Nicole Sheldrake

Blog moved to www.nicolesheldrake.com

2011-04-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

As of April 24th, 2011 this blog has moved to NicoleSheldrake.com.

Thank you for reading! The fun continues at our shiny new location.

My 40-day Yoga Challenge - 2 days to go

2011-04-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of istolethetv

Why would I, after practicing yoga 4 - 7 times/week for two years, suddenly decide to do a 40-day yoga challenge? I already practice a lot of yoga, right?

Well, a yoga retreat on Galiano Island is the final draw prize. That's one reason I decided to do the challenge. I feel a little guilty that I only chose to participate this time because I want to win the retreat. Although I never win in draws. So maybe I shouldn't feel so guilty, since I recognize that I have a miniscule chance of winning. In fact, I know I won't win. But gosh darn it, I plan to at least be entered in the draw.

Reason two - I was curious as to whether a 7-day-a-week practice would be different from the 5-6 days/week I've recently been doing. Already I appreciate yoga immensely and can't imagine ever not practicing. In fact, I plan on taking the Semperviva yoga teacher training program next year. But what would a daily practice teach me?

Days 1 - 30: To be honest, the first thirty days were easy. My biggest challenge was trying to fit in two classes on the weekend instead of my usual one.

Day 31: I got sick. Sore throat, sneezing, sniffling, dizzy spells. Awesome. I was in denial the first couple days. When I started being unable to sleep because my throat hurt when I lay down, I decided to accept the facts. Now I had a decision to make, and this is where the 40-day challenge came in to play.

I could quit. I was sick. Yoga is about understanding your body and taking care of it. It would be perfectly acceptable to take a few days break and allow my body the time to heal. That's what my advice to anyone else would be.

I didn't quit. (bad yogini!)I used the challenge as a way to force myself to consider how my daily practice can heal, by adapting my yoga practice to my body's condition. And this for me, is the ultimate beauty of yoga. It's not a sport. It's nurturing, accepting and non-competitive. And the best teachers recognize that.

Case in point, on the day I felt the worst (dizzy spells and snot streams, hurrah!), I went to Dan's class. I went in the evening, when I was not dizzy and not so sneezy and snotty. I planned to meditate while the class was doing asanas. Although I'd seen people doing their own thing in other classes, I'd never done it myself and I felt a little nervous. To my relief, Dan's intro to the class included the invitation "And if you just want to sit still and meditate for the whole class, that's fine too." It was as though he could feel what I needed to hear and he said the words just for me. So I did meditate for most of the class, not stressing my body in any way but healing it through breath and a tiny bit of movement at the end of class.

The following day, I did the same thing. After class the teacher came up to me afterwards just to check that I was alright. Such a sweet man! This is Semperviva yoga studio, this is yoga, this is the yoga community - compassionate, nurturing, challenging.

How does this relate to writing? If we see writing as a practice, then the connection is clear. If your body's needs change day-to-day, then your mind's needs do as well. And while I agree that getting your bum in the chair every day is the first step to writing, accepting that your output may be different from yesterday or last week and not beating yourself up about it, is just as important. We will make progress if we do what we can every day. And the only way we are going to WANT to practice every day is if we feel gratitude for what we do, no matter how much, and if we accept daily change and work with it.

A daily practice that inspires, challenges and nurtures us is valuable, no matter what it is. The Semperviva 40-day yoga challenge has motivated me to stick with a daily yoga practice and has made me feel good about myself and what I can accomplish.

Day 38: Feelin' groovy!

What is your daily practice and what does it do for you?

April 21 update: I completed the challenge! Yay! Didn't win the retreat but I am so glad I did it - I feel fantastic. Day 41, 42, 43, 44 . . . coming up!

MATCHED, Elections and YA Dystopian Novel Popularity

2011-04-11T06:50:00.000-07:00

In Canada, a general election is scheduled for May 2, 2011.

AND

The other day I finished reading MATCHED by Ally Condie, a young adult dystopian novel. The storyline:

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one… until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow — between perfection and passion.

I was struck by the connection between the book and the elections after seeing this picture posted by a friend on Facebook:

Young Greens of Canada

The connection got me wondering why young adult dystopian novels are so popular recently. In a December 2010 NY Times article, author Paolo Bacigalupi suggests that teens "crave stories of broken futures because they themselves are uneasily aware that their world is falling apart." That makes sense to me.

These novels are being written by adults, not young adults (as far as I know). I'm curious, however, if they are being bought by a higher percentage of young adults or adults. In my heart, I hope young adults are buying them because maybe they will inspire the next generation to change the world.

Led by THE HUNGER GAMES and MATCHED (and many others), young adults are reading about people their age making a difference, in times not too dissimilar from our own. I've found the dystopian novels published in the last few years are more realistic than the adult dystopian books I've read, such as BRAVE NEW WORLD or 1984, making them easier to relate to, for me at least.

Elections are one opportunity to make such a change (or at least an attempt to make one but that's a whole 'nother blog). They are a start.

From THE HUNGER GAMES "May the odds be ever in your favour," and from MATCHED "I wish you optimal results," whatever changes you are choosing to make in your life.

What do you think about the popularity of YA dystopian books?

Edit on April 15: April 11-15 was dystopian week on Tor.com. There's a great Introduction to Dystopian Fiction which mentions a new anthology of dystopian literature which sounds fantastic. A further post has a Dystopian Round Table from the contributors to the anthology. Check it out!

yWriter, free and fabulous novel writing software

2011-04-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

Shortly after starting on the second draft of my novel, I realized I didn't want to use a word processor any longer. I needed to keep track of my characters and move scenes around. I wanted to be able to rid my novel of specific content yet keep that content accessible. My word processor made this far too time-consuming.

yWriter has been my savior. A versatile yet easy-to-use software that is free and allows me to focus on writing, not scrolling.

Simon Haynes, an Australian computer programmer and author of a science fiction comedy series called Hal Spacejock, created yWriter as a tool for his own projects. He is always updating the software and is quick to respond if there are any problems.

My five favourite features:

Drag and drop scenes: If you decide that Skippy the magic bunny needs to die in Chapter 1 instead of Chapter 5, simply drag the scene from Chapter 1 to Chapter 5. Done.
Lists: Characters, locations and items. Record names, pictures, bios, goals and update them any time. Add characters to scenes and create reports to see how many scenes each character is in.
Export scenes, chapters or the whole project to different formats: Export to html, RTF, text, eBook, etc. Makes it easy to copy a scene into a Word doc if necessary or create a PDF.
Create outlines and synopses: Each scene has a space for the writer to input a scene title and another space for a scene description. yWriter allows you to export just these to a document so you have a ready-made outline or synopsis.
Details and Goals Tabs: Although I don't use theses tab as much as I should, they do assist you with tracking important structural elements of your scene. For example, the type of scene (action or reaction), if it's plot or subplot, the day the scene occurs and how long it lasts. The Goals tab provides a space to input the scene's goal, conflict and resolution.

yWriter saves your writing frequently and if you pair it with a free online backup system like Dropbox, you can access your project from any computer and never have to worry about losing a ton of data if your machine crashes.

If you already have a few thousand words written in a word processor, you can easily import your work-in-progress into yWriter.

For the new writer who wants to keep their novel organized without spending a pile of cash, yWriter is the perfect tool.

Download yWriter here and git yer writin' organized!

Comic: Hazards of Being an Author

2011-04-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

From the pen of Debbie Ohi, a writer and illustrator who lives in Toronto, Canada. Find her on Inkygirl.com.

The Pony Wish

2011-03-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Picture by Gato Azul

Anyone who has sent or is about to send their project or product out into the world has experienced the pony wish. The term pony wish comes from this blog post by entrepreneur advisor, Bernt Patak. This excerpt explains what I feel are the key points of the pony wish problem:

"You know the story...you bust your butt for weeks or months grinding out your minimal viable product, dealing with endless technical issues, raising money and keeping the lights on, finding, managing and motivating a kick-ass team and so on. Then suddenly the big day arrives and you launch your baby into the world. But eventually the beer and wine glasses are empty, you go back to your shared desks and realize that that moment of elation is gone and a bit of an unpleasant reality sets in...this is the start of the hard work, not the end! Four weeks later the hill you're climbing seems as steep as ever. What happened?

You didn't get your pony wish, that's what happened. We all have them, especially if it's our first start-up. Like the little kid who wishes for a pony and doesn't see it under the Christmas tree, you secretly, immodestly, expected that your killer product would be the next Dropbox or Kik or whoever and just take off out of the starting gate, passing a million users at the end of the first month."

Don't we all have a secret hope that our book will be the pony under the tree? I sure do! We work very hard on our novels or screenplays and we want to believe that once it's out in the world, readers will love it and buy it and the money and acclaim will flow in.

That situation is extremely rare.

But what we don't appreciate, because we're so disappointed about the pony, are the riding lessons. Yes, there's more work to go into promoting and fine-tuning the masterpiece but we also get to interact with readers, agents, editors and other writers as well as learn about a whole new aspect of publishing.

The start-up analogy is even more apt for writers in these days of digital publishing. If we get feedback about a problem with the novel we can easily change it just by editing a document then uploading the new version of our masterpiece. Easy for us and makes readers happy with a quick response time.

I'm very interested in this idea of authors as entrepreneurs and running their book-writing-and-publishing business as a lean start-up. In future blogs I plan to investigate the topic in more detail.

To be honest, sometimes I feel I have been working on the novel for so long that I just want to get it out the door. Then I can get feedback from readers in the real world and move on to the next project. I hope it will be a pony but I know in my heart I need a few more years of riding lessons before the pony appears. But I won't make progress unless I take that first step of putting my work out there.

What have been your experiences with the pony wish?

Review: The Best Laid Plans

2011-03-28T21:17:00.001-07:00

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have to admit that I do not enjoy reading or talking about Canadian politics. I avoid it like a zombie invasion. So when I read the first few paragraphs of the prologue, my heart fell to my ankles. Since it was book on the book club reading list, I decided to stick it out. And I am SO glad I did!

TBLP is hilarious as well as informative and heart-warming. I kept saying to my sweetheart, "I can't believe I'm enjoying a book about politics!" Fallis' writing is fresh and upbeat, his characters complex.

An excellent novel and deserving winner of Canada Reads 2011.

View all my reviews

Review: Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood

2011-03-28T19:47:00.001-07:00

Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I could not put this excellent book down! I choose it because a reviewer on Amazon said it was 'wickedly delightful' and they were right.

The hilarious and intriguing opening sentence drew me right in to the story. Cook did a superb job of characterization for all her main characters; they were unique and realistic. I sympathized with the protagonist, Helen, and was eager to see how her revenge plan would turn out. The story itself moved along at a good clip and was entertaining throughout.

I gave the book five stars because I can't think of anything that could be improved. :)

View all my reviews

The Structure Shall Set You Free

2011-03-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Picture from US National Archives

Worked on my pitch this week in preparation for writing my first ever query letter. In the past I have attempted to write query letters and ended up bogged down in the details of my world. This is despite following QueryShark for the past 2 years and reading a ton of blogs about distilling your story to it's key elements and themes. Reading about something and actually doing it are not the same. Who knew??

Lucky for me, I met a fabulous local author at a writing and publishing workshop at the Vancouver Public Library the other week. During the morning panel discussion, I really admired how she was honest, witty and confident in her comments. She was very unapologetic about being a slush pile find and I loved the fact that she was living (Local! Female!) proof that it actually happens. And she was about to quit her day job and write full-time! Her name is Eileen Cook. I purchased one of her young adult fiction novels the other day and could not put it down. Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood - a great read. And she likes Castle too.How cool is that?

And so, the query. With my brain unable to get away from the need to explain the elements of my novel's world first, I sent a 'please help me!' email to Eileen in the form of a big barf of world-building words on the page. And she wrote back.

Structure. Eileen gave me a structure and it set me free. The structure forced me to pick out only the key elements of my story and immediately I saw that I did not have my protagonist making enough choices. Brilliant! Now, because I had a simple, three sentence paragraph instead of a 250 page novel, I could play with the story concept until it worked and not get bogged down in details. Super-brilliant! The body of my query was done. All it needs now is a hat and some shoes, and off it goes.

I am aware that sending a query before the novel is completely polished is frowned upon. But since every writer and agent says new authors should expect to get rejected a lot, then I'm really just getting ahead of the game, right? I'm hoping that my query letter will be good enough to get feedback from agents at least and I can use that to improve my query and my novel.

Conference Alert!

Write On, Vancouver is May 13 - 15, 2011. It is an "Intensive Conference for Fiction and Screen Writers" and comes highly recommended.

The four presenters are: Micheal Hauge, Eileen Cook, Allison Beda and Lee McKenzie.

Indie publishing here I come! Maybe.

2011-03-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

Picture by George Eastman House

After two years, I woke up. Two years of writing a novel and always hearing in the back of my mind the little publisher's voice saying "When this is done you can work on your query letter then send it off to 500 agents and maybe get found in the slush pile. Or you can spend big bucks at conferences and maybe meet an agent there. And then wait another year for a publishing house to accept your book and maybe another year until it is in print."

I've lived with that voice ever since I've started writing. Even more annoying is the fact that the voice sounds like a bossy 3-year-old kid.

Last week, that voice was silenced, thanks to writers like Amanda Hocking and Kait Nolan who are not waiting around for someone else to control their creative works. Writers have the tools available to get our work out to readers. If you aren't a famous writer already, a publishing house is not going to give you a big marketing budget so you'll have to do a ton of book promoting yourself anyway. Why go through the process above when you can put your book out online, do the promoting and see if it sinks or swims? Not wait two or three years for a publisher to pick it up.

People may say that the quality isn't as good as if a writer polished and polished their novel until it shone enough that an agent picked it up. If no one is buying your book or writing good reviews, you'll know soon enough. Then you take the book off the internet and/or write another. Just a simple click of the mouse.

Fail fast, fail often. The entrepreneur's mantra. And get your product the heck out there!

Having just received an e-reader for my birthday, I now understand the draw of instant book gratification. And they are so cheap! Wow! I can buy more books now because they are cheaper. I'm way more willing to try new authors if their book is $2.99 and I can get it on my Kindle in less than 5 minutes.

This is not to say that I don't see the point of publishing houses. I am still going to query agents because of course getting my book on a bookshelf will help sales and also going through the query process will improve my writing skills. When my book is good enough to receive feedback from agents that is!

It's an exciting time to be a writer! What do you think?

Why I Like Travel

2011-01-10T10:33:00.001-08:00

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad;
and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

-John O'Donohue

The Journey - a poem by Mary Oliver

2010-07-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

I found this in a book about yoga by Christy Turlington.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
-Mary Oliver

The end of Nanowrimo 2009 - 50,309 words

2009-11-30T22:20:00.000-08:00

And so I 'win'! Yay! I won with 50,309 words! I wrote 20,000 of those words in ten hours today. Whew. The power of focus, I tell you!

Thanks to all the other Nanowrimo writer out their for their support and of course to friends and family. See you next year!

NaNoWriMo Winner 2008!!

2008-11-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

Holy moly, I wrote 50,000 words in one month! I am totally amazed. I couldn't have done it without the support of my sweetheart B and the zesty competition between C and me! Thank you to everyone who actually read the thing. It's a monster with many, many typos (I have atrocious typing skills) and the repetition, my goodness. The repetition, my goodness.

Anyhoo, the next venture will be editing the beast! But not until January.