Monique Polak

Today, I'm working on a story for The Montreal Gazette -- it's about how people are finding out on the Internet that their husbands or wives (or boyfriends and girlfriends) are being unfaithful (shame on them!!). I've interviewed two lawyers and a computer expert from Texas who specializes in breaking into people's hard drives and finding the files they think they deleted!

Tonight, Ontario children's writer Marsha Skrypuch is coming for dinner. I'm looking forward to having her here. (I'm making salmon lasagna in case you're wondering what's for supper.) Tomorrow, Marsha is launching her latest book, Prisoners in the Promised Land: The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk. It's part of Scholastic's Dear Canada series. Marsha and I met in Toronto last summer at Book Expo -- that's when she told me she'd be coming to Montreal for the book launch, and we made our plan to get together. Also, I'm going to interview her for a children's writers newsletter, so I'm going to get to ask her all sorts of questions about how she got started and where she gets her ideas. In my next entry, I'll tell you a little about what I learn from her. This goes to show you: no matter how old you are, you never stop learning. I tell my students how I'm not keen on the expression "grown-up" -- for me, the problem is that the word implies that at some point, people just stop growing. Let's hope that never happens to any of us. 

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I am writing a book set in George River, which is in Nunavik, in northern Quebec. I was there last February. So far, all my books have been set during the summer, but this one's going to take place in winter. As I've been working, I've been remembering my experiences there. For instance, the air felt quite different from the winter air in Montreal. It was sharper, fresher and definitely colder! When the people I met there saw my ski mittens, they burst out laughing. "You're not going to wear those, are you?" they asked. Hey, that just gave me an idea: I'm going to make the kids in George River laugh about the mittens the boy in my story is wearing!!

I took a lot of photographs when I was up north. So another thing I need to do is look over those photos. I also keep a diary, so I'm going to reread the entries I wrote last February. In this way, writers are a little like squirrels -- we hang on to bits and pieces of things and use them later. So I hope that you are also squirreling away interesting bits and pieces for later use. And if you've never tried keeping a journal, maybe you should test journal-keeping out for yourself. I couldn't start my day without my trusty journal. That's about it for today's entry. I'll check back in by the end of the week. 

To be honest, I was not planning to start a new book just yet. As you may know from my website, I teach full-time at MarianopolisCollege in Montreal. Usually, when the semester is in full swing, the way it is now, I tend to focus my writing energy on rewriting material I've produced over the summer holidays. But I recently submitted the second draft of a book that is scheduled for publication this spring... and to be honest, I felt kind of lost without a book to work on. Working on a book is hard work, but it's fun, too. The hard part is sticking with it when the writing isn't going well or when you're not quite sure what's going to happen next.... The fun part is watching your story come to life. I think it's sometimes useful that I am NOT a perfectionist. The way I work is that I write a first draft without worrying too much about how it sounds and whether I've got every single word right. It's like I just need to get the story out. So that's where I'm currently at with my Nunavik project. 

Another thing I'm really interested in is the link between real life events and fiction. I am starting my Nunavik story (for now, I'm calling it On the George River) with an event that happened to me when I was there last year. It's actually something bad. On my first morning in town, I took the dog who lived where I was staying out on my morning run. The dog was hit by a truck. Thank goodness, she survived -- but for a while, we  weren't sure she'd make it. Anyway, I've started my book with a similar accident. Only the person who's out for a run isn't a middle-aged teacher and writer -- it's a teenage boy. So you see, that's how fact and fiction met up today on my computer screen. That's all  for today. I'll be back next week to tell you a little more about the writing life. 

This semester, Fridays are my writing days, so my plan for tomorrow is to spend the day right here at my computer. I am just getting started on a new book that's set in Nunavik -- which, in case you didn't know, is in northern Quebec. I spent ten days there last February; the place and the people captured my heart. Starting a book is my favourite part -- it's a little like falling in love. I'll tell you more about it in my next blog entry. In the mean time, hope you've got something good to read and interesting things to write about!