Happy 2020!

It's COLD outside. Ok, I know I live in Canada and the whole world thinks we all live in igloos, and that might be true of some parts of the Canadian prairies and on northward, but this is British Columbia--near the US border. It's not supposed to be -20 Celsius. Well, -14 at the moment. And snow, too. That's nothing new for the Okanagan Valley, and I know we're stuck with it until about mid-March or thereabouts. One of the bus drivers said "S-N-O-W = Something No One Wants". He got that right.

Besides griping about the weather, though, other things are moving along. The good news is that my husband's long wait for his aortic valve replacement has finally been scheduled. It's on January 31st, and we're already booked into a hotel for the day before and a couple of days after. We hadn't realized how much this wait had worried us until we got the news. The wait was, pardon the pun, truly a WEIGHT that has been lifted.

It doesn't take long for the calendar to fill up with doctors' appointments and other activities such as White Cane meetings and church meetings. I'm at Cowork a couple of days a week, and don't seem to get much done. The big highlight of the week is Tuesday and, sometimes, Thursday when Frank and I go to the pool with our son, Steve. Writing? At Cowork when I can fit it in between printing out whatever is sent that I have to "show" Frank, in order to keep him in the loop. It's only fair. I couldn't possibly do that without Cowork!

What happened to October 2019?

It came and it went. Even my autobiography got shoved aside. Monday, September 30th, I started teaching a new ESL student, referred to me by my previous ESL student. Luz comes twice a week, Wednesdays 10 to 11, and Fridays 4 to 5. Today, somehow, she didn't show up. Could have been because of the changes from October 24th to 31st. I had to cancel the Friday and Wednesday of that week. More about that in a few minutes. So, the ESL tutorials account for a "loss" of two hours a week writing time.

Much of my time was taken with preparing to go to the Surrey International Writers' Conference, October 24th to 27th. Not the writing I'd hoped to take with me, or to prepare to do there, just preparing to leave my husband alone for seven days. I wanted to have some "me-time" after the conference, stay with friends until the end of the month. Not doing that again. I was leaving on Thursday, October 24th and coming back on October 31st, flying home on my broomstick.

But first I had to arrange for someone to check in on my 86-year-old crippled husband once a day, help him get his shoes on if he wanted to go out, make sure he had his medicines, and at least make a sandwich for him for his lunch. Interior Health (the regional health service for this part of the province of British Columbia) assured me that a visiting nurse would come every morning between 9am and 11am. They pledged to do "dress assist" and "medicine assist" and "meal assist". We would pay $31 (and change) per hour or $72 per day whichever was less. I'm just waiting to see what the bill will say when it comes. Because: over 7 days, 6 "nurses" came (one came twice) but none of them were nurses. They were "care support workers". So--Frank attempted to be up every morning with at least most of his clothes on. Not once did any of these "workers" offer to put on his shoes. When he asked them to give him his morning pills, one of them (the one who came twice) didn't know how to open a blister pack, and when she checked with her supervisor, she was told not to give him any of his medicines. The second time she came, she had mastered the mysteries of the blister pack but would not set the Victoza pen to the correct dosage. Frank managed to get her to let him know when he had clicked to the correct dosage, so that was okay. (He's legally blind, so he can't see the numbers on the pen.)  All six women objected to giving him Tylenol-for-arthritis. Only one actually did give it to him because she reasoned that it was an over-the-counter medicine. But he had to promise not to tell on her as she wasn't supposed to. Because she wasn't a nurse. WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE NURSES. He's also supposed to have hydromorphone, but there was no use asking for that. As a result, he spent the week in pain because we didn't have nurses. Meal assist? One woman made him a peanut butter sandwich, but that was while I was still there and I told her to. One peanut butter sandwich was supposed to last him for seven days? Too much to ask that he be given one peanut butter sandwich every day for seven days? There were also half a dozen dinners from "meals on wheels" that the surveillance nurse said could be heated up for him. I still have all those dinners in the freezer in exactly the same spots that the MOW volunteer put them the day after I left. So, $31 an hour? Not one of these women stayed even 15 minutes, let alone the hour we were promised. What do you bet they try to charge us $31 X 7 days of "service"? Seven hours of nothing. But they're the government. However, when I mentioned to someone that I planned to write a letter of complaint, my friend suggested I send the letter to the newspaper. I think I will. As soon as I get that bill.

He did cope pretty well. Our son, Steve, came over several times, and helped him. They had meals at restaurants. They even went shopping and Frank cooked a big pack of sausages and had sausage sandwiches every day for supper. One night he added fried eggs. When I got home I was amazed that he hadn't created a bigger mess than the one that greeted me on my arrival. Next time I leave him alone, he's going into a respite centre whether he wants to or not.

clutter

I don't have a cluttered desk at Cowork, because I have to clear it off every evening when I leave--nothing on the desk, nothing on the shelf above the desk (except for the official notice that it is reserved for me on Mondays and Fridays), and nothing in the three drawers that I used to have full to over-flowing when I rented this desk "permanently." I have a small suitcase that I use to bring to Cowork anything that I need to use at the hot desk.

At home I have a small desk in my bedroom. It's handy for me to use when I make a phone call or need to make a quick note to myself. Too small to allow it to get cluttered. It's a roll-top desk, borrowed from my son Steve, and it has a shelf-like top above the roller. I have pictures made by my son Ken, and a box of his with his brother's pumice stone inside. I keep the pumice stone because there's some dried blood on it, from Frank's forehead when he rubbed a wart he should have left alone. I also have some pictures of St. Francis of Assisi, a couple of crosses, a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and some printed out prayers. I guess it's a shrine of sorts, devoted to the memory of my eldest son Frank (1957-2005) and my second son Ken (1959-2012), both victims of the demon Cancer. I don't consider this shelf to be cluttered.

 My bedroom itself is cluttered with boxes and bags of things that have yet to be sorted since we moved to Penticton in April 2016. I'm working on it. I've made more progress than you might imagine, given that I still haven't finished in three years. Everything that didn't have an obvious place to reside, got put in my bedroom. Now, most of it is getting tossed in the garbage anyway. I just have to look at it first, and decide.

It's my head that's cluttered. I come to Cowork to write. Sometimes, I print out documents sent to me by the church where I serve on the Church Council, or documents from various doctors that I have to read to my husband and are illegible on my little iPhone. But mostly, I want to write here. I've been working very hard on my autobiography, If Anyone Should Ask, now on Decade 7 of my life. Finish this decade and Decade 8 and I'm done. It's rough. Not much editing. But it's not for publication. If you aren't a member of my family, there's no chance you'll get to see it. I mentioned it at the writing critique group I belong to, and the "leader" said she "had concerns about it." No she doesn't. It's absolutely none of her "concern" at all. She was "concerned" about my using anecdotes. She writes non-fiction books about submarines, so I guess she doesn't have any anecdotes. It was her husband's profession, and her knowledge is second-hand at best. So, autobiography aside, what else do I write here?

Today, I've taken refuge in this blog. I'm writing about writing, or not writing. Being at this desk only twice a week, I feel a bit nervous when I'm not making good use of the time. Blogging is good, but creative writing is better. At home, I've been reading about short stories, and reading short stories from all different sources--classics like Guy de Maupassant and Hemingway, for example, and contest winners from 2019 Short Story Contest at the CBC. I think I could write short stories long-hand in notebooks at home, between Cowork session. Maybe submit something for the 2020 contest.  Sounds like a good plan. So far, no progress.

So what should I be doing at my hot desk at Cowork? Besides my autobiography and blog? It's the novels that are cluttering my mind: First there's the trilogy that was sabotaged when my thumb-drive went crazy and turned the whole thing into a mess of upside-down question marks, and I lost my first book, House of Secrets. And about half of the second book, Baby's Breath. And notes for the third book of the trilogy, Flowers and Flames. I'm sure I have most of the above printed out, but I haven't the courage to look.

Then there's the book I started when I was taking Creative Writing courses at UBC.  I guess I started it long before that, but it was in one of these courses that I got pushed to go outside of my comfort zone--try a fantasy. Really? I always say I don't like fantasy, but that's not true. I loved Lord of the Rings, The Narnia Chronicles and Harry Potter. Fantasies, all of them. So, I drew a deep breath and re-started my story which doesn't have a title yet. It's a historical ghost story. Historical because the main part of the story is circa 1950, in London, England. Then the protagonists (two girls) meet a couple of ghosts and, in the Bloody Tower of the Tower of London, they meet the ghosts of the two princes allegedly murdered by their favourite uncle. But the boys don't believe it was their uncle, and command the girls to travel back in time to their murder and find out whodunit. (They were smothered in their sleep, so they didn't see it coming.) I'm having a ball researching and scribbling. I can't find the scenes I've actually written, but that book might get done before the trilogy! Maybe!

writing and hot-desking

Writing. What's that? I mean the writing of novels and things. I'd be delighted to come up with a short story, or even an article. A poem? Well, I have been working on that autobiography, If Anyone Should Ask. In fact, I'm into Decade 6. I still can't face that novel that got fried in its thumb drive. Haven't looked at it in months. That really hurt! However, maybe I can get the autobiography finished and edited and printed and distributed--hopefully by the end of the year. Hope!

Hot desking works well for me. I have a routine now, sort of. I've reserved the desk I used to have for Mondays and Fridays. I still don't come in early enough. But I do what I can while I'm here, and that's a lot more than I'd get done if I stayed home or tried the library/coffee shop routine some writers do. That would never work for me. I have to have a place I'm paying for and that I can use for the purpose of writing alone. If I want to go to Blenz for a coffee, or to Tugs for lunch, I can leave my work on the desk and go out for an hour. Or I can bring something to eat at my desk. No one bothers me. But there are people here if I feel the need for company--that rarely happens.

writing and hot desking, really now

Didn't say much (anything) about writing or hot desking in my last post with this title, so I guess I owe you, eh?
First the hot desking: It's working out very well. I have been remembering to bring everything I need, and even a bit more, but that's okay. So far, I've been able to get a desk every time I come in. I was a bit worried a couple of times, because it seemed to me that I just squeezed in, getting the last desk available. It's odd not always being in the same place. It's even odder when it happens that I am in my usual place--like today, for example. I still look up at the shelf for my Kleenex box and have to remember that I now bring my own little packets each time. The drawers are always empty, of course, but I quickly fill them with my handbag and stuff that has to be repacked when it's time to go home. I keep a log of my times here, and so far I've used all eight of my pre-paid visits each month and it doesn't seem that I miss not having more. Of course, I can come in on the weekend if I want to, thanks to my $25 extra for the key and 24/7 access privilege. Haven't used that yet, but I do quite regularly use this privilege by staying well past 5pm closing time. This is now nearing the end of my third month of hot desking, and I'm perfectly happy with the way it's going.

Now. Writing. Hm. Okay. It's not the way I would like it to be.
I have not been able to face the novel that got jumbled in the USP thing that turned my work into a mess of upside-down question marks, etc. I just can't face it yet. I haven't even looked to see how much of it was salvaged by being printed out. It's on a shelf in my bedroom, giving me nightmares. That's the first book in the trilogy, its title is House of Secrets.
The second book in the trilogy is called Baby's Breath. I've taken the rewritten first few pages of chapter one of that to the critique group mentioned in the previous post. Seven hundred words out of seventy thousand--to be reread and rewritten according to advice from peers who have no idea what the first book was about or what this book is going to be about. Yes, the feedback is helpful. Yes, they have good suggestions. But it would take a thousand years to get the rest of it done, at this rate. So, instead of doing that, I've taken to making character sketches of about 700 words for them to critique, and maybe some them will make it into the book. However, at the age of 80 (I'll be 81 in less than three months) I'll need to live to be 200 to complete the trilogy.
Here's an idea: Maybe if I work on book 2 (Baby's Breath) in July--just as if it were a Nanowrimo project, write the whole thing in 30 days. Then, in August, pound out book three, I think it's to be called something like Flames and Flowers, or Flowers and Flames, or something--about arson--and do that in 30 days. July and August each have 31 days, so I can cheat a little and maybe take a day or two off or do a double shift. At least that way I'll have the rough drafts down and can really concentrate on getting all three books done by the end of the year. It means taking a couple of months off from working on my autobiography, If Anyone Should Ask, but … well, we'll see which takes priority. My writing these last few months has been almost entirely working on the autobiography. I've now completed four decades.

desk in a suitcase 1

I'm not a fan of change. But it has occurred to me that I'm not making best use of the resources I have. For example, I have a desk and a filing cabinet and two bookcases and a sofa in a small room. So why do I have to rent a desk at Cowork (my favourite get-away)? I can do what I did when I first moved to Penticton. I can "hot desk" at Cowork. That means, instead of having a desk that is just for me, with locked drawers where I can keep my computer and "stuff", I just use any vacant desk and pay for the time I actually use it. Or I can pre-pay for eight days a month. For less than $130 per month (plus $25) I can go in any 8 days of the month, and have access to the building 24 hours a day 7 days a week so I can stay past the 5pm closing time, and come in on weekends, etc. As it is, I still have the 24 hours privilege as well as the locked desk, but I rarely go there more than eight days in a month. The locked desk, etc., comes to roughly $430 per month.
In addition to saving a few dollars every month, I think I can work more efficiently if I develop my idea of a desk in a suitcase.
My suitcase is quite small--it will fit in an overhead bin on an airplane. It has good wheels and a matching tote-bag that fits on top, attached to the collapsible handle. I can easily get it to and from Cowork, and keep all my work with me at home as well as at the office.
I'll let you know how that works out for me.

a backward step

A backward step to say the least! On the 8th of this month, less than a week ago, I put my thumb-drive in place and called up the novel I've been working on for ...how many years?... And guess what. It's gone. Wiped out. Nothing but computer language, upside down question marks, etc.. Try to call it up based on most recent date--page doesn't exist. "Maybe moved or deleted," says the message. I have a lot of it printed out, but not all of it. A year ago I paid an editor $1600 for an evaluation--I still have that, at least. Now I'm so discouraged, I don't know what to do.  At my age (80), I am not even sure I care to continue. Is it worth it after all?

While I ponder that question, I'll go back to writing my autobiography. I'll let you know my decision about the trilogy I'm halfway through--backward steps notwithstanding--or maybe I should just quit.

I'm so disappointed!

I just found out that the Surrey International Writers' Conference 2018 is sold out. All except the Sunday Only package. Well, I'm not going to travel all the way to the Coast for a solitary day. Especially since Greyhound is cancelling all but one Western Canadian routes. (The exception, unfortunately, is not the route I need.)
Serves me right, I guess. I should have known. This conference is probably the best in the world (so I've been told by some internationally famous authors who are presenters on a regular basis).  There are people like Anne Perry, Diana Gabaldon, Elizabeth George, and so on. (Men too, but these are the ones I always like to see when they're here.) These aren't here every time, but this is the calibre of speaker we are used to at the Surrey Conference. I've been to several, and volunteered at a few. Never a waste of time or money, even though it is rather expensive. Especially if you stay in the hotel, but there are several other hotels to choose from.
So, for 2019, I have to start watching for early registrations and get my name in quickly. No procrastinating.
No bus next year, of course. I'll have to fly. I hate airports but absolutely will not drive. I wish that a train was a possibility, but no such luck.
I'm just plain disappointed.

Writing this novel

I thought I'd finished it. But that was almost a year ago. Then, after several non-responses from prospective agents, I decided to get it professionally evaluated. Not edited. I think I can do that myself. With a degree in linguistics and another degree in education, plus nearly forty years experience teaching English, I think I can do my own editing. I'm not perfect. I can make mistakes as easily as the next person. And I know that I'm the worst person to do my own fault-finding when reading my own work. That is why I truly crave a critique group. Some people with similar goals and interests as myself. But an evaluation would be helpful.
Now, my master's degree in education was in curriculum and instruction, and included a lot of work on what curriculum and instruction evaluation looked like. But it seems that none of that applied to this manuscript evaluation. At the very least, I'd hoped the editor I paid to do the job would tell me if the story was worth rewriting or if I should just abandon it. But she said nothing about that.
She was, however, extremely helpful in other ways. She couldn't resist editing, though. Most of which I ignored because I didn't agree with her. Also, she didn't understand one of my main characters--the mother of the protagonist. That character happens to have serious personal flaws. Mainly, she is not a good mother. She doesn't listen to her daughter's concerns. She doesn't always remember to provide for her daughter's needs. She puts her job ahead of her parenting, and so on. That's who she is. That's one of the problems that my protagonist has to deal with. But my editor is a good mother. I can tell by the criticisms she has of "Fiona." So I have to seriously think about each comment she makes about the relationship between Fiona and her daughter in the story. It's most irritating, because I know my characters and how they have to interact.
Back to the helpful bits, though. My editor has a daughter in a wheelchair, and my main character is a teenaged girl in a wheelchair. So, although I've had a son in a wheelchair, and I've had a close friend in a wheelchair, and I've worked in a rehabilitation centre where most of the patients I dealt with were in wheelchairs, there's still a lot I don't know about life in a wheelchair. My editor gave me a lot of advice that was extremely helpful.
So now what? I'm still working on editing and rewriting this novel. I've been at it for about ten months now, and I'm only half way through the rewrites. I'm feeling totally lost, and very discouraged at this moment.
The other problem with this slow progress is that before I sent House of Secrets away for evaluation, I was already halfway through the first draft of the sequel! And I want to write a third novel with these characters to make it a trilogy.  If these books are going to take as much time as H of S, then I'll have to live well into my hundreds!!

joy?

Today, I have no feeling of joy. Usually, I look forward to my time at Cowork, at my desk, working on editing my "completed" novel, or writing new material on one I have on the go. But not today.

For one thing, I have a few people who owe me money, and I really hate to ask for it. But the amounts are quite substantial, and I could certainly use it right now.

But that's not the main thing. What is really bothering me is this computer. Have I mentioned it before? It's a Microsoft product called "Surface" and is the worst piece of junk I've ever worked on. It totally has a mind of its own. Sometimes, that's just irritating, and I can rein it in and do what I wanted it to do in the first place--write my novel, or compose an email, etc.--before it took off in another direction altogether. This time it's more serious, and is really making me wonder if I shouldn't just quit the whole idea of creative writing. I don't love it anymore. Not on this contraption.

What happened? Recently I paid an editor about $1600 for an evaluation. So, of course, I took her comments on the document very seriously. I don't hand over $1600 for nothing, you know. So, since about last November (about three months ago) I've been editing and rewriting the novel I had considered to be finished. I'm very grateful to Karen Autio for all her work.

So now: Surface has decided that all my edits should be written in red--the parts I'd deleted are in red, but with strikethroughs. And I can't delete anything at all. It's locked in.

Sure, I can get someone to come and help me get rid of it all, but why should I have to do that? What on earth made the damn thing do that? I didn't have the cursor where it didn't belong. I didn't click on anything other than the keys I needed to type my edits.

OH LOOK! It's about to do it again! I just got a "heads up" notice that it's going to give me a whole lot of updates I didn't ask for and don't need and don't want. But this is Microsoft, and I apparently don't own the piece of junk I bought at Best Buy in October 2015.  (It had to be in the shop for repairs FOUR times before April 2016. Four times in six months.) DON'T BUY A SURFACE COMPUTER!

pet grammatical peeve

So often, I find that what I want to blog about is one of my pet peeves. And so it is today. I don't know if I've posted this one before, but I just came across it in a book I purchased on Saturday at the Surrey International Writers' Conference. It's one of the for Dummies books, so that might account for this, but I don't think so.

My complaint is this. Many people who have university degrees in such things as creative writing or English literature, seem to think of themselves as experts in English grammar. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case.

My bachelor's degree is in linguistics. I took countless courses in literature: English, Canadian, French, French-Canadian, Russian (both classical and Soviet). None of the lit courses qualified me as a grammarian in any of those languages. My expertise (and I believe 40 years of experience does make me an expert) comes from teaching English as a Second Language.

Today, in Writing Children's Books for Dummies, I came across a section in Chapter 7 about creating compelling characters. Page 127, to be exact. The subtitle was "Toss out passivity and indefinites." I'm sure the gist of the advice was very good. My complaint is the constant misuse of the term "passive voice" in books and articles and journals, etc., directed at writers. So many of these people want to toss out the verb "to be" labelling it as "passive". NONSENSE

In The Grammar Book--an ESL/EFL Teacher's Course, by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman (Newbury House Publishers, Inc., Rowley, Massachusetts 01969, USA, 1983) the passive voice is addressed in chapter 17. (That sentence was written in the passive voice.)

Unfortunately, I don't have the most recent edition, so the page number and chapter citation may be different in the newer editions. However, the grammar has not changed. In the second paragraph of the chapter, on page 221, there is this statement (NB, this is not in the passive voice as the Dummies book would have you believe): "...English is a 'subject-verb-object' language and that common alternatives to the S-V-O order are S-O-V and V-S-O." The text goes on to give an example for the active voice." I'll try to avoid direct quotes here as there are some comments that direct the reader to earlier chapters.

The point is this: "John sketched the picture." (Subject John, Verb sketched, Object the picture) is an example of a sentence in the active voice. If we say "The picture was sketched by John." we now have a passive voice sentence. We did this by putting the object in the position of the subject and gave it a form of the verb "to be" which was immediately followed by the past participle of the main verb. We could have left it like that if we didn't want to accuse John of sketching it. However, here we added the original subject as the object of the preposition "by"--thereby creating the typical passive voice sentence. Passives are particularly popular with newspapers and other places where the writer might wish to omit the name of the perpetrator of the action.

Just having a form of "to be" in a sentence does NOT make it passive.
I wish those who pretend to be grammarians would first check with those who truly are.
There. That's my pet peeve for today,

SiWC 2017

Yesterday evening I arrived home after four nights in one of my favourite hotels, Accent Inns in Burnaby.
Unfortunately, I didn't get my dates straight in enough time to fulfill my volunteering obligations, and had to cut down my time at the Surrey International Writers' Conference to only Saturday--missing all of Thursday, Friday and Sunday. However, it was not time wasted.

At the conference, I went into the room I would have to be in for the next workshop in order to introduce that speaker. Luckily, the early workshop was ""The Whirlwind Researcher" presented by Kearsley. Very worthwhile! As was Greg Van Eekhout's "Middle Grade: Beyond the Formula."

After lunch, I tried a workshop on writing short stories, but I was very sleepy and had to leave. So that was it for the conference for me.

Next year, I'll reserve the hotel room sometime before summer for the October conference, and I'll sign up as a participant, not a volunteer.

back to writing about writing

The travel rants are done. But not necessarily all the traveling. I just had a four day rest in Vancouver. Keeping busy, of course. I was able to see several friends and a grandson, so that was great. I also had a very special honour. The Faculty of Arts at UBC (my alma mater, of course) had invited me to be an alumni representative on the stage, greeting new grads as they paraded across the stage receiving their degrees. I was the first person ever to greet each PhD recipient with the words, "Congratulations, Doctor!"  Thrilling! (Robed in university regalia and processed in with the Mace and dignitaries, WOW!)
But that's not about writing!
Today I'm here at my desk, at Cowork where I rent my lockable desk and come to be away from all distractions) and writing.
My novel, HOUSE OF SECRETS, has been "finished" for several months now. But I still see things I want to fix. Meanwhile, I'm sending out queries to agents.
The first agent I pitched this to was Laura Bradford at the SiWC (Surrey International Writers' Conference) in October 2015. Laura asked for the first 100 pages, with some significant changes. I did the rewrite and sent it to her the following September. No response, so I guess no sale.
So, I continued working on book 2 of the trilogy (BABY'S BREATH), and tweeking HOUSE OF SECRETS.
Since my return from Europe, I've added to my work schedule the task of researching more agents and submitting queries. To date, I've queried Michael Hoogland at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. Unfortunately, he has already passed on my novel. However, I now have queries out to Sue Miller at Donaghy Literary Group, Cori Deyoe at Three Seas Literary Agency and Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary & Media, Inc.
No more of this nonsense of submitting to one agency or publisher and waiting for an eternity for a response--or lack of one. More and more agents are saying they expect the submissions to be simultaneously sent elsewhere. They only want to be advised if and when someone actually accepts the novel and makes an offer. I can do that!

SiWC 1916 accommodations

On Saturday, October 15th, my husband and I went to Vancouver. Our first trip back since our move to Penticton last April. The first five days were catching up with a few friends (couldn't get together with some, unfortunately) and taking care of Franciscan obligations. (See that blog entry.)
Then, on Thursday a friend kindly transported us from the Accent Inn, Burnaby, to the Sheraton Guildford in Surrey for the conference.
My husband had to amuse himself while I attended the Surrey International Writers' Conference on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The conference was excellent as always. I didn't manage to connect with friends as I usually do, and that was the only disappointment.
It's so hard to get to all the workshops I like, while still taking the opportunities to meet with agents for pitch sessions and with fellow writers for blue pencils (editing). Still it's worth the effort.
I want to get the calendar in front of me before I tell you what workshops I did manage to attend. For now, here's just the mechanics of getting around.
When I first booked my room at the Sheraton, at the same time that I registered for the conference, I didn't know my husband wanted to come, too. Not to the conference, but to the Lower Mainland, and to extend the visit to include our Franciscan obligations.
As a result, the Sheraton room was not very "handicap accessible" and I didn't think to change that before our arrival. We spent the first night in my original room, but my husband had so many difficulties that they finally were able to give us another room where he could be comfortable.
The staff were exceptionally helpful for the whole time we were there.
My conference registration was for the whole package--which included most meals. They were varied and quite good, but spoiled by the excessively long lines to get to the "buffet" (aka cafeteria style). Surely a hotel of this size and quality can feed a crowd (I think we were about 700 or 800) in a more efficient way that this. I've been to many large banquets where the meals were brought to the tables by staff, so guests could all eat hot food together at the same time, without having to carry the plates ourselves.
Other than that, the weekend was great! 

Six months in Penticton

My last post was about four months ago, I guess. I was still feeling like a novice in our new home, our new town, starting a new life you might say.
I still love the little apartment, plenty big enough for us, as we continue to get rid of stuff we thought we couldn't live without--our "Lazyboy" chairs, for example.
I still love to go to my "Cowork" office, and savour the many hours of just sitting at the computer and actually getting some writing done.
Since my last post, I have completed the book I was writing, sent off the synopsis and first 100 pages to the agent, Laura Bradford. Now I'm about 30 pages into the sequel--just in case I'm lucky enough to have her ask me to send the second part of the first book and the first part of the second book. Failing that, I have another series I want to write. Maybe she'll ask about that. That's a question I'll have answers for this time next week.
How come? Well, this is the week of the Surrey international Writers' Conference, and I have an appointment to "pitch" to Laura Bradford at the conference. Hopefully, it won't take me four months to report of the result of that appointment.

Life in Penticton

We arrived in Penticton on Wednesday, April 13th, 2016. We had been here many times before, visiting family, but never for more than a few days. Now, it is our new home.
Our daughter picked us up at the airport and drove us to our apartment. We'd seen the apartment before, but my husband didn't remember it at all. I had a vague idea of its layout, but it was still a bit of a mystery. Our youngest son had purchased the apartment several years before, with the idea of living in it weekdays to avoid commuting from their out-of-town home. It didn't work for them like that, mostly something to do with the dogs. So, they used it for occasional guests, and more recently rented it to their daughter while she studied and worked in town. However, when we told them we were selling our Vancouver house, suddenly this apartment became available. So now we rent it from our son.
Emily had no problem with the idea of returning to her parents' home while she continued her job and studies.
So, here we are. We downsized from a 3-story house to an apartment roughly the same square footage as the basement in the Vancouver house. We've now been here a little more than seven weeks, and still have boxes to unpack and things to find places for. It's a challenge but we couldn't be happier.
As for my writing, there's a wonderful place called Cowork, a place where I rent a desk for 8 days a month, 9am to 5pm., with free Tuesday afternoons. It's wonderful. Quiet. No one bothers me. Just me and my computer for hours and hours. I've finished the 100 pages the agent asked for, and am about 50 odd pages into the second half of the book. I want to finish it all before I send the requested pages to the agent. I want to be able to send her the whole thing immediately if she should ask for it. I can only hope.
Cowork is a bit of a distance from the apartment, but I walk to and from most days, about 45 minutes each way. There is a bus that can take me most of the way if I'm feeling lazy. And I have used that a few times, going. But I always walk home. No--once I caught the bus and took it the long way, just for the ride.
Buses run only once an hour, so it's catch it now or wait an hour or walk. So I usually walk.Gives me lots of time to think and prepare for what I'll write when I get in front of the computer.

Did I post this before? Creative Writing 200

Here's an article I sent to Tale Spinner, our SCBWI newsletter for members: (I sent it about April 2014, I guess.)

So You Think You Know It All?

            After age 65, it’s possible to take university courses for free.  I qualified a long time ago, and finally this year I signed up.  I didn’t much care which course I’d take.  Maybe history.  Maybe literature.  Browsing through the courses, I made a wish list, but was informed that spaces in all courses were reserved for those who required them for degree qualifications.  Seniors like me had to wait to be informed that our turn had come to sign up for whatever was left over.

            All the courses on my wish list were already gone to those who needed them, and I was given a list of the leftovers.  Imagine my surprise and delight to find the perfect course—one I hadn’t even hoped for—Creative Writing 200.  It’s an overview of the varieties of types of writing—fiction, non-fiction, blogging, graphic novels, comedy, crime, poetry, and best of all, writing for children.  Better still, the section on writing for children was to be taught by our own Alison Acheson! 

            Before that session began, I approached Alison and introduced myself.  She seemed to think I’d know everything she had to say, and that it would all be old-hat to me.  Not so.  I learned a lot.  I had taken writing courses, attended writing conferences, read books on writing, but I wasn’t sure what was out-dated and what was new.  For example, I didn’t know that there’s now an age category called “new adult”, going from Young Adult up to about age 25.  Interesting.  It was also encouraging to learn that much of what I thought I knew was still valid.  Alison’s lecture was anything but old-hat.

            So what about the other sessions?  Did I already know all that stuff?  Some of it, yes.  Again, I felt a sense of validation when I could nod in agreement with the professor.  Some of it, I thought I knew, but found I’d messed around to suit my own way of looking at things.  For example, there’s Aristotle’s triangle, or something.  I’ve always called it Aristotle’s Incline—a plotting paradigm he wrote about in Poetics.  I didn’t do well in that part of the quiz because I called the points by different names.  The nice thing about taking university courses after age 65, when you already have your degree thank you very much, is that the quiz is nothing more than a wake-up call to the fact that, no, I don’t know everything so there’s good reason to be in this class.

            Another reason I’ll be sorry when this course ends in a week or two, is that I like the in-class writing exercises and the monthly written assignments (5 pages, double-spaced, submitted online).  No excuses such as writer’s block or busy-ness will do.  I work best under pressure and with deadlines. 

            It’s a short course, only January to April, held Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30 to 2pm, but now I find myself searching the course lists again, and making my new wish list.  It would be wonderful to find another creative writing course to follow this one, because I certainly do not know everything.  If I find one, I hope it’ll be one of the leftovers that I can seize and savour like this one.

marketing

Some day, I hope, I'll have to look at how to market my book(s). Ever the optimist, that's me.  So when I do that, I'll take a closer look at the services offered by Raab Associates . At an  SCBWI conference several years ago, I bought An Author's Guide to Children's Book Promotion by Susan Salzman Raab (published January 2004, by Raab Associates, NY.) But I'm sure there have been many changes in the past eleven years. Still, I find the information in that book helpful and encouraging, and sometimes a bit daunting. Nevertheless, I am sure this contact would be very helpful in marketing my book(s)--whenever they may be ready for that step. As I said, I'm ever the optimist.

April 2015 follow-up

One of the things I said in that last blog was that I looked at two agencies but I gave a link to only one. Here's the second.. It's Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency Inc.  Originally I selected this agency for my non-fiction work (biographies), but I also have novels. I need to take a closer look at this agency when I'm closer to send queries.

March is over already

February was too stressful to post blog entries, so there's not much there. March has been better. Now even March is over and I'm pausing to look back. All the courses at CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) are over now, as far as I know.  We've learned a lot. Now, my husband's sight is gradually improving, but he is still unable to see well enough to read, and he'll never drive again.

As for me--my stress level is better, but I'm still close to the edge sometimes. Driving seems to be the biggest stressers. I try to keep that to a minimum, but can't cut it out altogether. Not and get to all the medical appointments, etc.

Also--the writing course ended on Monday. I'm really going to miss it. Over the past three months of that course, I've written some very valuable scenes for a book I intend to finish. Didn't write the whole book, though. It would have been better if I could have done that. Three months is not sufficient time, however. Maybe there'll be another course I can take in September.