Sir Winston
To Sir, with love
Straws ‘Suck’
The smallest things can brighten my day. Finding these glass straws at a local business did just that.
Single-use plastic straws are one of the top 10 kinds of trash adding to the 20 million tonnes of plastic litter entering the oceans every year.
Enough plastic straws are produced annually to fill over 46 THOUSAND full sized school buses! (enviroglassstraw.ca)
Now that’s a visual.
Glass straws aren’t the solution for beverage businesses that still use straws in their drinks, but they are perfect for home use. (Fortunately there are biodegradable options if businesses still want to offer straws.)
It wasn’t too many years ago that curbside recycling was unheard of, and we all left the grocery stores laden down with plastic shopping bags. Now our blue recycling boxes and ‘green’ bins are full and everyone is remembering to bring reusable bags when they shop. The impact of these small behavioural changes has made a huge difference to our planet. Hopefully we’ll all move towards either declining straws for our beverages, or opting for glass or biodegradable ones.
“We believe that by making small changes to our everyday lives, we can make a huge difference worldwide.” (Enviro Glass Straw)
I believe that too.
http://www.enviroglassstraw.ca/
Photo credit: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-globe-mascot-giving-thumbs-up-image23457370
The book reviews that really matter
When your hot-off-the-press book is released into the world there’s a trembly period of time when you obsess over how its audience is going to receive it. There’s a lot to be learned by reading the professional reviews but when someone from your targeted audience writes and tells you that your book touched them in some way… well, that’s all that really matters. After receiving the following review I knew that the time spent writing and editing this book was worth it. It was also a reminder to go back to my old practise of reviewing the books I love.
Oh Shelley Shelley Shelley!
I barely know what to say besides thank you for writing Dancing in the Rain. Wow. I have JUST finished your book. I laughed, I shrieked, and I most definitely bawled my eyes out. You wrote such a beautiful, emotional, truthful, heart wrenchingly wonderful follow up (to Dancing Naked.) I could not have ask for anything more.
I will be honest, there were parts that were incredibly emotional for me to read. So much of my own life’s experiences could connect with this story. I found myself looking back over my own life and my adoption and how that got me to where I am. And who I am. So many of the questions Brenna had for Kia, I too once had about my own “other” life. I could honestly talk about this for hours. I am just so happy and thankful for this book. I think it has really hit a spot for me and I know I will hold it dear forever.
I just wanted to share my thoughts and feelings about your wonderful book with you. Thank you, Shelley. (shared with permission)
And thank you, Christy Brain!
Love.com
This is the title of an unpublished book I’ve written. It’s a short, tongue-in-cheek story of the perils of on-line dating. (I write from experience.) This is also my first stab at writing fiction for an adult audience.
I actually had fun writing Love.com. It wasn’t work at all, the story practically wrote itself and I smiled through the whole process. Perhaps I felt it was my chance to gently poke fun at some of the experiences I had when I briefly ventured down that perilous road.
I haven’t begun the submission process with this one yet, (I’m unfamiliar with the publishers of this genre) but I have shared it with a number of friends. Here is the latest review I received from a writer friend whose feedback I always trust.
“I loved, loved, loved this book. It is fast-paced and funny, with great characters, and a compelling story. I was charmed by it! I think you must send it out into the world …you might check some publishers of romance novels. There is such an authenticity to this manuscript. I thought it was sensational!” (Deborah Hodge)
Maybe there is an audience for this little story after all. Fingers crossed….
Photo credit: freepik.com
Book Gestation
An elephant carries her unborn baby for 2 years.
A donkey can carry their unborn young for 14 months.
Humans grow babies in nine months.
My latest story took 5 years from first tentative words on paper to actual book, so to have it in my hands now… well, it is beyond satisfying. (And there are no late night feeds or dirty diapers to deal with either.)
I wasn’t writing for those full 5 years. In fact, I signed a contract for its publication 2 years ago, but it had to wait in line behind other books that came before it, and then it went through the editing and publishing process. There were many moments of numbing uncertainty, confidence failure and near bailing, but I believed in my characters, they are real people to me, and the relief that their story has been told is sweet beyond belief.
Huge gratitude to all those readers who wrote to me after reading Dancing Naked, asking to know what became of Kia, Brenna and Justin. We may never meet, but you planted the seed, and it grew into an entirely new story. Thank you, and please continue to give your favourite authors feedback. You have no idea how much it helps.
How do I become a writer?
I’m often asked this during school visits and by aspiring writers. The answer is surprisingly straightforward.
1. Read (a lot)
2. Write (a lot)
There is no magic. It boils down to hard work. No one can teach you how to write a book. You learn by doing.
Author Brian Doyle (The Plover) sums it up nicely. He says, “If you wish to be a writer, write. There are people who talk about writing and then there are people who sit down and type. Writing is fast typing. Also, you must read like you are starving for ink. Read widely. Read everything… ”
He adds, “A piece is not finished until it is off your desk and onto an editor’s desk. Write hard and then edit yourself hard. Look carefully at your verbs to see if they can be energized… You do not need a sabbatical or a grant to write a book. Write a little bit every day. You will be surprised how deep the muck gets at the end of the year, but at that point you can cut out the dull parts, elevate your verbs…find the right title, and send it off to be published.”
I might add one more thing to Doyle’s wisdom…
3. Get feedback.
A writing critique group (or partner) is critical to help you find those dull parts. This shouldn’t be your romantic partner or best friend, they will spare your feelings and tell you that your work is brilliant. It’s not. Every writer needs constructive feedback and editing.
Writing classes can’t teach you how to write your book, but they can get you warmed up through the use of writing exercises and assignments so sign up for one if you can’t get started.
No two writers approach their work in the same manner. There is no right or wrong way. Some outline in detail. Some revise as they’re going along. Some just sit and write madly until the first draft is complete, and then go back and revise.
Whichever approach works for you, just do it. Turn off the TV. Unplug (or set to vibrate) the phone, and put your fingers on the keys.
Oh, one more thing. Please invite me to the launch party.
Cartoon credit: Calvin and Hobbes
Thank you, Mom
This week I spent a morning sitting in a comfy lounge chair at my local library. Occasionally I would look up from the book I was reading and watch the steady stream of people going in and out through the front doors. It was a weekday morning, so it was mostly seniors and toddlers with their caregivers. Librarians were helping patrons, and there was a quiet but friendly buzz in the building. I said a quiet ‘thank you’ to my mom who turned me into a library user all those years ago. Is there a better institution in our communities? I don’t think so. All those books, free! Continue reading
A Catch 22 – Selling the rhino horn to save the rhino
Okay, who doesn’t want a cure for cancer and/or hangovers? I sympathize, but I won’t be looking to the horn of the rhino for relief anytime soon.
As we’ve heard in the news, rhino horns are a coveted commodity in Asia, thought to do everything from curing life-threatening disease to relieving simple ailments. As a result, the animals are being illegally poached and killed for their horns. Their numbers have dwindled alarmingly. The situation is dire.
Enter, stage left: South African, John Hume owns and operates the world’s largest captive breeding operation of rhinos. He claims that his life ambition is to save the rhinos from extinction. His farm houses 4% of the global population. He, too, saws off the rhinos’ horns, (without killing the animal) in order to make them less attractive to the poachers (who do kill them). The thing is, the horn grows back and can be harvested every 18 months.
The twist: Hume sells the horns to the Asian market, arguing that the profit he makes goes directly back into sustaining his farm that protects the rhino.
Talk about a paradox. Hume is keeping the demand for rhino horns alive, the exact same reason he has to run a rhino refuge in the first place.
If there was scientific evidence showing that yes, indeed, the rhino horn does have medicinal value, this practise of Hume’s may have some merit, but until then… it seems education is still the way to go, the dispelling of incorrect beliefs about the properties of the rhino horn.
(And yes, easy for me to sit here in Canada and condemn a practise happening in South Africa when our own threatened species, the grizzly bear, is still being trophy hunted. Just as horrific, I know, I know.)
Cover Art!
Here it is, the cover for my soon-to-be released novel.
It’s always a bit of a shock for an author to see the cover of their new book. We have our own idea of what it will look like after years spent writing and rewriting the story, but the publisher is the one who designs it.
This is not the cover I imagined at all, yet it’s perfect, depicting some of the key elements in the story. I also love the background colours.
I’d imagined a female figure actually ‘dancing in the rain’, but that would have been all wrong as the title is just a metaphor for what happens in the story. No one actually dances, but the characters do spend time riding trams and the forest trails and mountain vistas are central to the story. The mood of the cover art is achy, the characters’ paths are about to cross but they are separated by the isolating bubble of their individual trams. They are on their own journeys.
Beautifully done, Orca Book Publishers. Thank you. Can’t wait to get my hands on the first copy.
Just The Word
Just.
I just wanted a bit.
It just takes a moment.
If he would just hurry up.
It just means…
It would just be setting you up for failure.
My editor suggested that I delete the word ‘just’ as often as I could from my soon-to-be-published novel. A quick search showed me how often I used the word, and how needlessly. Apparently it is a common writing error. I’m tempted to revisit my older titles to see if I’ve overused it in those stories too, but I won’t. It would ‘just’ depress me. (See? I’m still doing it.)
As I work on my novel-in-progress, I’m hyper aware of that niggling adverb. I’m striking it from my writing vocabulary. Just wait and see if you can spot a single j word. (oops)
Photo credit:
http://nowastedink.com/2013/04/12/copy-editing-software-for-authors/
