Susan Calder

May is National Crime Writing Month. Who knew? CBC Canada Writes is posting daily, short writing tips by Canadian crime writers, including Giles Blunt, Debra Purdy Kong, Joy Fielding and Louise Penny.

For the past few weeks I’ve been working on a long short story and finished it Monday. Long short story seems a contradictory descriptor – like jumbo shrimp. My story is around 13,000 words – half way to novella length and five or six times longer than the average short story published today. Not that [...]

Personal deadlines work for me.  They prompt me to get started on my writing project so I have a chance of reaching my goal and keep me going as I approach the deadline. In early January, I began the second draft of my novel-in-progress. My deadline was the end of February, when I planned to [...]

Last week, I spent a fascinating afternoon and evening at the University of Calgary, speaking to students in the English department. Instructor Margaret Hadley included Deadly Fall in the course syllabus for her two Detective Fiction courses this term.  What a thrill it was to see my novel listed with stories by Edgar Allan Poe, [...]

On Saturday, I spoke to the Alberta Romance Writers Association about short story writing. To prepare, I took out a couple of books on the subject from the library and learned a few things. Apparently, as late as the 1950s you could earn a good living as a commercial short story writer. Magazines like Redbook and [...]

January was a productive month of writing for me.  After the holidays, I plunged into the second draft of my novel-in-progress.  In the past, I thought I enjoyed writing first drafts best for the discovery and because it doesn’t matter if your sentences are shoddy or if everything is accurate and fits together perfectly. With [...]

Friday evening, I spent a thoroughly enjoyable time at Calgary’s Pumphouse Theatre, watching the opening performance of  Front Row Centre’s Assassins, Stephen Sondheim’s Tony award-winning musical. I found it a well-performed, intriguing piece of theatre that is much edgier than most of the musical genre. Fans of dark stories will appreciate the glimpse into the [...]

If holidays are breaks from routine, I’ve been on holiday for the past month. During this time, I haven’t done any creative writing or attended any writing-related events; I’ve eaten too much food and way too many sweets, slacked off on formal exercise, played numerous board and card games and hosted four guests: my sons [...]

Here’s some writing advice for the new year from my favourite columnist, Russell Smith.

November is National Novel Writing Month. I haven’t participated in NaNoWriMo, but this November turned out to be my novel writing month for 2011. My latest novel writing binge began around October 20th, after I returned from a holiday in Ontario and Quebec. I usually have trouble getting back into writing mode after a break. [...]