present, like the cross on the mountain in Montreal.... What makes us good? Which relationships define us? What does the effort of concealment truly cost? How fervently can we shape our own reality? What kind of sacrifices truly yield new choices?" (excerpted...click for full review)

Buried in Print is the web page of another insightful (okay, fine, I'm biased, but I really think so!) and voracious reader and there is so much good content to get lost in here. 

Hearing from even one reader is amazing (hell, just having one reader is nothing to sneeze at), so I feel really lucky to be able to find out people's impressions after picking up the book.

cover girl

On newstands now!

This is the end product of the photo shoot with Guillaume Simoneau I wrote about here.  I was surprised when I saw the picture as I had seen a neat close-up picture he'd taken on his camera (my face next to one of the long, sesame-seed-covered wooden paddles they use for lifting bagels in and out of the oven), and for some reason I assumed the magazine would use that one.  But I love this and it makes me really happy it was taken inside Fairmount Bagel, which inspired the novel. (The photos inside the issue were taken at St-Viateur, which also makes a pretty unbeatable bagel).

I felt a little self-conscious when I went to buy a copy.  I picked up two, one for myself and one for my mom, and I was worried (why??) that the clerk would notice, but he didn't.  (Although Edmonton-based poet and writer Alexis Kienlen had someone ask her if she was the one on the cover when she picked up at copy!)       

But self-consciousness aside (which is mostly related to being designated as a "star" in large lettering...gulp), I am so excited about this!!  How could I not be?!  Quill & Quire is basically the only magazine I actually sit down and read from start to finish with any regularity.  When I was working hard to finish Mother Superior, I used to read the author profiles on the Quill site to give me motivation to get writing, and I daydreamed about having one about me there someday.  (Though I never once dreamed about the cover!)

Somehow, wonderfully, there has been so much coverage of Bone and Bread that I actually feel daunted and bashful about posting about all of it here, but I will try to catch up with mentioning everything over the next little while.

So along those lines, this is a very nice review/profile by Peter Robb that ran in the Ottawa Citizen -- my hometown newspaper!  

In other, regular life news, I am still knitting up a storm as my cold gradually (oh so slowly) ebbs away.  Last night's knitting group was hosted by J. at S's amazing studio and featured sparkling wine and chocolate babka from Cheskie's, among many other yummy snacks.  S. is a costume designer (right now she's designing for the opera!) who is also apprenticing to become a bespoke tailor, which sounds even more intense than you might imagine.  No pins!  And no electric sewing machines. 

Also, today at lunchtime I used my gift certificate to Paragraphe to pick up Swamplandia! by Karen Russell and The Dinner by Herman Koch.  Looking forward to starting one or both this weekend, and doing some real writing at last. 

What do people think about while they're running?

I went to the gym again today, for the third time this week.  I haven’t really engaged in any kind of exercise since before my wedding…which was more than seven months ago now.  I am not much of an exercise person, really.  I love dancing, and walking to get somewhere, but the hampster-wheel stuff I can usually take or leave.  (I think, in fact, I've documented somewhere on this blog the one and only time I've had a true endorphin rush from running.  Once!  Clearly I'm not doing it right.)  I think regular walking is much better for you than sporadic, intense running anyway.  But for now I have to take what I can get.

I don’t scrutinize anyone too closely at the gym…mostly because I’m too busy trying to stay alive while running or stair climbing, but also because I’m hoping nobody is noticing me either.  Every once in a while, though, you see somebody who is working out really intensely… the guy or girl who has been on the elliptical machine for over forty-five minutes and who is going faster than anybody else in the whole row of exercise machines, including the people on treadmills.  There was a girl there like that today, with skinny arms and legs that looked like nothing but bone and muscle.  Of course, there are all sorts of body types, and I would never assume somebody has an eating disorder....because how else do skinny, super-fit people get to be that way besides vigorous exercise?   Every so often you see somebody, though, and you wonder.  Or I wonder…probably a side-effect of having worked on this book for years.  

Yesterday, I started comparing everyone’s demeanour as my mind wandered.  Mine: dreamy, resigned.  The girl next to me: annoyed.  The guys in the free weights area: a mix of swaggering, hopeful, joking, determined.

What do you think about when you're at the gym?  

I usually like to imagine I'm in some kind of movie montage where the heroine is suddenly getting fit and turning her life around.  It's a good time to cycle through goals and do some visualizing.  I did this a lot when I was trying to finish putting together the manuscript of Mother Superior before I started querying publishers.  I thought about what was still left to write.  I pictured the pages piling up.  I pictured somebody saying yes.  I pictured holding it as a book.  I imagined it getting reviewed in the Globe and Mail.  

Maybe everyone else is planning their novel, too?  Or their screenplay, their dissertation?  An impending breakup?  I wonder.  

Cover love, ancient carols, and the holy baby Jesus

I was really overjoyed to see the response garnered by my cover here and on Twitter and Facebook.  A novel is such a long and solitary journey that it really is wonderful to be able to share a major concrete step along the way of it becoming a book.  It really does mean a lot to a writer to have a little cheerleading along the way! 

It has been another busy set of days.  My choir concert came and went, and I was so happy when it was over.  In all my semesters of being a member, this was by far the most chaotic – maybe because of the sheer number of pieces included.  I’ve never felt so unprepared, and I could hear from my own voice and the voices around me that we weren’t quite ready.  The sopranos were not alone in missing a bunch of entries.  Some of the strings were out of tune.  But my songs in the chamber choir performance came off without a hitch, and I didn’t do that awful thing that I’ve done every other concert – where I make a brand-new, horrible mistake that I’ve never once made before in practice.  So at least there’s that!

Interior of the lovely Saint-Enfant-Jésus de Mile End

(aka Holy Baby Jesus church)

It’s also nice to sing in a lovely, falling-down-around-the-ears church.  One of my favourite things we sang this year was Zadok the Priest.  I couldn’t tell from the title, but it’s a piece I once sang as part of a massed choir at the National Arts Centre when I was younger.  It’s strange and wonderful when the melody returns to you in a song you don’t consciously remember.  

Maybe the most beautiful of the songs we sang was Entre le boeuf et l’ane gris.  I love those old, old carols. 

Post-concert, we had beer and delicious Indian food and a gender-divide night with my in-laws, where the men watched the Grey Cup and the womenfolk dined at the table before delving into deep closets.  My mother-in-law was cleaning out her closets and hoping favourite outfits from decades past could find a congenial home. 

It was fun taking a trip down wardrobe history, but given my own pressing need to purge my closets, it may not have been the wisest idea.    But I did leave with an amazing collection of shoes and a purse I suspect will become essential.  I’ll share some pics when things are a little less crazy-busy. 

Next up: looming school assignments (somehow 60% of my grade has come down to the last 8 days of term…even though another 30% has yet to be graded), a birthday party, reviewing my copy edits, finally coughing up the dough to buy some winter boots (judging by yesterday's snow still clinging to the ground, I might have to do this imminently), catching up on emails (I hope), and rejoining a gym.  

Also, I should mention that if you are thinking of giving books for Christmas this year, you could scarcely do better than purchasing some homegrown Canadian literature from Freehand Books. (Mother Superior is in really amazing company at this press.) If you use the code freehand20%, it will get you 20% off.

Reading tonight!

I'm reading tonight at Le Cagibi as part of the Taddle Creek Travelling Series of Happenings to promote their Out-of-Towner issue. Sadly, I'm not actually in the issue (now that I've seen the actual magazine, which is gorgeous, I wish I'd known they were doing one, as normally submissions are restricted to writers from Toronto), but I'll be reading with Katia Grubisic, Mark Jarman, and Sarah Gilbert, so I can promise you will not be disappointed! (I am a big fan of Katia's poetry in general and of her excellent Goose Lane collection in particular.)

I'm especially looking forward to Sarah's presentation, which will apparently feature a projector for what I hope is an elaboration of her essay on Mile End. I'm similarly neighbourhood-obsessed, and I was excited to see she wrote about the lemon tree that (bewilderingly) continues to flourish a few blocks away from here in the back lane. I've brought other people to look at that tree, to convince me I'm not dreaming it.

I spent the morning trying to decide what to read. I don't feel like reading from Mother Superior, since I don't want to subject people I know to something that, at this point, they've probably heard before. At the same time, the novel I just finished writing is currently under submission (*fingers crossed* or, as my mother would say, pray for me) and the thought of actually opening the file again to look at it basically fills me with dread. Eeek.

So instead I'm reading from the new-new novel. I'm only about 60 pages in, but I'm still excited about where it's going, so maybe this is a good point to be reading from it. This will be only the second time that I've read from a first, unpublished draft. (The first time, at the QWF mentorship reading back in 2008, didn't go very well -- I was knee-quakingly nervous and more or less breathlessly squeaked it all out -- but I've done a lot of readings between then and now, so I'm going to blame nerves rather than the terror of reading something brand-new.)

But although I have mixed feelings about giving readings (mostly to do with nervousness), I have only one feeling about the importance of reading your writing out loud -- namely, that it is hugely important. No matter how my selection goes over tonight, I'm sure I'll at least get some ideas about things I want to change. And that's great.

If you stop by tonight, come say hi! The doors are at 8 p.m., but the readings will probably start closer to 9 p.m.