Query for Representation

I’ve decided that it is time to find an agent. With so many sources available now, you would think it would be easy. But I don’t want just the first agent who will take on my writing projects. I want someone who will help me advance my writing career. I’m not getting any younger!

Having started the search and had a couple of requests for my full manuscript, I’m feeling more free to spend my time on my work-in-progress. It feels like a little pressure has been released while I wait for a reply.

My non-fiction, JUST A WALK IN THE PARK: THE WEST COAST TRAIL is still under consideration at the publishers, so I am hoping that is a good sign.

It’s going to be fiercely hot for the next two weeks, so it’s a good time for me to avoid the sun and keep on writing!

Turning 50 – what I learned in 50 years

1. If you have a goal, write it down so you can look at it. It makes it more real.

2. Be kind and smile. It lightens the heart of everyone involved.

3. Sing if you want to.

4. Listen to children. They are the closest to those who have already passed.

5. Take separate vacations.

6. Family is more than blood.

7. Second place is not always bad. It means you played the game.

8. Watch the sunset as often as you can.

9. TV can be a huge time-waster.

10. A dog is always faithful.

11. Jeans are not considered formal wear.

12. Mountains were made to climb.

13. Don’t mess with Mother Nature; she’ll beat you every time.

14. People come and go in our lives, so be your own best friend.

15. Listen to understand.

16. Teenage boys need their sleep.

17. Perennial flower gardens are worth the effort but take forever to create.

18. Mothers are always needed.

19. We are all travellers in outer space; the earth is our mothership.

20. Waterproof mascara isn’t.

21. Two things you have to earn – respect, and a great credit rating.

22. Each generation has its own quirks.

23. Learn to say ‘no’ early.

24. The power of persuasion is more powerful than you will ever realize.

25. There are places in this world worth discovering over and over.

26. Education is important.

27. Friends are not always forever, but without them we’d be lost.

28. The first things counted on a baby are its fingers and toes.

29. There is never enough time to do all the things you want so choose wisely.

30. The muscle aches of an arduous hike go away after a few days.

31. I am luckier than some.

32. I am unluckier than others.

33. Acceptance is not a compromise; it is a choice.

34. Sneaking chocolate chips out of the bag a little at a time still leaves it empty when Mum finds it.

35. Little brothers become big brothers.

36. Plant food works.

37. Practice doesn’t make perfect; lots of practice improves your chances.

38. Math gets harder every year.

39. Have patience with children and animals.

40. It’s not always best to be at the front of the toboggan.

41. Snakes can pop out of holes.

42. Snow on Christmas Eve is always welcome.

43. Wide open spaces have the best air.

44. A piggy bank is worth filling up.

45. Karma exists.

46. Bananas are delicious.

47. The sweet smell of cut grass can make me sneeze.

48. The most precious jewels are found in dewdrops.

49. Appreciate art.

50. Laughter really is the best medicine.

Books I’ve read …The Book of Negroes

If I could only read one book this year, I would choose Lawrence Hill’s “The Book of Negroes“.The story of Aminata Diallo, written in first person, is a remarkable piece of historical fiction. Being captured at the age of eleven and taken from her village along with other men, women, and children, boarded onto a stinking ship to sail to the Americas, sold as a slave to work on an indigo plantation in South Carolina.

Although I recall a bit of Canadian history from my high school days, I cannot remember anything about the Black Loyalists who left the Thirteen Colonies in 1783 for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, England and Germany. Over 3000 Black Loyalists arrived in NS, but within 10 years, 1200 left from Halifax to sail to Sierra Leone, Africa. History books are written by the victors, but rarely do they reflect the actual daily lives of the people who shaped the history. If I were to meet Aminata Diallo today (if she existed, that is), I would be in awe of her. The story-telling is remarkable and I found it difficult to put it down. In Canada, it is called “The Book of Negroes”. The book is published in the USA, Australia and New Zealand under the title “Someone Knows My Name“.

My bucket list…

It’s been over a year since I wrote my “Bucket List” which was:

Visit Ireland…the land of my Lipsett ancestors

travel the Oregon Coast

visit Newfoundland…the first two attempts I never made it over (maybe it’ll be the third time lucky)

see Elton John live in concert

become a multi-published novelist

write and see my play or screenplay produced

take a hot air balloon ride over the countryside

own the lavender house on the hill near Montague, PEI

grow a patch of Himilayan Blue Poppies–masses of them! (my zone is a 3 which makes it difficult)

hike the West Coast Trail

I have to say, writing it down produces faster results than dreaming about it! I have since hiked the West Coast Trail last August with 7 other people. Read about the experience here, if you’re interested.

And…for my upcoming 50th birthday, my husband bought me tickets to see Elton John & Billy Joel live in concert the end of May in Toronto!!! Yeah! I still can hardly believe it. I’ve wanted to see Elton John since I was a teen-ager but he was never scheduled to appear in Prince George. It’s about a 4000 km flight to get there, and we will spend eight days traveling and sight-seeing before returning home with our memories. I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to fly to England with my twin sister for our 50th. England was coming to me!! (Big grin here!)

Books I’ve read this year…

I just finished reading Outliers , The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. This author also wrote The Tipping Point and Blink, both of which I will try to locate and read this year.  It was insightful in ways I hadn’t thought about how some people become successful. Given the chance, combined with hard work, and the right-time, right-place scenarios have more to do with success than pure genius. Ordinary people can become extraordinary given the right circumstances. Definately food for thought.

I seem to be on a roll here, reading books that give me insights into becoming successful. How many opportunities did I look in the face and not know it was something I had asked for? Reading books like this opens my mind further to allow me to acknowledge and pick up on these opportunites as they present themselves to me. Maybe next time someone tells me about a publisher who might me interested in my book, I’ll send it out right away. It could be the only way the message could be delivered to me, so I must be open to see it.

Books I’ve read this year…

It’s already mid February and I’ve only read one book. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. I know, it’s over 13 years old now and was a best-seller. I’ve heard so much about this book over the years, but it just sat on my shelf until it was the right time to read it. In the past few years I have thought about each of the insights from the book,  and although I don’t consider myself a spiritual person as in one who prays regularly, I do find that I often find joy in the beauty of nature. My annual hikes are a testament to finding a creative power within as I always come back from them rejuvenated and clearer in my thinking. My only wish is that I could hike more often!!

I’ve always been of the belief that the human race could live as a utopian society, and this book tells how. Interesting reading for long winter nights. At the end, I chuckled to myself. “So that’s how the Mayan’s disappeared.” (Grin) I recommend it to everyone. There is a good write up about it on Wikipedia.

Six more weeks of winter!

It’s been above zero for most of the day today, and although the snow is melting, I know we still have at least six more weeks of winter as we do every year. March goes in like a lamb or a lion, but there is rarely a March that we don’t get large dumps of the white stuff.

That’s okay, though because when the weather isn’t great I get the chance to work on the projects I create for myself. So far this year, I have completed and sent JUST A WALK IN THE PARK-THE WEST COAST TRAIL, a photo book, to four BC publishers. DANIEL’S SONG, a novel, has been sent to a new publisher as well. Now I am working on the second book in the JAWITP series and also my novel BEYOND THE REFLECTION. This is going to be a great year if I keep up this pace!

I’m disappointed in WritersMarket.com. I joined again so that I could keep track of my submissions and find new markets, but their site is still not functioning fully the way it should. I honestly expected they would have all the updates done by now considering they publish a volume of markets every year. I’ve been searching by google mostly for new publishers and have found a few other links that contain information about publishers I might be interested in. Then I check the website for submission guidelines as well as the type of books they’ve produced lately. But now that I’ve got some of my work out, I’ll get back to writing. Maybe when my next book is ready to go, the site will be working again.

Last year I did a few Flash Fiction Fridays, so I will start that again this Friday and see what comes from it. Anything to avoid stepping on that treadmill every morning. Ugghh!

New Year’s Resolutions

It’s almost 2009 and I’ve been thinking…what can I do this year to be successful at my writing? Writing goals in a day planner that only gets looked at until mid January hasn’t worked. Buying new writing tools helps but then once the commitment wears thin the notebook gets stashed with the previous year’s pile of hairbrained ideas. So…this year I have three major goals to work on.

1. Find a publisher for Daniel’s Song

2. Finish Just a Walk in the Park book and find a publisher for it

3. Lose the added pounds (not saying how many) before my 50th birthday.

The first two will probably prove easier than the last one, but if my twin sister gets too far ahead of me in the losing weight category, I won’t be happy with myself. So, now I have to write these three things into my nice green planner that has been used since September and carries on until the end of 2009, so it isn’t like I’m writing in a new planner. (Trick of the mind, but it should work better for me).

Next, come January 1st, I will renew my membership with Writers’ Market online so that I can browse through the listings and get Daniel’s Song out there (again!).

And lastly, I will finish the research on the Hiking book and find a publisher for it. Wouldn’t it be great to reach all these goals before the end of June (just after my birthday)? I think so!

Books I’ve read this year…

This is where I’m going to keep track of the books I’ve read, mainly for my own interest, but if anyone is up for discussing someone’s work, I’d be happy to participate. So far, I’ve read:

1. Constance, by Rosie Thomas, published in 2006 by McArthur & Company. — I picked this book because I just had my novel, Daniel’s Song, rejected by this publisher last year and decided I should see what they currently bought in stead of my book. Rosie Thomas had written several novels, one of them even winning the 2007 Romantic Novel of the Year Award. The story flashed back and forth from when Connie was a foundling to when she finally gets the man she always loved. It’s full of Bali culture as well as gives a taste of London, and has a sub-plot of a romance between a young immigrant girl and Connie’s nephew. Connie’s sister is deaf, and dying, and I enjoyed the distinctly different characters Rosie Thomas created. Although Connie’s sister dies in the end, the novel is a romance in that there is a happy ending. I’ll look for more of her work.
2. A Passion for Narrative, A Guide for Writing Fiction by Jack Hodgins— I have read this one before and it is my favourite in my writing books library. Jack knows how to tell a story, and I always learn more from his book every time I read it. With determination to revise and resubmit Daniel’s Song, I reread this book in late December, and found that it was much easier than I thought to revise DS this time around. Jack teaches as well and I contacted him regarding editing help and we emailed back and forth a few times and he has since sent me an invitation to his 5 day workshop in Hollyhock in May this year. I might just have to find the money to go and learn more from this wonderful teacher and writer from Vancouver Island. I have read his Macken Charm novel and loved the characters and their stories.
3. Scarlet Feather, by Maeve Binchy published in 2000 by McArthur & Company— I didn’t realize it was another of McArthur & Co’s books until I was half-way through it! Maeve Binchy writes wonderful characters and I have read Evening Class a few years back and still remember some of her great characters. I am a fan of character-driven stories and she is one of the best for making her characters distinct and interesting.
4. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult – what a great read! A co-worker lent me the book telling me she enjoyed it. The ending was a surprise twist that I won’t reveal hear but I do love a twist in a story. I’ll be searching for another one of hers very shortly.
5. Fortune’s Rocks by Anita Shreve – I read this in less than a week, and that’s fast for me. I couldn’t put it down. Anita Shreve is a wonderful storyteller, and the story is set in the late 1890’s to early 1900’s. Her descriptive narrative makes the scenes jump off the pages. It is the story of a spirited girl who falls into a passionate, illicit love affair with an older man. A must read!
6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – This is the reason my writing has come to a complete halt! I couldn’t put the book down. The storytelling is exquisite, vivid, heart-wrenching, insightful, and is his first novel. Makes me want to read J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye again for some reason. I feel this book will rank among one of the greatest novels of our time.
7. Atonement by Ian McEwan – I prefer to read books that have been made into movies than to see the actual movie because the book is always better. Hollywood has a nasty habit of changing the endings to suit the masses. I might have to rent Atonement to see if they did justice to the novel though. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; Briony Tallis, Robbie Turner, the crime committed. The graphic details of a war-torn Europe, the extraordinary descriptions of Briony’s life. An excellent read and another new author for me to search for.
8. The Interpreter of Silences by Jean McNeil – This book was not what I expected and I was disappointed in it. I did enjoy the descriptions of Cape Breton. Some transitions were not well written as I sometimes found it diffficult to follow whether it was Ann or Eve’s story that was being told. Although the intertwining of stories made for an interesting read.
9. Distance by Jack Hodgins – I couldn’t resist picking up this novel by Jack, one of my favourite authors. The story of Sonny Aalto, a middle-aged man who returns to Vancouver Island to take care of his dying father. There is adventure in Australia and the narrative is luscious. The story comes alive and although I have never visited Australia, or Cape Scott on V.I., I feel that I have after reading his story. A book about life, love, family, friends and more. Pick it up and read it! I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  
10. The Creative Habit by Twlya Tharp – The book came to me when I was in Murphy’s Books in Victoria, BC after I finished hiking the West Coast Trail in August this year. It was worth the purchase as there are ideas in it I hadn’t come across before. She is a dancer, I’m a writer, but both professions are creative and I love how it broadens my thinking towards my own creative passions.

Still Writing…

Fall has quickly turned into winter around here.  Memories of hiking the West Coast Trail this past August still fill my brain. I completed a family album of the hike finally and I look at it at least once a week. I want to go back there again soon! I am nearly finished writing a photography book on the subject of the West Coast Trail. It”ll be finished as soon as I can figure out exactly what type of seaweed is in one photo, and what is the name of the gull in the other one. I want the book to be accurate before I send it to a publisher. I didn’t know there were so many kinds of seaweed, or gulls, for that matter. At least the trees were narrowed down to cedars, hemlocks, spruce and Douglas Firs. The book has over 150 photos in it and a history of the trail to boot. Next job, track down a publisher who will be interested in publishing my work.