The Old Rejection Slip

The kitchen table where I write.

I wanted to show the school kids I'll be talking to next month what a rejection slip looks like. While digging through all my old paper file folders to find an example, I realized that these little rectangles of paper are now probably relics of the past.

The usual rejection slip was mass-produced, with a message similar to this: "We regret that your manuscript does not suit our requirements at this time. That does not mean it is without merit. We wish you the best of luck in placing it with another publisher."

Occasionally, the slip would be a half-page, pre-printed with a check list of reasons for the rejection, and someone had taken the time to tick off all the boxes that applied to your submission.

The point I wanted to make to my young audience was that a rejection could be a good thing. Each time we got one we had another opportunity to take a new look at our work, to make revisions, and then to send it out to another publisher.  My first novel was rejected five times before it found a home with a publisher; another book was rejected a total of eleven times.

Today, a number of publishers have as part of their submission guidelines a note that if you don't hear from them in six months you know your manuscript was not what they were looking for. "Don't waste your money on a stamped, self-addressed envelope (SASE)," they advise. "Your manuscript won't be returned to you anyway. It will be recycled." That last sentence concerns me a little. I wish they'd said it would be shredded.

And here's another thing. If we can no longer collect rejection slips, what are we going to use to paper the outhouse? Oh, that's right; we don't have them anymore either.

Write on.

Going on an Artist Date

I've begun to make a list of places I might visit on an "artist date."

A new, independent coffee shop in town? A thrift store I've been avoiding but that I might be surprised to discover is filled with treasures? A matinee at a theatre that shows old movies?

Julia Cameron advises a weekly artist date in her book The Artist's Way: a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Like the "morning pages" that I blogged about earlier, Cameron tells us the scheduled date is a commitment an artist needs to make to herself.

The artist date is a preplanned block of time set aside to nurture one's creativity, an excursion of some sort that the artist takes with no other company than her inner artist or "artist child."

The artist needs to refresh the artistic reservoir from time to time. "When we work at our art," Cameron writes, "we dip into the well of our experience and scoop out images." We need to put some fresh images back.

Cameron suggests that in filling the well, we need to think fun, think delight.

So, where should we go first, my artist child and I?

"And the Oscar goes to . . ."

Mary Pickford in Coquette, 1929.

February is "Oscar" month, so here's a bit of trivia about Mary Pickford's relationship to the Academy Awards.The Oscars took on a whole new significance for me when I began writing the biography of Mary Pickford.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began as an idea discussed over dinner with actor Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo, and producer Fred Beetson at the home of Louis B. Mayer, MGM studio chief.

Mary Pickford and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., became two of the founders of the organization. The Academy was officially announced at a gala banquet in Los Angeles in May 1927. Mary used to refer to the organization as "the motion picture league of nations."

The first-ever Oscar (as the awards were later dubbed) for Best Picture went to Wings, a silent film made in 1927. Co-starring in the movie were the "It" girl, Clara Bow, and Charles "Buddy" Rogers, who would within ten years become Mary's third husband.

The first Academy Award for an actress in a talkie went to . . .  ? You guessed it: Mary Pickford, in 1930 for Coquette. The film was the first talking picture made by a major star of the silent screen.

For more about Toronto-born Mary Pickford, the most important woman in the history of motion pictures, check out Mary Pickford: Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.

My Literacy Day School Visit

I had a great time at a local school earlier this week when I was one of the presenters at Family Literacy Day. It was the first time the school had marked the day in this way, and they did a tremendous job of it. They combined the event with a two-day book fair, well-attended by both the students and their families. They were able to use the proceeds from the sale to help with the cost of all the other events they had planned for the day.

During the afternoon, the students were able to choose from a variety of literacy-based activities set up throughout the school. They could listen to stories, play board games, make a craft, assemble a wooden toy by following written instructions, or meet and talk to some real-live authors. Each student had a passport that was stamped when they arrived at their chosen destinations.

I had four groups of students come to my location, and judging from their smiling faces, they were enjoying their day. The display of all my books prompted immediate interest. Leaving time for questions and discussion at the end, I did a short reading from Growing Up Ivy. It seemed especially appropriate for Literacy Day. When 12-year-old Ivy meets her father for the first time, she is surprised to learn that he can neither read nor write. She decides that over the summer, while they travel the roads together in a horse-drawn caravan peddling shoes, she will teach him to read.

A lot of work went into making Family Literacy Day such a success, and I commend everyone involved. Thank you for including me in your event.

Till next time, keep reading and writing!

Unblocking Your Creativity

Are you looking for a way to unblock your creativity? Perhaps you are between creative projects and looking for inspiration. Of all the books on writing I've read, the one I most often return to myself and always recommend is Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. It comes as no surprise to me that I often hear it referred to by other writers.

According to Julia Cameron, one of the two basic tools to unblocking creativity is the writing of "Morning Pages." The second is the "Artist's Date," which I'll blog about at another time.

Now that I am between books, I've gone back to doing Morning Pages. This involves sitting down first thing every morning and producing three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing. You should write whatever comes into your head, in whatever state you are in at the time: grouchy, feeling sorry for yourself. Even if all you write is the fact that your brain is mush and your feet are cold. Just keep writing till three pages are filled.

Why are you doing this? Because, as Cameron explains it, "All that whiny, petty stuff you write down in the morning is what stands between you and your creativity." Are you feeling resentment towards another artist? That's a sure sign, says Cameron, that you are creatively blocked. You need to get rid of all that "drek" by putting it  in your morning pages.

Back when winter was WINTER and snow was fun.

When you're doing the pages, don't stop to think that what you're writing is drivel, or that you're wasting your time. There's no wrong way to do Morning Pages and therefore, the opinion of that pesky, internal editor doesn't count. Your internal editor is just another blocking device. 

Why not give it a try? There's nothing to lose and all that natural creativity to unleash.

Write on!

One Family's Literacy

Photo taken by me of my family on a camping trip in the old Nash Rambler.

The youngsters I talk to in the schools are sometimes surprised when I tell them there was no television in our home when I was growing up. Not that there was no such thing, just that my parents didn't think it was something we needed. I remember when television came to Winnipeg, how my friends and I stood and watched it for the first time through the storefront windows of a shop on Academy Road.

My parents didn't think we needed to be entertained. We were all read to as tots and went on to become avid readers and, in my case, writers. We played board games like "Snakes n' Ladders," "Parcheesi," and later, "Scrabble." There were paper-and-pencil games too, word games like Hang Man or the old party favourite where you tried to make as many small words as you could from one long word like antidisestablishmentarianism. (I can't believe my Canadian dictionary doesn't even recognize the word!)

Ours was a family that sang when we took car trips—between endless games of I Spy. We warbled along to folk songs like "Swanee River" and "Jimmy Crack Corn." And there were the camp songs, because we all went to camp,  like "Down By The Bay" that required each one of us to come up with an original, outrageous chorus to every verse. 

I'm privileged to speak on the occasion of Family Literacy Day at a local school next week. It's always fun to talk to children; I find their enthusiasm contagious. And I hope to share with them some of my personal experiences of family literacy.

Mary Pickford Visits the "Bomb Girls"

Picture from the Archives of Ontario

Whenever I hear Mary Pickford's name mentioned anywhere, my ears naturally perk up.

I was watching the first episode of Global Television's new series, The Bomb Girls, when Mary's name came up in the dialogue between the actors. The setting was a munitions plant, presumably in Toronto, early in World War II. The female employees were chatting about the possibility of Hollywood movie star Mary Pickford paying a visit to the plant. The women in the show are employed in the making of bombs that will be used against the enemy overseas, serving a role every bit as important as the soldiers themselves.

A strong supporter of the Canadian war effort, Mary did visit the General Engineering Company's munitions plant in Scarborough on May 24, 1943, when the above photograph was taken. She spoke to a large crowd of enthusiastic women workers—real-life "bomb girls"—in the plant's cafeteria.

Her visit to her Toronto was under the auspices of the Lions' Club and the Gerrard  Businessmen's Association, co-sponsors of the Mary Pickford Bungalow project. You will find more on that project and the story of Mary's life in my book Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.