Susan Forest

Thanks to Simone at Brol, I now have our flights booked within Brazil and to Chile and Uruguay. We’ll get to go to many places we’ve researched and look facinating: Foz do Iguacu falls, see a sunken ship at Montevideo, 3 days of motorcycle riding through the Andes, the Pantanal, historical Salvador and hiking in the Champada Diamantia, and a steam locomotive (of course!) in Tiradentes!

I am so glad I went: I attended 4 breakout sessions as well as the 3 keynotes and each one was instructive and engaging. The Grammar Gals were hilarious and had a ton of resources. The session on the roles of the writer/agent/editor/publisher was fascinating, and questions from the floor helped to move the topic into deeper levels–a well-moderated panel! I moderated the one on genre fiction, and was very happy I did not run out of questions–and again, questions from the floor were very perceptive. The panel on YA, like the others, was really good, too. AND–I managed to take a tour of the Alberta Legislative Assembly Building before coming home. As my screenplay deals partially with Alberta politics, it was wonderful to be in the building to get a sense of the setting.

Well, I’m off to Edmonton for the WGA Conference. Will moderate a genre session tomorrow afternoon, and there is an opportunity to sell my collection. Should be great. Also, I decided to take the bus–weather’s bad for driving and I can relax rather than worry about the roads. AND, I can get some work done during the 3 hours’s trip each way.

There! I updated my webpage with the ordering information for Immunity to Strange Tales. I had the publisher link all along, but it is also available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, Google Play, Indigo, W.H.Smith UK, Waterstones UK, and Your Local Book Seller, so thought it was important to have the links in my website. Done!

So cool to see what the story is going to look like in print! Everything is sent off to Edge Press–just waiting to see the book when it comes out. The cover is awesome!

Very cool: I stood for election for the position of secretary with the Science Fiction Writers of America, and won! I fly to San Jose to attend the Nebula Awards weekend in a week and a half, to meet the other members of the board, and to learn more about my portfolio from the previous secretary! Yay!

One of my students, Leesa, sent me an email that included the following:

You have an amazing talent to see things clearer than I ever do. I can not even put words to it, but I appreciate it so much, especially when it’s my work your talking about. It’s like you bring a new lens and focus to things I have not yet learned how to see. It was because of you that I re-wrote a turning point chapter. I had Arie removing her gloves because I knew it needed to happen, but until you pointed out that finally her character was being pressed to change, I sincerely did not see it that way. It changed how I proceeded.

Thanks, so much, Leesa, for the kind words!

Into the home stretch: writing the climax! And, today, I presented at the Calgary Young Writers’ Conference. I always enjoy the day because the kids are always so enthusiastic. Also, it is great to touch base with so many writers, many of

Things are on a real roll–diving into the ending, and the words are just flowing thick and fast. Yes, there are backfill details I am generating that I will have to go back and fill in, but I’ll do that later (keeping notes so I don’t miss them). Right now, it is fabulous, that final rush toward the end!

Oh, and I did meet with the teachers at William Reid School again today, and I start teaching the grade twos in May!

Can I share a brag? The principal was so happy about–not only the students’ work–but about the teachers’ sharing of things they had learned about how to teach story writing! And I got to see the books the grade 3 and 4 students had produced, and they were really awesome. Such a thrill!

I often find the second half of a book goes so much faster than the first half, because of course, I know my characters and what is happening so much better. So now I feel like I am on a real roll. Hope to finish the first draft by the end of the month. On the other hand, I have often found that the last few chapters turn out to be really long and I wind up dividing them up–more, but shorter chapters. So…maybe the end of the month is a bit ambitious. Still–good to have a goal.