GarniGal's Journal:

I finally came up with an idea about how to decide which project to work on. That's right - I haven't even started writing yet.

What I ended up doing was 30 minutes freewriting on each of my ideas. I got pretty well a full page for each, though the stuff that came out was very different.

For The Novel, I came up with an interview. I asked Cathy (the main character) a bunch of questions about her, her life and her friends. The Interview

Cathy, could you describe yourself to our readers?

“My name is Cathy Whitmore, I’m only 28 and I live in Hamilton Ontario. I’m a writer.”

A writer, that must be an exciting job. What do you write?

“Oh, I’m a novelist.”

Have you been published yet?

“Not yet, but I’m confident that it is only a matter of time.”

What type of books do you write?

“I’m very imaginative, so I’ve tried a lot of different genres. I think my favourite is fantasy, but I always keep my audience in mind. I write a lot of mystery for my friend Tony and Chicklit for my best girlfriend Andrea.”

Sounds like your friends are important to you.

“I moved to Hamilton for school, and I’m a long way away from my family, so my friends are very important to me. Tony and Rob were in my program at school and Andy was my roommate in rez first year.”

What did you, Tony and Rob take?

“We all started off in English, but I’m the only one who graduated with an English degree. Rob transferred to Psychology and Tony tried a whole bunch of things. Anth, Soc, History, even Biology. He was in school for freaking ever – finally graduated last year. Andy was in Comp Sci and is a programmer now.”

What about Tony and Rob?

“Well, Tony is in sales. He works for the same software company that Andy works for. He’s really good at sales – the whole ‘sell ice to Inuit’ cliché. Robbie took a diploma in photography at Mohawk after he finished his degree at MacMaster. He has his own business as a school photographer. You know, the guy who does the pictures of the kids every year? He also has a studio where he does portraits and he’s starting to sell his art photography on the web. His stuff is really amazing, and his success is really inspiring.”

What about you? How do you support yourself while you write?

“Well, I do have a day job. I teach grade two at a school in Hamilton. Obviously, it’s not my first love, but the kids are really inspiring.”

For Learning Curve, which is much farther along in the writing process, I already feel I know the characters pretty well. So I came up with a new scene, something that was suggested in a Creative Writing course that critiqued my work. The Fight

It was all Meanne’s fault. Of course, she totally got away with it. Lia had to clean up the spilt Spirits of Heat Lightning, and Meanne just stalked away with a superior grin and her nose in the air.

Do you know how much Spirits of Heat Lightning burns on your skin?

**********************************************************

Lia was on kitchen cleaning duty that week, so she had the class after lunch as a free study period. It was an easy meal to clean up after – just bowls, spoons and a single huge pot for the stew, so she had over an hour to kill before her next class.

An hour might seem like a long time, but Lia already had a plan for it, so she broke into a run as soon as she was out of the cook’s sight. Up to her room to grab her books, then back to an empty stillroom to practise making her Lucent potion. She had to get this rock to glow by the end of the hour, or she was doomed.

It all went well for the first half hour. She prepared the ingredients, brought them carefully to a boil, and just had to simmer it. Once it was at the right consistency, she just had to add three drops of Spirits of Heat Lightning, a highly acidic oily liquid, let it cool, then cover the rock with the resulting substance.

She watched the cauldron carefully. If the ingredients burned to the bottom, she’d have to start over. Her time was half over before her potion had reduced to the proper glue-like texture. She had just uncapped the bottle of Spirits when the stillroom door opened.

Every stillroom had a sign on the door. If you were in there and didn’t want to be disturbed, you could turn the sign over so it read “occupied”. Lia was certain she’d turned the sign over, but the door opened anyway.

“What are you doing in here?” Meanne’s already nasal voice hit the whiny, piercing tone it only ever reached when she had to speak to Lia. “I need this room to work on a potion, and I don’t want to wait while you clean up your mess before I start my own work.”

Sarcastic remarks flitted through Lia’s mind, but as always when faced with Meanne’s cruelty, Lia’s mouth refused to cooperate. Instead of calling Meanne on her selfish behaviour, she stuttered, “I’m almost done.”

“Allll-mmmmost d-d-d-done?” Meanne mocked. “Fine, I’ll wait.” Sighing dramatically, the interloper pulled a stool up to the workbench and watched Lia work.

Lia raised the bottle of Spirits to add the three drops to the potion. She leaned on the workbench to keep her hand steady. Just as she delicately tipped the bottle, the table shook violently.

Neither is finished or polished, but if you are interested, feel free to take a look.

Anyway, long story short, I'm leaning towards Learning Curve. It's a Coming of Age YA fantasy. I know it sounds Harry Potterish, but trust me - in my head, it's very different. I just haven't gotten to the good bits yet.