Distractions

I've been trying to keep myself distracted while awaiting my first book release - pub. date is Nov. 24. I've been revising a wip and have also started something completely new. But reading good books has been my best distraction at the moment. Marissa Doyle's Bewitching Season has been sitting on my bedside pile for over a year now, and I've finally read it. Wow! I so enjoyed it and must read the next in the series, Betraying Season. I see she has a third coming out called, The Waterloo Plot. Historical fiction with romance and humour. Great combination. Marissa was co-chair of the Class of 2k8 and she was a kind, level-headed and grounded leader. So good to see how her writing career has taken off.

I've also just finished reading Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees. It was the right book at the right time and has got me prepared for life after publication. Listen to this quote from chapter 12: "Most books come into this world with the fanfare of a stillborn." (James Purdy). Oh. That's encouraging. Then Lerner goes on to say, "Publishing a book can be a cruel joke on the uninitiated." Well, that's me - the uninitiated. Okay, so I'm psyching myself up for postpartum depression and the cruel joke. You know, if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there, does it make a sound. Well, if you get a book published, and nobody reads it, does the book really exist?

My c0-BTP author, Bev Patt's, debut novel Haven, has just been born, and I wish Haven and its creator nothing but a wonderful life. Can't wait for my copy in the mail.

Let me quote from Lerner one more time: "This quixotic belief in oneself is critical for a writer's continued existence..." I hear music from Journey crowding my brain.

2k9

Check out the latest Class of 2k9 post. It's a 'marketing gift' to the class of 2k10. (And since it's on the internet, it's a gift to us all.) Great advice in there, too! Dare I sum it up? Get involved in group marketing, be bold, but be yourself. There's no right way to do this. Just believe and always keep writing.

I had to drop out of the Class of 2k8 (after spending a whole year in it). That was a sad shocker. Then I made the difficult decision of dropping out of the Class of 2k9. I still watched the class from afar - like a student who drops out of school - I'd sometimes stand on the opposite curb and watch the buzz (or is that 'hear' the buzzer?). Do I regret dropping out? Sometimes. But my reasons were reasonable and at the time it was the right decision. I learned so much just hanging out in 2k8 for over a year, and I strongly recommend group marketing for newcomers.

Publishing is a huge, confusing world. But that big publishing world seems a wee bit cozier when I recognize former classmates' books on Winnipeg bookstore shelves. Thanks fellow Blooming Tree author, Greg Fishbone!

Halloween Setting

It's a great time of year - the in between time - and the weather outside is totally perfect for wandering imaginations. To set the mood, one must listen to Hawksley Workman's song, Autumn's Here. Then add: grey sky, some fog, and a wind whipping dead leaves around. I love it!

Here's a link to a tour of Winnipeg's haunted spots. Yes, we have our ghosts here. Do I believe in ghosts? I've met a few, so I guess that makes me a believer. I brushed shoulders with my grandfather in Zhitomir while I was there. Okay, it might have been the wind, I admit, bumping into me while I turned that corner to the archives building. Wind is just one of nature's most amazing things - it's invisible, yet so powerful. Without wind, everything would stay the same.

Have yourself an imaginative Halloween!

Moving on...

Finished off my copy-edits yesterday (hurrah!!) and played the bit part of a harried/hurried mom in my daughter's college film project. Plus the day job. So today I can do the off-stage harried mom bit - laundry, scrounge for food, walk the ignored canine, pet the ignored other pet (poor kitty) and scream at all the clutter that grows in bathrooms and hallways. Why do girls have to try on three or four different outfits before they leave the house?

As to my movie debut? Umm, I think I'll stick to writing and reading.

Yaya, Siberia

My mother and her siblings, along with my grandmother, were exiled to a place called Yaya in Siberia. It's a bit southeast of Tomsk and off the beaten track. Thanks to google, I've more interesting information about this journey. It's about 3000 kilometers from Moscow to Yaya. Gas costing $1.29 a liter (or $4.89 a gallon) means a round trip would cost about $750.00 dollars - and we definitely would want to make this a round trip. But in 1930 they would have left from Zhytomyr, which adds another thousand kilometers to the trip. So a round trip from Zhytomyr ... would cost about $1000.00 dollars in gas money. Still probably cheaper than the train. Wouldn't that be a cross-country adventure?

Of course, back in 1930, the trip into exile was courtesy of the government. A slow, unheated freight train ride to the middle of nowhere at the beginning of winter. Plus, it was a one-way trip for my grandmother.

My grandmother was hoping that they'd be dumped in Irkursk on Lake Baikal because that was where other family members had been sent. It would have added another thousand kilometers. Yaya, was only supposed to be a transition camp - a place to spend the winter. Irkursk seems less desolate than Yaya. Today, it's quite the tourist destination - because of it's proximity to Lake Baikal, no doubt. So if I went, that would a good place in which to headquarter.

Someday.

Deflated

Do other authors go through this? I'm totally de-flated, dis-couraged, and de-layed.

New release date: November 24.

Sharing computers

Someday when I'm rich and famous (or old and lonely) I'm going to have my very own laptop and I'm not going to share. Does anyone else have these issues? Back in the old days I could write whenever the 'muse' hit me. Now, I write when my favorite teenager is working, still sleeping, or at school.

I guess I could exercise the muse with the old pen and notebook. Some tools will never go out of style.