One Writer on Vacation

There’s nothing better than lying on a warm beach with a good book and your bathing suit on. A rare treat in the midst of a cold Canadian winter. I just returned from Cuba where we had days filled with sunshine, crystal clear waters and some of the best reading I’ve done in a long time.

To have that kind of time and space for reading was something I wasn’t even sure I could manage anymore. There’s alwasy so much that needs to be done at home, my days of reading for hours seemed long ago. At night, I’d be a few pages in and falling asleep.

And I couldn’t imagine a week of vacation without some writing in there, but I didn’t want to bring a laptop. So I took my fountain pen, my spiral-bound notebook and Sarah Selecky’s deck of writing prompts and Robert Olen Butler’s book on writing: From where you Dream.

But my biggest writing lesson was falling back in love with reading. Here’s my reading list and how I saw these novel’s from a writer’s perspective, in the order I read them:

• Women Talking: A novel, by Miriam Toews: This is a beauty of a book. She is a true master of her art. As a writer, I was fascinated how she took a scenario of little action (women talking) yet created tension, conflict and suspense. She took a situation in a tightly cloistered community, among a handful of women, but also managed to speak to larger themes in our societies. So much is captured in the descriptor used by the women at the meeting, about the women who chose not to attend. They called them the “Do Nothing Women”. Their language was very literal, as seen through the eyes of the male minute-taker. But to me, the simplicity of the phrase spoke volumes. This is the kind of book that makes me wonder if I have it in me, how can I dare to compare to her skill? But it’s also the kind of book that reignites my fire for literature.

• Chasing Crazy, by Kelly Siskind – This is a young-adult, romance novel written in first-person, present tense. I was interested in the style as my novel is also written from the same point-of-view (POV) same tense and our protagonists are the same age and I have romance in my novel. I noticed how she used both love interests’ POV so we got to see how both characters were struggling. This is something I was challenged with in my own novel, how to express the obstacles the other partner is facing. I may need to incorporate a different perspective in my novel.
• I also wasn’t sure how much I enjoyed the first-person perspective. I’ve been trying my novel out in third-person, but haven’t decided what path to take. Of course Siskind is published and I’m not, goes to suggest this may be the preferred format. And I’m not in Siskind’s “target market”, so also suggests I should look more widely at what is happening in the young adult market.
• I loved the premise of the book as it was set in New Zealand among travellers. It brought back fond memories of my own travels through New Zealand. Definitely a nice beach read.

• Little Earthquakes, by Jennifer Weiner – This book is about four women and their stories about expecting and then having babies and how they balance their lives and their relationships. We get into the heads of all these women, a chapter for each perspective over the course of a year. We meet them in a yoga class while they are all still pregnant.
• I don’t write in this style, but it’s definitely a pleasure to read. It reminded me of Maeve Binchy’s writing, but without the quaint Irish towns.
• What I loved about this book was the variety of birth-stories and their authenticity. I had not seen a more realistic portrayal of mothers in contemporary, middle-class society, than this. Needless to say, I saw my own story reflected in there.

• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion – I’m glad I read at least one male writer. I had only heard good things about this book and it lived up it my expectations. It was fun and romantic yet still spoke to some universal truths. A true romantic comedy that I don’t often see in a book. I would love to be able to write comedy, so this book sits as an inspiration.

• Robert Olen Butler, From Where you Dream – I’ve read this book several times and I thought I would skim through it, but no, I read every word of the first 100 pages, and made notes and thought up ideas on how to proceed. I didn’t get as much “dreaming” in as I thought, but I’m going to use his approach to dream the end of my novel. And I have a writer’s retreat coming up where I can get those ideas down.

All week, we read and swam and read some more and then swam again. We took one day trip into Havana. The tour guide took us through the history of Cuba since Columbus encountered it in the 1500’s. He gave us a real flavour of the country as we toured the sites he spoke about. And what writer could resist having a beer in the bar Hemingway frequented. I could see writing a novel there, if only the weather wasn’t so nice!