A burst water main is a serious thing, but when it happens at your school and it means YOU GET AN UNEXPECTED DAY OFF, well, let's be honest, it's kind of nice! My office partner at school, the very dear Mary Frauley, phoned me early this morning just as I was pulling on my leotards -- and told me the news. So here I am with a very rare commodity -- A LITTLE FREE TIME. My, it feels nice!!
Soon I head for Lower Canada College, a Montreal private school, where I'll be speaking about my new book, What World Is Left -- and about writing in general.
Tomorrow, I head for Toronto, where I'll be attending a Writing for Children conference over the weekend. That means I should have many interesting things to tell you next week. (I may not be able to do any blog entries from Toronto because I'm thinking of going computer-free for a few days!)
Oh, before I forget to tell you: if you're in Montreal tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 30), try to catch Debra Arbec's My Montreal. That's on CTV at 6 P.M. Debra is doing a segment about my mum and me and What World Is Left. I'll be on the train to Toronto, so let me know what you think!!
Later the same day: I'm back from a visit to Lower Canada College, where I spoke to Grade 12 students about life as a writer -- and about What World Is Left. The students had many good questions. One of them wanted to know what my mum thought of the book (since it is based on her story). I told them the truth: my mum hasn't read the book yet!! I met one student beforehand who told me is she'd like to become a journalist.I gave her some tips, including that she should read the newspaper in a different way than most people read it: she needs to see what sections of the paper take freelance submissions -- and then she needs to figure out if she can contribute to those sections. I told her that being young can be an advantage; newspapers need young, hip voices. The same is true, of course, about the YA fiction market. As I'm always telling my own students, record the things that happen to you, the things you observe... you could be sitting on some very rich MATERIAL!!