Sometimes as I try to become a modern writer I have to laugh at myself -- sure, I'm on Facebook and Twitter and Youtube and here on Blogger but, honestly, do I really think I've mastered the technology to the point where I can actually be creative, even avant garde with it?
My writing partner, Mary E. O'Keefe, and I are putting the final touches on the six new stories that will make up Abigail Massey at McAdam Station, Volume 5, set for publication this fall. As usual, we've had a lot of fun with the project, bouncing first story ideas then story drafts off each other as we try to produce the best new tales of McAdam Railway Station that we can.
And we've come up with some really interesting new material -- a couple of new characters with fascinating back stories, some exciting and heart-warming new stories and, yes, even an attempt to be cutting edge with the final story in the book.
The first fun idea we came up with actually came from my partner. When I told her I was struggling to come up with something really unique for the sixth story in the collection, she suggested I consider writing the story from several different points of view. Abigail stories, she pointed out, are always told with a third-person limited narrator, from Abigail's point of view -- why not tell a single tale from the points of view of several characters?
She mentioned several examples from literary and film history (The Sound and the Fury, for example) to illustrate her point.
I liked the idea immediately and set to writing. And I came out with a pretty fair story -- a story in which conflict arises between Abigail and Martha, in particular, in relation to the differences in how they experience and understand several events in their lives.
I wrote the original story from Abigail's point of view, then the same story from Martha's point of view. Mary agreed to write the story once again, this time from Jenny's point of view. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Well, it does until you realize that the original Abigail story is already longer than any other Abigail story I've written (with the exception, of course, of the Christmas novella) and the Martha story is almost as long. Add in Jenny's point of view and you will have basically doubled the length of the book.
Wow. That's maybe too much for one collection of stories. And the first five stories in the collection were written specifically to lead in to the final tale so it's not as if we can just leave one out to shorten the book
In other words, unless we want to produce a book that is too big to sell for the price at which we are aiming, we need to find a solution.
We tried to cut each version of the story down a bit. It helped. But not enough.
So, trying to be ultra modern, I proposed another solution: what if we printed only the Abigail version in the book, then put a note at the end of the story that says, "To read Martha's side of the story, go to www.abigailmassey.ca and, to hear Jenny's version, visit youtube"?
You know, multiple platforms for different versions of the story. Use one medium to draw readers to the other media. Who knows, maybe Miss Pierce can tweet her response to the entire thing?
See what I mean? I'm already laughing at myself. How silly is this proposal? Especially considering the fact that a good portion of our readership are older people who might not be particularly savvy about using social media. Talk about alienating your audience!
Or... could it work?
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Monday, May 30, 2016
There is no "I" in "Memo"
When you can write reasonably well, you often find yourself in some demand at work, at least if you work in an office-type environment. It would seem (editorial comment warning) that our educational system's focus in recent years on science and engineering at the expense of the arts has resulted in a world where the ability to string words together intelligently, logically, clearly and with some panache is becoming more and more rare.
So I am constantly being asked to review this memo, revise that letter, write an article for the newsletter or "take a look at" whatever document might be passing through the hands of my colleagues and supervisors. As a result, I've been faced with some interesting writing challenges, the most common of which being the task of finding a way to completely rewrite a boss' unintelligible gibberish without upsetting him or her or making him or her feel stupid.
My worst experience came when a very petulant supervisor brought me an extended document, told me it had been written by some other person and asked me to rewrite it on an emergency basis. I went right to work on it and, let me tell you, it was indeed a disaster: unclear, poorly argued, poorly structured and with numerous grammatical and spelling errors. When my supervisor came back 30 minutes later and saw the document bleeding the red of "Track Changes" on my screen, he freaked out. It turned out he had written the document himself and had given it to me thinking it just needed a minor refresh. My relationship with that supervisor was never the same and I eventually had to leave that job to escape his vindictive behaviour.
My most interesting and, honestly, most fun experience came just last week. Friday afternoon, 15 minutes before the end of the work day, my supervisor came to me with a memo he had written on behalf of his boss' new boss. The memo was quite well written -- it was intended to introduce the boss' new boss to her colleagues and did a nice job of it -- but the boss' new boss had apparently objected to the use of the word "I" in the memo. Apparently, this particular senior administrator does not like to use the first person singular pronoun in memos of any kind.
My task: in the remaining 15 minutes of the work week, could I revise the four-paragraph memo so that the word "I" no longer appeared in it and yet it still did its job and made sense?
Do you know how hard it is to write a memo introducing oneself without using the first person singular pronoun? It's hard, let me tell you.
I ended up using a number of "it"s, a couple of "me"s and a bunch of alternative sentence structures that permitted me to make anything but the boss' new boss the subject of a sentence. And I got it done. In ten minutes. I was pretty proud of myself. The memo read well and only a very attentive reader would notice the lengths I went to avoid using the word "I".
My supervisor and his boss agreed that, as a result of the great job I had done on this memo, I deserved the rest of the day off. Nice guys, my bosses!
So I am constantly being asked to review this memo, revise that letter, write an article for the newsletter or "take a look at" whatever document might be passing through the hands of my colleagues and supervisors. As a result, I've been faced with some interesting writing challenges, the most common of which being the task of finding a way to completely rewrite a boss' unintelligible gibberish without upsetting him or her or making him or her feel stupid.
My worst experience came when a very petulant supervisor brought me an extended document, told me it had been written by some other person and asked me to rewrite it on an emergency basis. I went right to work on it and, let me tell you, it was indeed a disaster: unclear, poorly argued, poorly structured and with numerous grammatical and spelling errors. When my supervisor came back 30 minutes later and saw the document bleeding the red of "Track Changes" on my screen, he freaked out. It turned out he had written the document himself and had given it to me thinking it just needed a minor refresh. My relationship with that supervisor was never the same and I eventually had to leave that job to escape his vindictive behaviour.
My most interesting and, honestly, most fun experience came just last week. Friday afternoon, 15 minutes before the end of the work day, my supervisor came to me with a memo he had written on behalf of his boss' new boss. The memo was quite well written -- it was intended to introduce the boss' new boss to her colleagues and did a nice job of it -- but the boss' new boss had apparently objected to the use of the word "I" in the memo. Apparently, this particular senior administrator does not like to use the first person singular pronoun in memos of any kind.
My task: in the remaining 15 minutes of the work week, could I revise the four-paragraph memo so that the word "I" no longer appeared in it and yet it still did its job and made sense?
Do you know how hard it is to write a memo introducing oneself without using the first person singular pronoun? It's hard, let me tell you.
I ended up using a number of "it"s, a couple of "me"s and a bunch of alternative sentence structures that permitted me to make anything but the boss' new boss the subject of a sentence. And I got it done. In ten minutes. I was pretty proud of myself. The memo read well and only a very attentive reader would notice the lengths I went to avoid using the word "I".
My supervisor and his boss agreed that, as a result of the great job I had done on this memo, I deserved the rest of the day off. Nice guys, my bosses!
Friday, May 27, 2016
The little white envelope of rejection
Grant denied.
I'm not surprised, really, that my application for an arts grant has been denied -- I was applying for money to help convert my Christmas novella into a stage play and both my proposal, and my writing career, seemed just a little too multi-disciplinary for the arts board and its jury.
I knew that going in. I knew that the rules of the grant program were such that it would be much easier to establish oneself as a professional writer, and to obtain funding for a future project, by focusing one's work in a single genre of writing. That approach to life, however, just doesn't suit me and my career.
I am a writer of literary works (as opposed to poetic or theatrical works) primarily but I am also published poet, a news and magazine writer, an author of text books and a script writer.
And my proposal attempted to bridge two genres -- literature to theatre.
No go, they said. No cash for you.
I saw the envelope in the mail and I thought, "There it is, my first arts grant rejection letter."
And yet I still felt a little pang of disappointment when I opened the envelope and found those sad sad words: "We regret to inform you..."
Arts grants are important to writers in a number of ways. First, there's the money. Non-writers don't seem to understand the fact that writing costs money. Many people think writing just happens but writers know that there's a lot of money invested when you really want to focus on your writing: you need the materials and equipment, you need to make the effort necessary to do the required research (which often involves travel), you need to take time away from your life (work and home life). All of these involve money, either money spent or money not earned.
But money isn't the only thing of value an arts grant provides a writer. An arts grant, awarded as it is by a recognized body through a juried process, is also a sign of acceptance, of legitimacy, or recognition that you have established yourself as a professional writer.
It's not quite the same as getting your work accepted by a publication or publisher, sure, but it is an important badge of legitimacy, one that can lead to further arts grants potentially to the publication of your work.
I will apply again. I've learned from this experience and I will apply what I've learned to my next grant application. And I think I will stand a better chance of winning a grant because of it.
But that little pang of disappointment still lingers.
I'm not surprised, really, that my application for an arts grant has been denied -- I was applying for money to help convert my Christmas novella into a stage play and both my proposal, and my writing career, seemed just a little too multi-disciplinary for the arts board and its jury.
I knew that going in. I knew that the rules of the grant program were such that it would be much easier to establish oneself as a professional writer, and to obtain funding for a future project, by focusing one's work in a single genre of writing. That approach to life, however, just doesn't suit me and my career.
I am a writer of literary works (as opposed to poetic or theatrical works) primarily but I am also published poet, a news and magazine writer, an author of text books and a script writer.
And my proposal attempted to bridge two genres -- literature to theatre.
No go, they said. No cash for you.
I saw the envelope in the mail and I thought, "There it is, my first arts grant rejection letter."
And yet I still felt a little pang of disappointment when I opened the envelope and found those sad sad words: "We regret to inform you..."
Arts grants are important to writers in a number of ways. First, there's the money. Non-writers don't seem to understand the fact that writing costs money. Many people think writing just happens but writers know that there's a lot of money invested when you really want to focus on your writing: you need the materials and equipment, you need to make the effort necessary to do the required research (which often involves travel), you need to take time away from your life (work and home life). All of these involve money, either money spent or money not earned.
But money isn't the only thing of value an arts grant provides a writer. An arts grant, awarded as it is by a recognized body through a juried process, is also a sign of acceptance, of legitimacy, or recognition that you have established yourself as a professional writer.
It's not quite the same as getting your work accepted by a publication or publisher, sure, but it is an important badge of legitimacy, one that can lead to further arts grants potentially to the publication of your work.
I will apply again. I've learned from this experience and I will apply what I've learned to my next grant application. And I think I will stand a better chance of winning a grant because of it.
But that little pang of disappointment still lingers.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Book sale Abigail and the great literary circle of life
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| Sideways view of Book Sale Abigail |
Sure, I come up with the odd find from time to time -- a first edition Ian Fleming, for example, or an autographed Robertson Davies -- but the fun, for me, is simply in the looking, in the feeling that, as a writer of middling success, I might just be permitted to consider myself part of that great, multi-generational community of writers with books out there in the great wide world.
From time to time, I've even permitted myself to wonder what it would be like to find one of my own books amid the stacks and rows. I've known other authors who have found that particular experience to be upsetting and disappointing -- thinking bitterly, "someone didn't like my book well enough to want to keep it".
I always hoped that, upon my own discovery of one of my books in a used book sale, I would be much more positive about the experience.
Well, now I know -- and I'm glad to say, I was and continue to be much more positive.
As is my wont, I visited the local public library's standing book sale in its front lobby on my lunch hour today. I started scanning the collection on offer and felt a quick inhale of breath. That's my first Abigail Massey at McAdam Station book, isn't it? I thought to myself.
Indeed it was. A pristine copy of the first volume of stories, with my own autograph on the title page, dated December 2012. No inscription, just the signature. The date suggests that this copy comes from the original print run of 500 copies (or perhaps the second print run of 250 that was ordered within days of the book's release and rapid sell out).
My honest reaction was excitement -- excitement at seeing my own book out there in the world, among all the other books on sale, fitting in so nicely, yet prettier in its presentation (in my humble opinion).
My second thought was: should I buy it and give it as a gift (or even re-sell it to raise more funds for the Station)? or should I leave it so that (hopefully) someone else will come along and decide to buy it for themselves (or their child) at such a reduced price?
I think the picture at the top of this blog entry probably answers the question for you. I bought it. I put down my dollar and took it with me, feeling quite delighted to have found such a deal!
And now I know. It's a great feeling (at least for me) to think of myself as an author whose work has made its way from the sales table, to the living room table, to the book shelf, then to the used sale shelf at my local library. I am part of the great literary circle of life!
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Do as I say... not as I don't
So what do you do when someone asks for your advice on something, you give it, and then you realize that you yourself do almost NONE of the things you have just advised this person to do?
That's exactly what is happening to me at this very moment. Last night, I was invited to the house of a friend to talk with her father, a wonderful writer, about how to enhance his online profile, to improve the presentation of his existing blog and to attract more readers to his beautiful prose.
We had a wonderful discussion and I believe both my friend and her father felt they got good value for the time they invested in speaking with me.
The problem is, although I believe very firmly in every suggestion I made to them, I have come to the realization that I personally implement almost none of these excellent suggestions in my own work. It's really quite amazing: do as I say, not as I do.
In preparation for the discussion, I had read over most of the entries on his existing blog site, which has not been updated in some time. I was impressed with just how beautifully this man writes, how broad and creative is his vocabulary, how vivid his descriptions and how expansive his literary knowledge. This is wonderful writing and well worthy of a broader audience.
I also studied the site itself and how his work was presented. And I came away with a deep respect for his work as well as a number of suggestions on how to present it more effectively.
Among my comments and suggestions:
That's exactly what is happening to me at this very moment. Last night, I was invited to the house of a friend to talk with her father, a wonderful writer, about how to enhance his online profile, to improve the presentation of his existing blog and to attract more readers to his beautiful prose.
We had a wonderful discussion and I believe both my friend and her father felt they got good value for the time they invested in speaking with me.
The problem is, although I believe very firmly in every suggestion I made to them, I have come to the realization that I personally implement almost none of these excellent suggestions in my own work. It's really quite amazing: do as I say, not as I do.
In preparation for the discussion, I had read over most of the entries on his existing blog site, which has not been updated in some time. I was impressed with just how beautifully this man writes, how broad and creative is his vocabulary, how vivid his descriptions and how expansive his literary knowledge. This is wonderful writing and well worthy of a broader audience.
I also studied the site itself and how his work was presented. And I came away with a deep respect for his work as well as a number of suggestions on how to present it more effectively.
Among my comments and suggestions:
- Don't change your writing style to attempt to attract a larger audience -- write what and how you love and have faith in the quality of your writing to attract the right audience, an audience that can appreciate what you already do so beautifully;
- Include more images -- several of his posts include photographs and others include simply wonderful examples of his wife's creative endeavours (sketches and pastels) to complement the subject matter of his post. I think it is no coincidence that these posts, in general, attract the most attention and the most comments so I recommended that he try to include visuals consistently with each post, especially at the top of each entry;
- Add new entries on a consistent basis, at least once per week, so that, as readers find and enjoy the blog, they can get into a pattern of visiting on a regular basis, confident in the knowledge that they will find something new to read on each visit;
- Create an email list, to which he can send the link to each new entry as it is posted, and ask people to add their name to that list when they first visit the site;
- Be active on Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media in order to build a network, make more contacts and give himself more avenues to promote his blog;
- Use the front page of the blog site to promote the fact that he hopes someday to produce a book of his writings -- create interest in that project early and see if it helps propel the book into reality;
- Promote himself (and his artist wife), both on the blog site and in social media, since people will often want to read your work if they feel they know, like and/or respect you.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Write your own story, Herr Loser
I have achieved a milestone reserved only for accomplished writers and it has made my weekend: I have, through one of my blogs (my Harry Potter blog), been trolled.
I woke up this morning, checked out my Blogger homepage, and found the following comment posted on a blog entry from a year or so ago in which I discussed Harry Potter fan fiction, including my own Harry Potter novel: "write your own story dont steal other peoples work. loser".
For some reason, this comment brought me great joy. Thank you, Himmelfahrstrasse Stormalong, for this delightful surprise.
I honestly don't understand my own raucous response to this little piece of trolling -- why something that was apparently intended to be nasty has made me so happy I'm not sure. But it made me laugh out loud... and I've already shared it on Facebook and on Twitter.
The underlying issue, however, is an interesting one. Is there a problem, moral, philosophical, creative, with writing what is commonly known as "fan fiction".
The timing of this comment, and this discussion, couldn't be better. Just yesterday, I sat in a sandwich shop with my new writing partner on my historically-based children's stories and discussed the challenge of creating something entirely new, whether that involves introducing a new character to an established set of stories, introducing a new location or creating an entirely new novel.
In every such situation, the writer must make an almost infinite number of decisions, from the smallest detail to the largest strategic question, from what detail to include to what the detail entails.
And my troll has a point, one with which I have wrestled for some time. I have written three hard-boiled detective fiction novels, a creative task made somewhat easier by the fact that the genre has so many conventions that a significant number of creative decisions are already made for the writer. I don't have to make a decision on narrative point of view: the genre demands a first person narrator. I don't have to worry about tone: the tone of voice is acerbic, witty, dry. I have to follow certain rules of plot and characterization that are standard to the genre. Yes, there are still millions of creative decisions for me, as the author, to make but some decisions, at least, are made for me.
I have written and published a series of children's stories, set in a real location in the 1940s. I deliberately chose to pattern the writing style for these stories after the old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books -- stories that were written in my target time period, for my target audience. Again, setting my stories in a real train station and hotel in a real town saved me from having to make an infinite number of decision relating to the setting. And deciding to pattern them in tone and narrative style after an existing set of stories meant I had a strong base from which to work.
But fan fiction is another step along that road entirely. Fan fiction involves using the characters, settings, situations, relationships, the entirety of another author's work as the base from which to build your own story. It's almost like creating an app for an iPad: someone else did all the very difficult, creative work of conceptualising the device, designing it, building it, creating the proprietary software that runs it and you just come along and add a little piece of new software and claim to be a creator.
Is that wrong? Is it stealing, as my apparently German troll has suggested?
Fan fiction is something of an industry in and of itself. Dozens of writers have fashioned very nice careers for themselves writing fan fiction novels using the original Star Trek material created by Gene Roddenberry and others. Is that theft? Is it morally wrong?
I agree that writing fan fiction is, like writing fiction that is set in a real place, involves taking something of a creative short cut. I also agree that it is a significant creative achievement to create your own work from scratch and even more significant to create a fictional world, as Rowling has done, that is not even based on our current reality.
But I don't know if I would go so far as to agree that writing fan fiction is theft. Or even wrong. As long as proper attribution and credit is part of the process and as long as no profit is made without the permission of the original creator.
I woke up this morning, checked out my Blogger homepage, and found the following comment posted on a blog entry from a year or so ago in which I discussed Harry Potter fan fiction, including my own Harry Potter novel: "write your own story dont steal other peoples work. loser".
For some reason, this comment brought me great joy. Thank you, Himmelfahrstrasse Stormalong, for this delightful surprise.
I honestly don't understand my own raucous response to this little piece of trolling -- why something that was apparently intended to be nasty has made me so happy I'm not sure. But it made me laugh out loud... and I've already shared it on Facebook and on Twitter.
The underlying issue, however, is an interesting one. Is there a problem, moral, philosophical, creative, with writing what is commonly known as "fan fiction".
The timing of this comment, and this discussion, couldn't be better. Just yesterday, I sat in a sandwich shop with my new writing partner on my historically-based children's stories and discussed the challenge of creating something entirely new, whether that involves introducing a new character to an established set of stories, introducing a new location or creating an entirely new novel.
In every such situation, the writer must make an almost infinite number of decisions, from the smallest detail to the largest strategic question, from what detail to include to what the detail entails.
And my troll has a point, one with which I have wrestled for some time. I have written three hard-boiled detective fiction novels, a creative task made somewhat easier by the fact that the genre has so many conventions that a significant number of creative decisions are already made for the writer. I don't have to make a decision on narrative point of view: the genre demands a first person narrator. I don't have to worry about tone: the tone of voice is acerbic, witty, dry. I have to follow certain rules of plot and characterization that are standard to the genre. Yes, there are still millions of creative decisions for me, as the author, to make but some decisions, at least, are made for me.
I have written and published a series of children's stories, set in a real location in the 1940s. I deliberately chose to pattern the writing style for these stories after the old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books -- stories that were written in my target time period, for my target audience. Again, setting my stories in a real train station and hotel in a real town saved me from having to make an infinite number of decision relating to the setting. And deciding to pattern them in tone and narrative style after an existing set of stories meant I had a strong base from which to work.
But fan fiction is another step along that road entirely. Fan fiction involves using the characters, settings, situations, relationships, the entirety of another author's work as the base from which to build your own story. It's almost like creating an app for an iPad: someone else did all the very difficult, creative work of conceptualising the device, designing it, building it, creating the proprietary software that runs it and you just come along and add a little piece of new software and claim to be a creator.
Is that wrong? Is it stealing, as my apparently German troll has suggested?
Fan fiction is something of an industry in and of itself. Dozens of writers have fashioned very nice careers for themselves writing fan fiction novels using the original Star Trek material created by Gene Roddenberry and others. Is that theft? Is it morally wrong?
I agree that writing fan fiction is, like writing fiction that is set in a real place, involves taking something of a creative short cut. I also agree that it is a significant creative achievement to create your own work from scratch and even more significant to create a fictional world, as Rowling has done, that is not even based on our current reality.
But I don't know if I would go so far as to agree that writing fan fiction is theft. Or even wrong. As long as proper attribution and credit is part of the process and as long as no profit is made without the permission of the original creator.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Taking nothing for granted
I submitted my first ever application for an arts grant this week. What an interesting experience!
It is a pretty exacting process. You have to make sure that you submit exactly what the funding body requires as part of the application, right down to the number of copies, the size of the paper and the colour of the ink.
I actually quite enjoyed the experience. Part of the package the funding body required was my writing CV, including all of my publication credits, all media coverage I have received and all of the training and education, related to writing, I have pursued.
It was a lot of work, to be honest, but the final product was a bit of an eye-opener. I guess I have lost track, over the years, of just how much I have accomplished as a writer.
The only problem, at least from the stand point of the application, is that the funding body wants to know what category of writer I fall into and then to receive evidence that I meet the criteria they have established to qualify as a professional writer in that particular genre.
In constructing my CV, I came to realise that I am a writer of middling accomplishment in three different "artistic" genres -- literature, poetry and script writing -- as well as several genres of writing for which they do not provide funding, such as legal texts, magazine and newspaper articles.
And, while my grant application is intended to attract support for my proposal to adapt my Christmas novella into a play, I would most likely qualify as a professional writer only in the category of a writer of fiction (literature).
If I recall the standards correctly, someone who has published 10 poems would qualify as a professional poet. Someone who has published a single collection of stories or a single novel with a known publisher would be considered a professional literary writer, no matter how many copies their books sold. And a person who has written a single play that has been mounted by a professional theatre company might earn the title of professional dramatist.
So, while I have written 9 published poems, an award-winning short story, a legal text book (in two published editions), parts of four other legal text books, four collections of children's stories (self-published but quite successful), a self-published novella, a coffee table book and two plays that have been produced at an amateur level and video-taped for training purposes, as well as literally hundreds of articles in newspaper and magazines, I may not qualify as a "professional writer" for the purposes of this grant.
Strange. I can only hope that the jury that considers my application will be willing to recognise the breadth and depth of my writing accomplishments across these genres in making its determination as to the merits of my application.
And funny. The most important thing I've written recently is a grant application that, if successful, would put me in a position to adapt my well-received Christmas novella into a stage play.
It is a pretty exacting process. You have to make sure that you submit exactly what the funding body requires as part of the application, right down to the number of copies, the size of the paper and the colour of the ink.
I actually quite enjoyed the experience. Part of the package the funding body required was my writing CV, including all of my publication credits, all media coverage I have received and all of the training and education, related to writing, I have pursued.
It was a lot of work, to be honest, but the final product was a bit of an eye-opener. I guess I have lost track, over the years, of just how much I have accomplished as a writer.
The only problem, at least from the stand point of the application, is that the funding body wants to know what category of writer I fall into and then to receive evidence that I meet the criteria they have established to qualify as a professional writer in that particular genre.
In constructing my CV, I came to realise that I am a writer of middling accomplishment in three different "artistic" genres -- literature, poetry and script writing -- as well as several genres of writing for which they do not provide funding, such as legal texts, magazine and newspaper articles.
And, while my grant application is intended to attract support for my proposal to adapt my Christmas novella into a play, I would most likely qualify as a professional writer only in the category of a writer of fiction (literature).
If I recall the standards correctly, someone who has published 10 poems would qualify as a professional poet. Someone who has published a single collection of stories or a single novel with a known publisher would be considered a professional literary writer, no matter how many copies their books sold. And a person who has written a single play that has been mounted by a professional theatre company might earn the title of professional dramatist.
So, while I have written 9 published poems, an award-winning short story, a legal text book (in two published editions), parts of four other legal text books, four collections of children's stories (self-published but quite successful), a self-published novella, a coffee table book and two plays that have been produced at an amateur level and video-taped for training purposes, as well as literally hundreds of articles in newspaper and magazines, I may not qualify as a "professional writer" for the purposes of this grant.
Strange. I can only hope that the jury that considers my application will be willing to recognise the breadth and depth of my writing accomplishments across these genres in making its determination as to the merits of my application.
And funny. The most important thing I've written recently is a grant application that, if successful, would put me in a position to adapt my well-received Christmas novella into a stage play.
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