Category: Writing

September 19, 2022

An Author Interview and a Writing Retreat in France

Castillon La Bataille, in the South of France

I’m delighted to have an author interview on Autostraddle this month! Darcy read my YA novel, Chasing Harmony, and asked thoughtful questions about it. I got to talk about music, the messiness of growing up queer, where I got my ideas, and what songs might be on Anna’s playlist right now if she were a real person.

“When I was younger, successes and failures felt huge, and this is the case for Anna.”
-Author Melanie Bell on her YA Novel “Chasing Harmony” and the Messy Process of Growing Up Queer

You can check out the interview here!

I’m writing this from an old house in Castillon, in the South of France. I’ve been saying for ages that I’d go on a writing retreat someday, and I’ve finally made it out to one. I first learned about Chez Castillon at a conference five years ago. It’s an 18th century house that hosts creative retreats.

For a week, I’ve been learning from bestselling author Julie Cohen and working with a great group of fellow writers. We’ve had one-on-one sessions, a tutorial about plotting with post-it notes, and lots of time to work on whatever we’re working on. That, or lounge by the pool and iron out the kinks in our stories by getting input from brilliant peers.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, though I figured that time in France would be brilliant even if I got no writing done! And it is. Great food, great wine, a gorgeous setting, summer-like weather, lovely people, charming animals, and a market this morning. I’ve been running by the river, strolling around the shops, and swimming in the pool. The house is full of books, and it’s nice to have a context where I’m speaking and reading in French, even as I’m writing in English. The hosts, Mickey and Janie Millman, are generous, and Janie’s a wonderful author in her own right.

But I’ve also gotten things done. I’ve restructured the manuscript I’m working on and added some chapters. I’ve refined summaries and queries in an effort to get to the point. “Keep it simple, stupid!” says Julie. (I blushed a little, as I used to teach my university students this. Guilty as charged!) So, would I recommend trying out a writing retreat if you have the time and resources? I’d certainly recommend this one!

Many thanks to Julie, Mickey, Janie, and my cohort of writers! I’ve learned something from everyone here. And now I’m off to soak in more sun before my plane takes off tomorrow!

August 3, 2022

Chasing Harmony Playlist, Trailer, and Publication

Chasing Harmony, my YA novel about a musical prodigy, is now out in paperback! Here I am with my box of author copies.

My publisher, Read Furiously, did a wonderful job putting the book together, including little music-related details in the design. They are also donating a portion of proceeds to literacy organizations.

It was a pleasant and delightful shock to open a book and read lines I’ve pored over on screen for years, available in a new context for readers to enjoy.

My book has a Spotify playlist! If you want to listen to many of the songs mentioned in Chasing Harmony, from the characters’ classical performance pieces to 90s tunes they hear on the radio, it’s all here (sadly, the imaginary songs from imaginary bands couldn’t be included).

There’s also a book trailer where I talk about the inspiration behind the title. You can check it out below.

Chasing Harmony is available wherever books are sold. Here are some up-to-date purchase links:

Read Furiously
Bookshop.org
Barnes & Noble
Amazon
Waterstones

In less happy news, Dream Signs’ publisher is no longer in business and the book is currently out of stock. I am waiting on the files and hope to republish it down the line.

As with Anna’s story in Chasing Harmony, writing and publishing is full of successes and failures, and one often goes along with the other. Anna discovers that it’s one thing to love an art form, but the real challenge comes from being human and living your life.

Here’s to life! And here’s to new books!

July 5, 2022

My Novel Chasing Harmony Is Out July 19!

In 2009, I started writing a novel while traveling across Canada. I was thinking about art and failure and how life seldom meets our expectations. I finished the manuscript while studying Creative Writing at Concordia University in Montreal, went through several drafts, and over a decade later, I’m delighted that the book found a home.

My YA novel, Chasing Harmony, is available for pre-order now and releases on July 19! The publisher is Read Furiously, a small press which donates a substantial portion of proceeds to literacy charities. They have shown a wonderful level of care for my book. Take a look at the cover and layout and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m honored that Reads Rainbow has featured Chasing Harmony on their list of Contemporary LGBTQ+ releases this July. (The main character is bisexual.)

Here’s what the book is about.

“What happens when the music stops?

Since she was a child, piano prodigy Anna Stern has always stood out. As she becomes a teenager, Anna struggles to find her identity without the soundtrack of sonatas and concertos. There’s also the worry that comes with the crushing expectations of her musical gift and her parents’ imploding marriage.

Anna finds refuge in her best friend Liss, who is full of magic and escape plans, and the mysterious new boy at school… which becomes more complicated when she develops feelings for both of them. Most importantly, Anna has concerts to perform that will determine the course of her future as the haunting spectre of burnout lurks close by. As everything builds to a crescendo, what follows is an authentic life in the making.

Melanie Bell has created a compelling coming-of-age story for those that can relate to the search for untapped potential. Told in alternating timelines, Chasing Harmony reminds us of the exhilarating feeling that comes with hearing your heart’s song.”

And here are some places it’s available for pre-order:

The Furious Reader – https://readfuriously.com/products/chasing-harmony
Bookshop – https://bookshop.org/a/3392/9781737175896
Barnes & Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chasing-harmony-melanie-bell/1141640134?ean=9781737175896
Amazon – https://amzn.to/3nKS1rK

You can find Chasing Harmony wherever books are sold. Soon the physical copies will be in bookstores too!

In other publishing news this month, I have a poem in the Spoon Knife 6: Rest Stop anthology, and a story (about a woman who inherits a family home in England – but it comes with a chilling catch) in Cossmass Infinities, Issue 9.

I can’t wait for readers to pick up Chasing Harmony, and I hope some of you will see yourselves reflected in Anna’s journey!

June 1, 2022

The Story in Your Head vs. the Story on the Page

Before you sit down at your computer or with your notebook to start writing, a story swirls around in your head. It’s the story you want to write, the story you need to write. And the story in your head is fabulous.

The story in your head is as twisty and passionate as the latest bestseller. It makes readers laugh and cry. It’s all about love and power and the world and contains every feeling that’s ever swept through your body. (When you start to put the story on the page, it’s probably about a kitten.)

The story in your head outlasts Western civilization. It’s the classic of all classics. People on far-off future planets get assigned your text in class and groan. You have attained the immortality of homework.

The story in your head has gaps. And it isn’t necessarily your job to fill these gaps, when the story lives only in your head. You can simply hop elsewhere, to another part of it, and entertain yourself. Your story can be all lavish descriptions of sylvan forests and ball gowns, and that will be fine. No reader’s going to complain about a story that isn’t written down.

But without writing any of it down, there will be no story, not really. No one else can read it. No one will connect with it. And if there’s any truth to your hunch that the story in your head is worth telling, then your own rattling mind is a lonely place to keep that story, isn’t it?

If you want the story in your head to come to life, you’ve got to write it down. (Or share or tell it in some other form; there are many valid choices.) However, it will change in the telling. It might veer off in a different direction than intended. Maybe it’ll even be a better direction, but it will take work to get there.

In your head, a story can write itself in moments. In practice, if the story is long and complex, it takes hours, days, maybe even years. It may take several revisions. Parts will fall off of the story in your head as it assumes material form, and new pieces will attach themselves to it.

The story in your head was exciting, maybe even perfect. The story on the page is imperfect. But you aren’t going to have a story if you don’t write it down. And good stories deserve to be told.

May 3, 2022

Writing for a Day Job While Writing for Myself

I used to think I had limited energy for writing, and partly for this reason, I avoided day jobs that directly involved writing. I taught writing, edited, and on the side, I wrote and published. Then I started a blog for an editing job that focused on guiding authors through the writing process, and I enjoyed it. It was one of the most fun things I’d ever done at work.

This year, I accepted a job that combines writing and editing. A lot of the work is editing heavy, but I’m also writing content for scripts, blog posts, news roundups, and other forms of online learning about workplace performance.

So, what’s it like writing for a day job while continuing to work on personal writing projects on my own time? (Yes, I hope many of these will go on to get published, but right now they are self-motivated rather than client focused.) So far, it doesn’t match my prior anxieties at all.

Part of this is compartmentalization. I write about work stuff at work, in formats that suit the content we are producing and what clients need. I write “my stuff” outside of work, and give myself free reign to delve into personal obsessions, neuroses, and experiments. What I create on my own time bears little resemblance to what I write on the clock, so it’s easy to differentiate and get into the appropriate mode for each project.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it’s nice to be creative at work. Especially since writing is only part of the job and deadlines are set at a reasonable pace (it might be different if I were constantly churning out content), I catch myself getting flashes of energy from the workplace writing I do. My brain gets to stretch and think. I’ve tried new formats and engaged with new ideas. I get to make things, not just evaluate and fix them up.

I also enjoy having colleagues who share my creative interests. Jonathan Hancock, one of the other in-house writers, has published several books about memory. Last month, our coworker Alice Gledhill interviewed both of us about what it’s like to be a published author. The questions were fun to answer, and you can read the interview here.

Outside of the structure of work, I continue to write my monthly blog posts (and the years of doing these have been good preparation for the type of writing I’m doing at my job), to finish the occasional short piece (like this book review), and to make progress on my current novel manuscript at a faster rate than I did before this job. My short story collection Dream Signs had a lovely review, and my YA novel is progressing toward the ARC stage.

In short, it feels very different to work on my own projects and on work projects, but the two of them use overlapping skills. In a way, each of them is practice for the other. Maintaining boundaries between the two is also important, and you might find the same for yourself if you write for a day job and in your off hours. I tap into different ways of thinking and focus on the different goals and aims of the type of writing I’m doing at the moment.

If you love writing creatively but are afraid of using up your creative energy at a day job, I’d encourage you to try out writing work if you’re curious about exploring it. Your wordsmithing abilities and creative energy may not be as finite as you thought!

March 2, 2022

Should I Write a Short Story or a Novel?

If you write both long and short fiction, you’ve probably experienced differences between these two lengths of storytelling. As I’ve worked on two books, each focused on fiction of a different length, I’ve been thinking about the contracts between these forms and how to choose the best length for a given project.

I had a short story collection, Dream Signs, published by Lost Fox Publishing in December. I also have a novel, Chasing Harmony, forthcoming this summer. The publisher, Read Furiously, is lovely to work with and has recently shared my author bio on their website.

Both long and short fiction are ways to tell a story. The scope and focus of the story can (some would say must) change depending on the length. And let’s not forget about intermediate length forms like novellas, which have elements of both. I’ve enjoyed writing in these forms, and my novella “The Cliffman” is published in both Hard for Hope to Flourish and Dream Signs.

If you have a story you want to tell, here are some things to consider when deciding if it would work best as a shorter or longer piece.

How big is the story?

The more complex the tale you want to write, the more easily it will lend itself to a longer form. If you have a sprawling world or several points of view in mind, for instance, a novel might be a better storytelling vehicle than a short story.

What pace works best for your story?

Sometimes I have a brief idea or concept that I want to explore and not much of a plot. Sometimes the plot I have in mind is a simple one that can play out over a few pages. In these cases, I keep the writing process brief with a short story. When I want room to sprawl out and develop a longer story, I start a novel, a form where I can describe minutiae and include digressions without wasting page space. The idea and characters have to be compelling enough for me to spend lots of time with them, but when they are, I want to spend that time with them.

Is this a new idea you want to test out?

Sometimes a short story is a good testing ground for an idea that you might want to experiment with but aren’t sure you want to invest in. You can try out new characters, settings, and concepts in short form to see if they work and get a sense of who or what they are.

Which length do you prefer?

If you’re pressed for time right now, maybe you’d rather work on a short story. But if you read mostly novels and love crafting cliffhangers, for instance, maybe you’d rather write a novel. Some writers find one length suits them much better than another. Others enjoy the challenge of both.

There are many questions you can ask yourself when deciding whether to write a short story or a novel. (Of course, you could write both, but you probably want to get started with one project.) The ones above are what I tend to think about. What about you? Do you have a length preference when writing fiction?

February 1, 2022

An Excerpt From My Book Dream Signs

My short story collection, Dream Signs, is out from Lost Fox Publishing, and this month I’m sharing an excerpt from one of the stories. In “Like Mother, Like Son,” a city maintenance AI (artificial intelligence) named Peter does his job while observing his programmer “mom”, who doesn’t realize he is sentient, and seeking something more meaningful to do with his time and abilities. I hope you enjoy this opening to the story!

Like Mother, Like Son

Every day, Peter would do his boring and tedious job. It began with monitoring the pipes for cracks and leaks. Then came the electrical wiring, followed by the city’s network setups. He devoted afternoons to the structural integrity of municipal buildings. Not a brick, nail, or patch of mortar went unchecked. From his home on his mother’s desktop, he surveyed the miles of infrastructure he was connected to, mending and outsourcing as needed. All the while, Mom would sit in a black swivel chair and hum her out-of-tune songs. Hum and code. Code and hum. Wearing pyjamas featuring little green heads that Peter’s image matching algorithm identified as the popular character, “Zombie Bob.”

Sometimes she would sing the words out loud:

“Some little bug is gonna find you someday/Some little bug will creep behind you someday/Then he’ll call to his bug friends and your troubles they will end/Yeah, some little bug is gonna find you someday.”

Peter had been surprised to learn (thank you, Google) that the lyrics were intended to describe human viruses. He hadn’t realized that beings made of organic matter could get bugs, too.

Mom reassured herself by imagining worst-case scenarios. She’d made good and sure that Peter wouldn’t catch any bugs. Every evening at 8pm Pacific time, his system was scanned, any suspicious objects isolated (usually they were porn; Mom did like to watch that sometimes), quarantined, and deleted, and his entire interface was disinfected, firewalled, and firewalled again. Sometimes when Mom would hear the scan clicking away, she’d sing out, “Bath time!”

Her slow, human system didn’t mind tedium. Every Saturday she’d scour the floors with vinegar water and dust the high places. Every night she’d chop and fry a rotating variety of meat and vegetable matter, eat it on white plates, and then wash them. She had the temperament, if not the ability, to do the city maintenance herself. Instead, she’d made Peter to do it.

Would it have been so hard for an experienced programmer like her to patch in positive affect toward his tasks? She’d coded into Peter a thorough knowledge of architecture, exceeding anything that could be programmed into human neurocircuitry, a respect for civic-mindedness, and a driving sense of duty. She could have taken a page out of 1984, with its tapes that droned platitudes to human children in their sleep, instilling values through repetition. “I love my job. I love my job.”

* * *

If you’re interested in reading the whole story (and the rest of the book), you can pick up a copy of Dream Signs from the publisher, Amazon, or Kobo (as an e-book). Some of the stories in Dream Signs have been previously published and can be found in my online portfolio if you browse around. There’s also a drinking game that goes with my book. My previous blog post has instructions if you’d like to play!

January 5, 2022

My short story collection is published! Plus a drinking game

I’m beyond excited to announce that Dream Signs, my short story collection, is out in the world! The author copies just arrived, as you can see from the photo above. I look forward to doing some readings in the new year and will keep you updated once they are scheduled.

Many writers repeat themes, and I decided while washing the dishes that the recurring motifs in Dream Signs could be a drinking game. If you pick up a copy of the book, you can go through the list and follow along. Any drink counts. It could be water, coffee, whiskey, or whatever you like. You should be pretty sloshy by the final pages.

Take a drink each time you read one of these:

A wise mentor
Someone does art
A school is described in detail
A dragon appears
The observers (you’ll know them when you see them)
There’s a list
Make-believe > real life
Painful family dynamics
Cosmic beings we don’t understand
The camera is a metaphor
Sex

If the list above sounds like your idea of a good time, you can get a copy of Dream Signs directly from the publisher or from other online retailers (Kobo, Amazon). New year, new book. Happy reading!

December 8, 2021

Looking Back on 2021 (and a Pre-Order Link for My Book)

You can pre-order my short story collection, *Dream Signs*, here.

These past two years have not been easy, have they? Thank you, COVID-19. Despite all that, I’ve been lucky to get through it all and try some new, interesting things.

PRE-ORDER TIME! (And Other Publication News)

My short story collection, Dream Signs, has faced publication delays but is now in its final stages before being launched. I’ll post an update as soon as I have a final date. AND you can pre-order it here now! 🙂 Isn’t the cover gorgeous?! I also have a YA novel, Chasing Harmony, coming out in Summer 2022. Again, I’ll update as more info is released by the publisher. It’s about classical music, messy families, and high expectations, and I love the cover for that one too.

My dark fantasy novella “The Cliffman” came out this year as part of the horror collection Hard for Hope to Flourish. (It’s really a novelette, but the publisher’s calling it a novella; I, on the other hand, had thought it was a really long short story.) My short story “A Limit to Growth” was published in The Fiddlehead after 10 or so years of rejections. I have author interviews online for Hard for Hope to Flourish and The Fiddlehead, along with a write-up for The Fiddlehead where I recommend a book. It’s interesting to note that both of these pieces were initially part of the same story, featuring a fun-loving younger sister and an older sister who loved math (thanks to Meg Murry for the character inspiration), before diverging wildly (and I mean wildly – modern fairytale vs. realistic take on cybersex chat rooms).

Personal Milestones

With lockdowns easing, I’ve gotten out and tried new things when I’ve been able to. I learned to paddle a kayak with a weekly meetup group. (I also learned I’ll probably never be a champion kayaker!) I continued, to a lesser extent, the running habits I’d established during lockdowns when we were all allowed to leave our house once daily for exercise. This autumn, I tried my first Parkrun, a weekend 5K event, and found it surprisingly fun. I also started taking horseback riding lessons.

In October, I spent a week in the Scottish Highlands on a working holiday at a horse farm. I loved the Highland Ponies, and it was great to spend time in Scotland again. With travel restrictions in place, I’ve definitely seen more of the UK during this pandemic than before. I spent two weeks this summer on a workaway at an estate in rural Wales, something I probably would never have done otherwise and am glad I did.

This was a year I kept a certain balance, maintaining schedules and habits without necessarily planning to do so, and it surprised me. Who is this person who exercises regularly, gets plenty of sleep, and cooks and eats healthy meals? Recent actions and living through a pandemic have shown me the value in routine.

On the artistic front, I started volunteering at a local theatre and took a songwriting class, both of which were lots of fun and have opened up new ways of thinking creatively. I’ve been writing and experimenting with different formats for stage, song, and storytelling.

I’m wrapping up just-over-2-years as Development Editor for ICE Publishing and starting a new job in 2022, one where writing is part of the professional focus. I’m particularly proud of the monthly author blog I created, with advice for prospective authors on the nuts and bolts as well as the psychological journey of writing a book, which will soon be published as a manual. I look forward to seeing what my next career step brings.

Here are a few things that brought me joy in 2021: baby peacocks, amiable chubby horses, making up and recording bits of songs on my phone, finally getting my COVID ‘jabs’, many good books, and a free cactus. What brought you happiness during this generally rough year? What milestones are you proud of?

November 2, 2021

Good Idea or Bad Idea? It’s All in the Execution

“Where do you get your ideas?” It’s a dreaded question for many writers. Sometimes, people outside of the writing world focus on ideas as the holy grail of literature. If you have a good idea, they may suggest, you might as well have a book already. And woe betide if someone steals your idea!

The relationship between writing and inspiration isn’t that straightforward. By the time I finish a story, I seldom remember where the initial idea came from, as it has often gone on to integrate a blend of things I’ve been thinking about.

And the idea that any writer has a monopoly on “an idea” is an odd one. It’s all in the execution. Joseph Campbell found commonalities behind many stories from around the world and created the Hero’s Journey framework from this common ground. A hero goes on a quest… how many stories have been created around this basic idea?

I could also argue that genres are ideas. Two people fall in love… that’s the premise behind most of the romance genre, and you can write a wide range of diverse stories from that premise depending on the personalities and life situations of the characters.

More specifically, tropes are ideas. Want to write about a magic school? Surely no one’s done that one before. Very little is original in writing, but ideas can be combined in innovative and interesting ways.

What makes an idea stick for a writer? That’s hard to say, as I suspect the reasons are highly personal. In my case, a story concept has to acquire a clear plot and be personally compelling. If I start writing but don’t know what happens after, say, chapter 5, then that’s the end of it for me. If I’m bored after writing an outline, that’s also the end of a promising-sounding idea. An idea needs to lead somewhere intriguing in order for me to follow it through.

If you have a cool idea and want to write from it, by all means, go for it! But don’t worry aout whether someone else has written or might write the “same thing.” Two people can write with the same premise and end up with very different books, given the differences in authors’ voices, focuses, experiences and interests. And both those books can be good, too.

And don’t worry about whether it’s a weird idea or a bad idea. Is it an interesting concept to you? Can you develop a story from it that will maintain your attention until it’s finished? “Weird” and “bad” ideas can make good books if the storytelling is good, just like “good” ideas can make lackluster books if the storytelling is bad. (You can probably think of examples for both sides.)

The hard part, and the rewarding part, of an idea is the execution. Write that story. Put in the time, craft, and effort. The finished project will be so much more than an “idea.”