For some time, Dan had been hoping to interview an author writing for young people…so yep, I fit the bill. We met in March when we both spoke at a creative writing class at St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo. At the time, the first thing Dan asked me was whether or not I’d ever heard of The Bookshelf. Yes, of course, I told him, I knew it well.

When I turned 16 and finagled myself a driver’s license, The Bookshelf was the first place I drove—in my grandmother’s 1988 Chevy Impala, no less. Where else can you buy books, sip coffee, catch a second-run movie, and have swanky dinner all under one roof? Anyway, enough of me plugging The Bookshelf (but yes, it’s very cool and you should go).

This Books for Breakfast interview originally aired on April 19, 2012. Here it is, in two parts:

PART 1

PART 2

At the event, groups of students put together presentations about a particular book and were awarded points for creativity, detail and presentation skills. All pretty standard. At the end of the event, however, the group championing Dust City approached me.

“We made you a book trailer,” they explained. “Check it out.” (Being children of the 21st century, they had a smart phone at the ready.)

I’ve seen a number of homemade book trailers for Dust City, but none like this. These kids have taken some serious lessons from the hyperbole of Hollywood. But in a good way.

Anyway, the trailer kinda blew my mind. See for yourself:

Indeed, I do. The thing is, they wanted a series of writers working in what they called “children’s entertainment.” They asked me because one of the organizers had heard the film rights to my book, Zorgamazoo, had been optioned by one of the producers of Shrek.

At the time, I hadn’t announced anything about the film option, largely because I wanted to wait until there was a bit more momentum with the project. However, the rather unexpected invite to TIFF Kids made it seem a lot more real.

So anyway, it’s all true! I’m deeply honoured and extremely excited to have caught the eye of Vanguard Animation. They’re amazing people, with some equally amazing projects coming down the pike.

If you check out their website, you’ll see the cover of Zorgamazoo down in the bottom right, under the In The Pipeline section. Hard for me to believe it’s there, alongside the likes of Roald Dahl and William Steig. Truly amazing!

The raving scribbles of a lunatic, or the rewrite on my new book?

Shall we say both?

Last week, I finished the rewrite on a new book. It’s one I once told myself I would never do. By this, I mean something in the same rhyming verse as Zorgamazoo. But of course I was up against an old adage, something about the merits of saying “never.”

When I sent off the revised manuscript—which was quite extensive and more than doubled the length of the short first draft—I was elated. I was so happy, in fact, that I wondered if it was possible to become addicted to finishing books. After all, writing is long, lonely work. The same project dominates your life for weeks and weeks, possibly years. Whatever comes out on the other side, no matter how mangled and incoherent, seems pretty miraculous.

In my case, what came out on the other side was a floor covered in orange paper. Why orange? Because when I ran out of white, that was the colour of the paper I found in the furnace room that adjoins my apartment—meaning it was free.

These are pics of the rewrite, mind you, not the whole book. If anyone’s interested, my process involves printing off the existing draft and then working out changes and new verses by hand. When that’s done, I type up the material I like best (editors don’t love it when you submit in pencil, FYI).

The working title for this book is Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff. (Heh!) It should emerge from its cave, blinking and disoriented and ready for bookstores, sometime in early 2013.

My series of workshops come with the suitably ridiculous title, The Imaginarium of Dr. Weston, which I’m certain will compete favourably with a certain similar-sounding and ill-fated movie from recent memory. Here’s the description from the TPL website:

“Award-winning author Robert Paul Weston will get your creative juices flowing, and improve your writing. He will introduce you to creativity games and writer’s block-busters, and uncover the secrets of writing. Space is limited. Please register at the branch or call 416-395-5630. For children 9 and up.”

Ben Franklin, in quiet repose

These days, for my work, I rent a cubicle in a shared office space catering to writers and academics. Admittedly, the place is an almost windowless, Orwellian range of anonymous grey cubicles called “The Quiet Room.” Step over the threshold and silence isn’t merely a virtue; it’s the law. I’ve tried working in my apartment; in cafes (ugh); in library carrels; I’ve tried taking my notebook to the park; but nothing compares to the intense productivity that comes with rigorously enforced silence.

The more I work in The Quiet Room, the more I’m convinced that the best things in life are produced this way. Even writers who prefer music in the background while they work (not me), surely don’t write while speaking themselves, meaning that although the music is playing, the writers themselves are silent.

Now if that’s true, then a possible corollary crops up: If creation requires a form a silence, then while you’re talking, you aren’t creating something truly great / new / inspired / challenging / et cetera. This might be good advice for the more loquacious among us—myself included.

As far as I can tell, it was Ben Franklin who is most famous for calling silence a virtue, which he did in his famous autobiography. In his world, there were thirteen virtues in all, among them Order, Resolution, Cleanliness, and Tranquility. Silence made it to number two on his list, second only to Temperance (such were the times). Franklin described the virtue like this: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Sounds like he would’ve got along with the Trappists.

I don’t know for certain if my mom was cribbing from Ben Franklin, but thirty or so years on, I’ve come to agree with her. At least when it comes to getting things done, silence really is a virtue.

Recently, however, a couple things were brought to my attention that, if not entirely refuting the old saying, they at least had me questioning it’s literal meaning.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Well, why not? The outside of a book is colourful, often unique in size, and emblazoned with artwork. Surely there’s tons by which to judge.

What were the couple things I mentioned? The first was this Joy of Books video, produced at Type Books, here in Toronto (and which by now everyone and their dog’s fleas have seen):

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Kinda speaks for itself. And far more eloquently than this post.

The second thing that had me thinking about book covers was this post by a blogger called That Cover Girl. She did an interview with Hugh D’Andrade about his design work for the softcover of Dust City.

It’s obvious That Cover Girl and her readers care deeply about how books look. And why not? To so many people—notably the 2 million plus who’ve watched the above video—books are things of beauty.

Indeed!

We’ll cover everything from picture books to so-called “YA crossover” novels, looking at characterization, narrative structure, suspense and more—in both a general sense, as it relates to all fiction, as well as what makes writing for youth unique. We’ll also examine what makes a successful children’s book, delve into non-fiction, the publishing world, and look at the process of writing graphic novels.

The course will be held Tuesday afternoons from 1-3pm on the main campus of U of T. If you’d like to enroll, you can do so here (NOTE: my section is course code 1717-014).

Eric Anderson, a professor at the University of Winchester and the interviewee for the programme, recently published a paper called “I Kiss Them Because I Love Them”, about the increasing tendency for young, heterosexual men to kiss one another on the lips. And yes, you read that right. Heterosexual. Straight guys kissing—y’know, just cuz it’s the friendly thing to do.

Admittedly, Anderson’s study is a narrow one. He only interviewed 145 respondents, and mostly athletes; but 129 of them—all young, straight men—said they had kissed a boy at least once, often as a show of congratulations on the sports field. ‘‘It’s just part of sport now, isn’t it?’’ said one respondent, while another claimed, “Loads of guys kiss on the lips after scoring a goal; you’ll see it on TV, too.’’

Also interesting was Anderson’s reaction to his own work. On the radio, he described himself as coming of age in the 1980s, a time when he never would have dreamed of seeing this sort of behaviour (two guys kissing as a from of friendship or congratulations). The reason for this is that the trend has only surfaced in the past 5 or 6 years, meaning it would be probably be unheard of to anyone currently over the age of twenty-five, and that’s the whole point, really.

I wanted to blog about this not only because I found the results surprising, but also because of what it means to someone like myself and many of my peers, namely adults who write books for youth. Anderson’s study highlights how easy it is to fall out of step with the people you’re writing about.

Even still, I’m not sure it’s a trend the publishing industry will embrace all that quickly. Any bets on how long it’ll be before we see a YA book featuring two young football players who share a smooch after the game-winning touchdown? I’m thinking it may be a while.

Besides, I’m sure it’s occurred to people that if you’re reading this it means every prediction for an apocalypse before now (or…now, or now) has been wrong. That’s a one-hundred percent failure rate. Pretty crap, if you asked me. No reason the Mayans are any different.

Speaking of being crap at predicting the future, the biggest computers in the world can’t tell me the weather more than a couple days in advance. But the entire earth exploding / imploding / melting 2000 years in advance? That’s just silly.

Yay, 2012! Have a good one.