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The Man Behind the Marathon Final Ebook Cover Final

The Man Behind the Marathon Cover Reveal!

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For a year and a half and more I’ve been working on The Man Behind the Marathon: How Dr. Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox and Other Heroes Make Millions For Charity. Today I’m happy to present this cover design by Sharon Clare based on an original oil painting by Cliff Kearns and a photograph by Dan Peer.

Look for upcoming posts regarding this book in the next couple of months. It’s history of a different sort but no less fascinating or important.

Here is the excerpt from the draft which I sent out in my newsletter (subscribe at left):

On October 15, 1979, Ron Calhoun received a call from Blair Mackenzie, the Executive Director of the British Columbia Division of the Canadian Cancer Society. A young man had walked into his office who wanted to run across Canada to raise research dollars for cancer. Blair told him about the young man and his idea. Sitting in his office in London, Ontario, Ron, the National Special Events Chair for the Canadian Cancer Society, knew that no countrywide mechanism existed in the Society to handle such a mammoth project.
By the end of the call Ron had told Blair that the young man would have to find his own transportation from the west coast to the east coast, he’d have to line up a vehicle with sleeping accommodations where they needed it, a driver, hotels, food supply—something like A&P—all across the country, and a companion to go with him. If he did all of those things, Ron promised they would talk further.
He thought that would be the end of it.
About six weeks later Blair called again and said, “He’s back, Ron, and he’s done everything you asked. And by the way, he’s an amputee.”

The book is of the man behind 5 different marathons and of his incredible life. His vision and his method of “driving from the back seat” have made history for Canada and the world.

Watch this space for the launch date of The Man Behind the Marathon: How Dr. Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox and Other Heroes Make Millions for Charity.

Please share on all your social media places.

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Do You Hear What I Hear?

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Audiobooks are heard not read.

One of my favorite Christmas carols has always been Do You Hear What I Hear? It was written in 1962 by the husband and wife team of Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne in a desperate response to the US-USSR standoff over the Cuban missile crisis. Read the full story here for an interesting behind-the-scenes cameo.

I thought of “Do You Hear What I Hear” when writing this post about the wonderful elation I felt upon finishing the recording of The Loyalist Trilogy for you to hear instead of read.

People always tell me they love listening to me read my books. They say the author’s voice takes the written word to a whole new level. Finishing the trilogy in audio format was a long journey of over two and a half years (read about it here) but worth it.

Now English-speaking people all over the world can hear this author speak her words. I love the idea of bringing the stories of our American and Canadian history to the world through this medium.

Happy listening throughout this holiday season and the whole year!

 

Available in print, e-books and audio books

 

The Loyalist Trilogy Audio Books

What I Learned On My Audio Book Journey

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The Loyalist trilogy audio books, about those settlers who opted to stay loyal to Britain during and after the American Revolutionary War and who found their way to Canada, are finally available for the world to hear.

The Audio Book Journey

Once the books were available in print and in Kindle and Kobo e-books, I started thinking about audio books because of the number of people who told me they could not see well enough to read any more. They needed to listen to audio books. The mother of one of my friends was just waiting for me to get the audio books on the market. Unfortunately Elsie passed away before that happened.

I also noticed the huge numbers of people driving to and from work every day. Often as not they are caught in traffic jams on major highways. Add to that our delight in listening to books in the car when traveling and I recognized an awesome market just waiting for new stories. Why wouldn’t I take part?

Two and a half years ago I started recording in a local studio right here where I live. My musician friend was keen to embrace this new technology and he already had the studio and equipment for his music business. (Jack is a fabulous singer who records his own songs and sings John Denver and Glen Campbell legend concerts.)

The first book took about four months to record. I had lots to learn and Jack had to fine-tune his equipment. We suffered through motorcycles revving up on the street outside so loud they permeated Jack’s insulated studio. One night a train several blocks away spent about ten minutes shifting back and forth and Jack’s sensitive equipment picked it up. We had to wait again. And summer lawn mowers played havoc with our recording times and, one night, a thunder storm stopped us completely.

Click for Amazon listing.

For all of those interruptions, most of the time our sessions went off smoothly. I had a water bottle to keep my voice from getting too husky, Jack stopped me whenever he wasn’t satisfied with what he was hearing and I kept my pen in hand to mark something that needed to be changed in the revision of that first book. (It seemed a perfect opportunity to fix the few errors that had been driving me crazy whenever I was out doing an author gig. Ah, the life of a perfectionist!)

Finally Jack presented me with a thumb drive and a number of CDs containing my audio version of The Loyalist’s Wife. I learned about ACX Audible and tried to get my book up on their platform. Oh. I live in Canada and they only took work from authors in the US and the UK. Never mind that Canadians could buy Audible’s books here. We authors just couldn’t sell.

I tried to do a work-around and got my nephew and niece to let me use their US address, but then the IRS became the problem. Finally, I just concentrated on recording book two, The Loyalist’s Luck, and writing book three, The Loyalist Legacy. Believe me, my days were full enough. I figured I’d find another company to host my audio books.

Click for Amazon listing

None of my author friends were spending any time recording audio books. The only authors who were seemed to have big organizations behind them. I concentrated on my newsletter, my website, my speaking gigs, and even took a flying leap into screen plays.

Jack and I finished recording book three in August, 2018, but a couple of weeks earlier I had noticed an article in the newspaper where my daughter lives in western Canada. Audible was coming into Canada. That got my attention. My husband and I came home and I went to my last recording session with Jack bearing that newspaper article. Such a good omen just when we were almost done the third book.

In the third week of August I logged into Audible ACX and uploaded the first two of my audio books. Then we went on holiday for a couple of weeks, expecting to get the go-ahead when we returned.

My Inbox was a disappointment, however, as book two was accepted and placed in ACX’s production queue, but book one was rejected. I immediately forwarded their email of technical mumbo-jumbo to Jack. This started a series of back and forth correspondence between us and ACX as we tried to figure out what they needed. Apparently the volume we’d recorded at was not acceptable. That was strange because it was exactly the same volume as book two (that they had accepted). Jack emailed them for clarification.

Finally, after 2-3 weeks of silence, I found the phone number for their company and managed to speak with a real person. He was very helpful and did his best to solve our communication problems and I grew to love listening to his southern drawl as he and I talked. We figured out that their production people didn’t want to talk with Jack as he was not the person whose book it was. He had no standing in their eyes. I sorted that out very quickly and we got the third book uploaded. By this time the second book had sold a copy!

Click for Amazon listing.

Another week or two went by and I got the longed-for email. Book three was in the queue and had been accepted. In a week or two it would be up on Audible, iTunes and Amazon. Meanwhile Jack was adjusting the levels for Book one in real time, a lengthy process. Finally I got the flash drive and uploaded it. Oops, one of the files was missing. (You have to give them a five-minute sample as well as opening and closing credits.) Jack emailed me the missing files and I added them to my project on ACX, crossed my worn-out fingers and pushed Send.

Since my books were accepted out of order I really couldn’t move ahead with advertising and finding the markets for this new venture. It did not make any sense to advertise without having the first book ready. I did a lot of thinking about it, though, and even a little research on just where I could sell audio books. Last week I got the notice that the first book had been accepted and would be available on all the sites in a week or two. I was ecstatic! And just this Friday morning ACX informed me that The Loyalist’s Wife is up on Audible, Amazon and iTunes.

Takeaways From My Audio Book Journey

  1. Audio books are well worth pursuing as only about 5% of books are made into audio books. That means the competition for readers/listeners is much less stiff.

  2. Depending on the market for your books audio books can be more or less appealing. My historical fiction market appeals to middle-aged women for the most part. It also appeals to those drivers to and from work.

  3. If you’re going to try this, do it sooner rather than later.

  4. Don’t be afraid to do your own recording as I did but only if people tell you they “could listen to you read the whole book” as one of my library groups did. You have to have a bit of the performer in you.

  5. If at all possible, when you are stumped by the online instructions talk to a real person.

  6. Don’t expect to get through this journey without flat tires and running out of gas.

  7. But just as you wouldn’t walk away from your car because of one of those misfortunes, don’t run from your project. Keep at it! You will succeed.

Of course, if you still prefer to hold a book in your hand, try these.

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

office window fall rain

How To Fight the Writer Heebie-Jeebies

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Fall rains today.

This morning I woke up and started thinking about all the exciting things in my life at the moment. Almost immediately I felt my pulse quicken and my eyes pop open wider. Today I’m expecting big things. But with those big expectations comes raw fear.

You see, my editor should be getting back to me about her take on my latest book. OMG what if she hates it? What if she tells me to toss it in the waste basket? What if The Man Behind the Marathon, which has taken a year and a half of my time so far, never sees the murky light of a late March, 2019 day?

And I have asked 3 people for back cover quotes and a week later have only received one reply so far? (It’s a yes, by the way!) Will the others agree or will they just never reply?

And I thought a lot about a family member who seems to be avoiding me and I have no idea why. Usually we get along so well. This one is really puzzling and hurtful and my thoughts keep returning to her. What if we never get back to where our relationship used to be?

So. I had the heebie-jeebies first thing when I woke up this morning. Does this ever happen to you?

I made my breakfast and sat down to my computer. What to do? I clicked on this website’s homepage and started the video of an interview I did a couple of years ago for a local TV station.

Elaine discusses her joyful writing career.

I felt a little better. This person is happy!

The Outlook file where I keep replies to my newsletter called to me and I answered. Loads of wonderful readers gave me lovely kudos about my mailings.

I felt even better.

I went looking for another video and during the search found a file with all kinds of family videos of my two wee grandchildren. What a delight to look at them a few years ago and to see how they’ve matured.

I felt wonderful. And still do. This is a trick that I’ve used throughout my life. Instead of letting the negatives get me down, I try to find the bright and cheery things in my life.

A few years ago my daughter and I started a daily Gratitude Journal. Believe me, not all my days are shiny and perfect. No one’s are. But I stretch my mind and my heart to find good things every day, even when tragic things happen or I’ve had to take an ambulance ride. (Yes, that happened once!) I’ve looked long and hard for good things to write on days like that.

Whether you’re a writer or not, try this simple strategy to manage your own mood. It works! And just to lighten your mood, here’s my poinsettia plant from a couple of years ago brightening up my December office that winter.

Have a happy, grateful day!

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woman on Her Own in the American Revolution

For those of us who love a good story, especially one of which we’re a part, join me in reliving this story first printed in the Loyalist Trails magazine that lands in my InBox every Sunday. Thanks, Loyalist Trails and UELAC! 

The “Very Clever” Loyalist Wife:

Part One

reprinted with the permission of author and copyright holder Stephen Davidson UE

Piecing together the story of a loyalist woman is not an easy task. Too often she is simply a checkmark on a ship’s manifest, an irrelevant detail in a claim for compensation, or merely a name cut into her husband’s tombstone. Typically, more of her life is revealed if she became a widow during the American Revolution, able to tell her story in her own words in a petition or a will. Margaret Hutchinson, a woman described as “very clever…sensible and…prudent in the management of family affairs”, left enough of a paper trail in the records of the loyalist era for us to make her acquaintance. This is her story.
Margaret Jefferson was born about 1737 in Yorkshire, England. At eighteen, she married John Hutchinson on September 22, 1755 in Wensley. Two children were born over the next two years. In 1758, William joined them. A son named Major was born, followed by Francis in 1763, Margaret in 1764, Ralph in 1767, and Ann in 1772.
Just two years before the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, the Hutchinsons and five of their children were passengers on the York Packet, sailing from Liverpool to New York City. William, the oldest, was 16 and Ann, the youngest, was just two. (Family lore suggests that the two adult first-born Hutchinson children remained in England.)
John Hutchinson acquired 200 acres in Hanover Township in New Jersey’s Morris County where he planned to raise the “remarkable fine horses and some stallions he brought from England”. Given the importance of horses for transportation in the 18th century, John was his era’s equivalent of an imported automobile dealer—offering the best in British horses to a colonial clientele. Upon buying his American property, John drained and fenced the land, and built stables for his livestock.
There are no details of the Hutchinsons’ new home outside of the fact that its furnishings, provisions and farming utensils were valued at just over £563. Clearly, the Hutchinsons were a prosperous family. They could pay for an Atlantic crossing that involved transporting horses and then buy enough land to support their livestock. The Hutchinsons also had at least two servants to manage the household, the stables, and grazing fields. Some of these may have come with the family from England. Given that slavery was prevalent in New Jersey, these “servants” could have, in fact, been African slaves.
It did not take long for the Hutchinson horses to come to the attention of New Jersey’s gentlemen. Just a year after John and Margaret’s arrival, a May 1775 edition of the New York Gazette reported that the “last famous bay stallion imported by Mr. Hutchinson, called Bold Forrester” would be in Troy, New Jersey. No doubt Margaret was pleased with the early success of her husband’s business.
But her happiness would not last long. Revolution was in the air. Both patriot and loyalist neighbours courted the newly arrived Hutchinsons, trying to persuade them to choose sides in the war. However, John Hutchinson remained “uniform in his attachment to Great Britain” and “conducted himself always as a loyal man”.
Although the specifics of John’s personal service to the crown are not given, he is known to have sent two of his male servants into the British army. Enlisting one’s servants or slaves to bear arms in one’s stead was a common practice for both loyalists and patriots. About one sixth of the total rebel army was comprised of soldiers who were considered the property of white colonists.
But the loyalist family also made a far greater sacrifice than contributing two servants to the war effort. In 1786 — ten years after the Declaration of Independence– Margaret Hutchinson testified before a British commission that her husband had “sent” William, Major and Ralph, the couple’s oldest sons, to serve in the loyalist militia. How Margaret Hutchinson felt about sending her sons to war goes unrecorded. Francis –just 13 years old—stayed in Hanover Township with his sisters, Ann and Margaret, and his parents as the war’s events unfolded.
The older Hutchinson boys served with the New Jersey Volunteers, a loyalist (or “provincial”) regiment. General Cortlandt Skinner and Major Thomas Millidge, both officers with the Volunteers, would later lend their support to Margaret at the end of the revolution.
Following the patriot victory at the Battle of Springfield on June 23, 1780, rebels captured William Hutchinson at a “Mr. Veal’s barn” and took him to General Washington’s headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey where he was charged with spying for the enemy. Rivington’s Royal Gazette reported that “Mr. Hutchinson” was “lately executed at Washington’s camp”. The family remembers this incident in the words that William was “done to death in public without trial”.
The patriot victory at Springfield and William’s execution may have emboldened Margaret’s neighbours to threaten her family with violence as 1780 is the year given when John Hutchinson (and presumably the rest of his family) “came into” British lines. In other words, Margaret and her three youngest children sought out sanctuary in New York City, the headquarters for the British army during the American Revolution.
The story of Margaret Hutchinson’s wartime experiences as a loyalist wife concludes in the next edition of Loyalist Trails.

To secure permission to reprint this article contact the author at stephendavids@gmail.com

Thanks to Stephen for allowing me to reprint his excellent story. We had a great flurry of emails back and forth when I contacted him. Seems we have a lot in common!

 

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ron-Calhoun

Biography is My Marathon of Hope

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Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope. Painting by Cliff Kearns, used with permission.

Here are some points that might both explain how I’m writing the biography of Ron Calhoun (Behind the Marathon of Hope: How Ron Calhoun Helped Terry Fox Raise Millions for Cancer) and give some guidance to others contemplating writing a biography themselves.

This book is about a living person rather than an iconic figure from the past which fact presents me with a huge advantage. I have been able to get the story directly from the star’s mouth; in fact, I’ve been interviewing Ron over the course of the last year, sneaking out time whenever our busy schedules have permitted. We’ve talked about Terry Fox, the most famous of those Ron has assisted; John and Jesse Davidson of Jesse’s Journey; Steve Fonyo, a Cancer survivor whose run presented huge challenges; and blind Ken McColm who ran across Canada to aid Diabetes research.

Ron received his honorary doctorate.

Either at my home or his I set up the tiny recorder and push record. Ron and I have about a two-hour discussion as he explains documents in front of us, tells stories from the past and answers my questions along the way. I have a sheet of topics and questions for him to explain and that leads to many interesting conversations. I’ve discovered that my interviewing style is more like a conversation where I even share salient points from my history which fit in with what he’s saying. Ron first worked with my mother in the Cancer Society and our families have a long history, making this conversational style most appropriate.

The question I am having to ask myself is whether to use or how to use all the information Ron gives me. Ron has many unique documents some of which I’ll put into an appendix at the back of the book but I’ll try to keep the narrative of Ron’s life a flowing story. Footnotes are useful here as well.

I like the third suggestion in the following very simple list from the web particularly as these questions start my own brain thinking about what might be good for my particular project.

To write a biography you should:    (Click link for more information.)

  1. Select a person you are interested in.
  2. Find out the basic facts of the person’s life. Start with the encyclopedia and almanac.
  3. Think about what else you would like to know about the person, and what parts of the life you want to write most about. Some questions you might want to think about include:
    • What makes this person special or interesting?
    • What kind of effect did he or she have on the world? other people?
    • What are the adjectives you would most use to describe the person?
    • What examples from their life illustrate those qualities?
    • What events shaped or changed this person’s life?
    • Did he or she overcome obstacles? Take risks? Get lucky?
    • Would the world be better or worse if this person hadn’t lived? How and why?
  4. Do additional research at your library or on the Internet to find information that helps you answer these questions and tell an interesting story.
  5. Write your biography.

One of the surprises I’ve had is the amount and the variety of information available to me for this project. Just now I’ve had to resort to putting everything into the chapters as I’ve laid them out in my chapter list at the beginning of the book and not worrying too much about writing perfectly integrated information. That narrative quality will be more important in editing but just now I really want to see the shape of the story. I need to get control of the process and this is how I’ve chosen to do it.

I have sixteen chapters and am planning a prologue. Some of the chapters are very long, some short, and others almost empty as I haven’t got to them. Once I organize the information in this way, I’ll revamp the whole thing with a view to evening out the chapters, making sure I end each one so the reader will have to turn the page, and giving the book a rising action quality, as much as is possible with a biography.

This book is a different kind of history for me, whose historical fiction books started my writing career. There I could use the actual historical facts as a framework upon which I imposed the fiction part. A lot of the book came out of my imagination. I’m pretty sure Ron Calhoun, his family, friends and the rest of the world actually want me to make this whole book factual, so my approach to it has to be quite different.

I’ve contemplated using sidebar boxes with related information but have decided to go the appendix route. That will give the biography a narrative quality. I’m telling a story. Yes, it’s a real person’s story but it’s a story and I want it to read like one and not like a list of facts. With Calhoun’s exceptional stories this format is working well. The appendices will be substantial with Ron’s documents. Pictures will be included as well.

Another narrative quality here is my use of direct quotations, possible because my subject, though eighty-four and having outlived every other person on that Cancer Society team back in 1980, is still very much alive. Ron was the chair of that committee. He gets to tell the story. A weird thing that has been happening as I write the story is that I often find myself using Ron’s own phraseology. He’s a wordsmith himself. That means I can hear his voice in the writing making this a biography that is almost alive with his very personality. That may diminish somewhat in revisions but I hope to retain that flavor.

Photo by http://www.charlestonfootprints.com/charleston-blog/calhouns-moving-grave/2014/01/07/

Now if you happen to be American and are not quite so conversant with Terry Fox’s name I must tell you that Ron Calhoun is related to a Vice President which John F. Kennedy included in his list of five most important vice presidents of the United States: John C. Calhoun. Like John C., Ron can trace his Calhoun lineage back to the twelve hundreds. And Ron even engineered help from a local historical society in Charleston, South Carolina, to get his famous ancestor’s gravestone repaired. The man takes on any cause he possibly can!

The last point necessary to address today is the question of what to do with all the information you find about your biography subject that doesn’t make it into the book. I have two thoughts. Come up with a guideline for choosing what will make it into the book, either in the main biography or in the appendix. Then take those items which are just too far away from the main topic of the book and use them for marketing tidbits, blog posts, Twitter bits, Facebook articles, or any other similar venues. They can lead nicely into your main subject matter for a speaking engagement. They might link your subject matter to a newspaper article. Do not simply discard any of the research you’ve done.

My deadline for completing this rough draft is the end of August. Then I’m setting it aside for a month and living my life outside of writing. When I get back to it, I’ll be looking at the whole project with fresh eyes and the revisions will begin. Publication is sometime in mid 2019. Meanwhile, here are my beloved historical novels to tide you over.

 

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Different Kind of Historical

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When you think of it, every story we tell is historical. As soon as we use the past tense, as in “my daughter woke up in the middle of the night with red spots all over her chest”, we are dealing with history. To be considered a part of the historical fiction category, though, the subject matter should be at least fifty years in the past, a rule set and followed by the writing community.

That idea of categorizing sometimes leads us writers to wonder just what genre our new story actually fits into as it may have historical elements but they are more fantasy than history. Or it may have historical elements as the backdrop for a murder that needs to be solved. Is it historical or is it crime fiction?

This leads to agents having difficulty knowing where to sell a story. It may be excellent but their job is to sell it and they do all they can to figure out where their market might be. At lunch yesterday this very problem led me to suggest my author friend might be better to self-publish her book as it does not clearly fit into one category or another and I wondered if an agent would struggle to find a market for it. The book is extremely creative in its structure and story line, something readers love to see, but the author must decide how best to actually get it to those readers. Should she try to traditionally publish or do it herself?

In a similar vein, the new book I’m writing started out as creative non-fiction but I’ve completely restarted it as a biography. You see, the framing device that I had thought was so clever, actually began to be extremely unwieldy, so much so that a few weeks ago, lying awake at three o’clock in the morning, I decided I had to start over and write this thrilling and uplifting story about Ron Calhoun and Terry Fox and a lot of other amazing people as Calhoun’s biography.

That decision is allowing me to use a more sequential time line and include a rising action aspect just as I do in my historical fiction. And it relates to my historical fiction very well as I’m telling the story of a man born in 1933 who came to be so connected with historical figures during his long lifetime (and he’s still going!). My working title for this is The Man Behind the Marathon of Hope: The Story of Ron Calhoun and How He Helped Terry Fox Raise Millions for Cancer.

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Library Walk NYC

This Writer Holidays in New York City

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I’m all for putting my nose to the grindstone and working hard to achieve my goals and I’ll bet most of my readers are, too. Sometimes, however, it’s good to switch gears, to shut off my computer, my laptop, my iPad and put a “Nobody Home” sign on my writing business. My husband and I did that a couple of weeks ago.

We met our daughter and ten-year-old granddaughter in Toronto airport and boarded a plane for New York City for six days. Here are some pictures of our discoveries.

This is a water exhibit at Grand Central Station. Blue drops of water continually seemed to drop on us as we stood underneath the moving exhibit. Beautiful. We also bought gorgeous milkshakes at a place so busy lineups were continual.

I was entranced with Library Walk, also called Library Way and described in the photo above.

In the Museum of Modern Art we stood and watched the beautifully falling huge flakes of snow. On the news we heard this was a really huge storm but to us Canadians it was gently falling snow making the walking wet and a little slippery. No big deal. The trees were lovely, though.

This bronze work was exciting to see beside the famous outdoor skating rink that has been featured in so many movies.

A must for tourists, the Empire State Building did not disappoint. Here Chelsea and I posed for a shot up in the clouds.

Radio City Music Hall was a thrill to see. They gave us a great tour and we even got to ask questions of one of the famous Rockettes.

We came into the main entrance hall from above and looked down to see the staff preparing for the crowds later that night. If you wonder what is on the floor, I did, too. Those black things that look like dead bodies are actually clothing and paraphernalia they were organizing for sale in the gift shop there. This is a gorgeous foyer!

Also at the Museum of Modern Art we viewed Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night, a thrill to see. All the people vying for shots were not so thrilling.

Our granddaughter was very excited to see the Statue of Liberty and we liked our second glance when we all took the Staten Island ferry over to the island and right back again to NYC. A beautiful day for an historic view.

On Thursday Ron had signed us up to see Live! with Kelly and Ryan. In Kelly’s place that day was Carrie Ann Inaba whom we well remember from Dancing With the Stars. She was guest host along with Ryan Seacrest that day. Most enjoyable. I particularly liked their delightful personalities when the camera was turned off.

The last day we shot some pictures of Times Square which was quite close to our hotel and which we passed through every day on our way to shows and scenic places. We saw Carole King’s story, Beautiful, Jersey Boys, and Aladdin. All were good but Beautiful was my favorite.

Another shot of Times Square.

And yet another.

For a final shot, one of the city from high above once more.

We all loved our trip but as the days went by brushing up against lackadaisical workers who had no interest in being friendly and helpful took its toll. We’re Canadians, eh? We flew home on the Saturday, glad to be going home and looking forward to another week with our daughter and granddaughter on our own turf. Long talks, fun games, times with the whole family and just waking up to breakfast together in our jammies were the icing on a lovely holiday. All too soon, we left home at 4:00 a.m. to drive them to the airport nearby and kiss them goodbye until the next time.

The next morning I was back at my computer, anxious to attack my current WIP and to field the emails being pitched at me from dozens and dozens of places. This writing life is pretty much a dream come true.

Click on the Loyalist Trilogy books below for great historical stories with satisfying endings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pad thai3

Creative Non-Fiction, Pad Thai, and My New Book

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Every few months I get a hankering for a taste of my homemade Pad Thai recipe and last week it came again. I had all the ingredients assembled so that once I finished my writing for the day I could begin my next labour of love.

Making up a favorite recipe is a little like writing. You assemble the ingredients–writing and research tools–and then you start with a plan of some sort. For my historical fiction I did quite a few months of reading and research, made a bit of a plan starting with the premise for the book, and then started in writing the first chapter. I knew pretty much where I was going and as I went along and thought of ideas I put them at the bottom of my word document lest I forget them. And I felt free enough to make changes when brilliant ideas popped into my head. Gotta love first drafts!

So here’s the first change in the recipe. It calls for raw shrimp. Well, I use frozen cooked shrimp and the recipe works just as well as long as I don’t cook the shrimp over again. You, too, can make changes as you go along according to your taste and your imagination.

Here’s the recipe I use:

Pad Thai

8 oz. uncooked rice noodles

2 T. rice vinegar
1 1/2 T. fish sauce
1-2 T. lemon juice
1 T. ketchup
2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 T. vegetable oil
1 boneless skinless chicken breast (4 oz.), finely chopped
2 green onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 oz. small raw shrimp, peeled
2 cups bean sprouts
3/4 c. shredded red cabbage
1 medium carrots, shredded
3 T. minced fresh cilantro
2 T. chopped unsalted dry-roasted peanuts
lime wedges

  1. Place noodles in medium bowl. Cover with warm water; let stand 30 minutes or until soft. Drain and set aside. Combine vinegar, fish sauce, lemon juice, ketchup, sugar and red pepper flakes in small bowl.
  2. Heat oil in wok or large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken, green onions and garlic. Cook and stir until chicken is cooked through. Stir in noodles; cook 1 minute. Add shrimp; cook 3 min. or until shrimp turn pink and opaque. Stir in fish sauce mixture; toss to coat evenly. Add bean sprouts and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes.
  3. Serve with shredded cabbage, carrot, cilantro, peanuts and lime wedges. Makes 5-7 servings.

And here’s the second change. I’ll put in more chicken and shrimp than it calls for as I like to up the protein. I love noodles but not too many of them.

Writing is like this, too. We do our first draft, we hone it, we edit it, we have others edit it, and after a whole host of days, months, and even years of this kind of work we have our book. I’m finding that the recipe for this new book which I’m planning as creative nonfiction requires a lot of rewriting and adding details to shape it into what I envision. I’ve never written in this style before so the work is frustrating at times but thrilling when I make a breakthrough.

My office shows just a little of the notes I have from all the interviews with my prime subject and memorabilia he has for me to sift through. Since last July I’ve been recording him and have pages and pages of transcribed notes to sift through. (Foreground of picture shows just some of them.)

Soon I’ll be ready to announce the title of this book. I have an idea for a good one but need to test it a little more (just like a recipe). Some of the subject matter, though, I’m ready to hint at with this next picture. See if you can come up with my subject person, the last surviving member of the Canadian Cancer Society team who managed the 1980 Marathon of Hope. He also came up with that name. The painting below is by Canadian artist, Cliff Kearns.

Oh! I forgot to take a picture of my finished Pad Thai. We had dinner guests and devoured it!

 

History is Not Always Clear: Case in Point, St. Valentine

So this morning I’m feeling all red and pink, gushy and mushy, and full of good thoughts. I’m wearing my Valentine’s ring from last year, I’m going out for lunch AND dinner AND a theatre production tonight.

WOW!

Also I can see the end of a large part of my non-writing workload (I’m the president of an 800-member organization) and more time for writing my current book. It’s a great day.

I decided to look up St. Valentine on the web and incorporate him into this post. Not such a good idea. Hardly any facts are known about someone who today is a cultural icon. The Catholic church took him off their saints list on the General Roman Calendar but you can still celebrate him in certain cases. I guess the card companies and the retail sector didn’t get the message that he’s not that important.

St. Valentine was martyred, apparently, but that is not even clear. Frankly I’m not so interested that I’m going to spend half a day finding out his very unclear story. Instead, I urge you to join me and use this time to make your day and someone else’s day special.

I have half an hour now to get some work done on my next book. Love that. And love the ring my 9-year-old granddaughter and her mother gave me last year. She told me the three hearts were for her, my daughter, and me. Gotta love it!

Happy Valentine’s Day, Everyone!

Next week, I’ll be back to writing a real blog post. See you then!

 

 

 

 

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