2020 and Beyond – Not A Write Off Year – an Author Perspective

It took me some time to discover that this truly was not a write-off year in my authoring world. I’m glad I looked back over this past twelve months. I honestly couldn’t believe what I’d accomplished - things I’d practically forgotten.

Pre-pandemic, in early January, I was looking forward to the launch of my third book, The Liars, in my historical fiction series – scheduled for April, the launch, the cluster signing weekend, and the multitude of signings that came with it. My favourite part would be meeting people at tables and listening to what they thought of my book. I’ve had some pretty neat conversations and encounters in the past.

I was also 20K words into a fourth and final in the series and was looking forward to writing four books in four years. I had set that milestone for myself. I’d have to complete it by November to make it possible for a 2021 Spring release. It was doable and I was excited as to where the characters would lead me next.

And then, there was COVID and The Liars was delayed.

So, with the shutdown, decisions had to be made about The Liars. It would be shipped and in St. John’s around the last of April – though this date was still a moving target. I was pestered by the questions: Should I hold on to it? Or should I Launch it? And what would that look like? Hundreds of people had been waiting for the book to come out and as an author, I struggled with the “is it about me or about readers” doubt.

Then again, we hadn’t had a pandemic in over 100 years, and if I wanted to turn a negative into a positive, how many people could say they launched a book in a pandemic? Probably nobody living. So I told the publishers at Flanker Press that I wanted to go for it.

I also decided to do online readings to stay connected with a readership and I scheduled eight between March and April. I spent an hour on Friday nights with a bunch of people and read from Being Mary Ro and The Promise. I had some regulars hang out with me, sometimes there’d be ten or fifteen people come along. There would be questions. I would get thank yous for bringing a bit of stress relief and normalcy in the craziness of those first weeks and months of shutdown. And I thought, I’m doing some good for others and for myself. I also recorded readings to be shared on the Flanker Press YouTube channel.

At the end of March, I released the full cover of The Liars and then a month later, the shipment of books arrived. I went to Flanker’s office on May 1^st and held The Liars for the first time. I signed about 600 copies. Book stores weren’t open nor were stores taking book orders so many people contacted Flanker and my goal was to ensure they got a signed copy.

May 6^th was Launch Day. My daughter Stacey was the camerawoman and we set up the house as if there were hundreds coming – decorations, flowers, wine, giveaways, the whole shebang. I dressed up for the first time in months and it felt good.

I joked with Stacey that she would be filming and I’d reach for a book, the chair would break, and I’d take a spill. The first COVID book launch in NL would go viral, not because of my book but because the host ended up in a pile on the floor. As soon as we sat and went on Facebook Live the chair creaked and Stacey laughed – we had a shaky camera start while she recovered. It was fun and felt good. Hundreds came – tuned in online.

Things got busy, I had to get a few boxes of books delivered to the house because a number of people wanted them for Mother’s Day – signed and personalized. I came up with a safe pickup routine. It was awesome.

Meanwhile, I had applied for a grant to add the three books in Audio format. The grant was denied but I decided to go ahead on my own – just a slower financial pace. I contracted a narrator and started on this new adventure with Being Mary Ro. Work was busy and doing quality assurance on this project was time-consuming but worth it. And what else was there to do? It came out in audiobook format in June.

Remember that novel I’d started, well, just about every week I’d take out the skeleton of the story, but I didn’t want to write. It wasn’t writer’s block, I don’t think. I just wasn’t interested or excited to be writing.

On July 4^th came a bit of almost normal. I travelled to Washed Ashore Antiques and did my first in person book signing. Masks, sanitizing, etc.. It was odd and pushed my comfort level, but it felt good and several people came from around Centerville/Trinity/Wareham to get their copy.

By now reviews began to come in from newspapers and online bloggers. They were all pretty good and that was satisfying. But the one thing that made me most proud, was my finding a forgotten and murdered woman in my research and doing something about it. I gave her a chapter and went about getting her name added to the Missing and Murdered list in NL. In August, Ruth Taktos, a young woman from Labrador who died at the hands of her husband, was pulled into the light from her forgotten grave. Her name will be spoken every year and I did that.

In September I submitted The Promise to audible for publication. This one didn’t go so well from a process perspective (election and COVID in the US) and it would be December before it came out. I started some writing classes to see if I could get back to my 20k but instead, started a new project that now has about 30k and I racked up another one waiting to be finished.

October I began the four Friday’s again and did readings from The Liars on Facebook Live. They were fairly well attended. I received a grant for two of the readings from the Writer’s Union of Canada.

In early November, I was featured in an interview with Kathryn Taylor for Rogers Television series, Let’s get Writing. I also accepted an invite to The Avalon Page Turners book club in Dildo. I met the club for Lunch at an Indian Restaurant in the area. We had a wonderful discussion on all three books over delicious cuisine.

December was fairly busy. I recorded and released Christmas readings from two books. I got an early Christmas Present when the grant for my audiobooks got second-round approval. I was so excited. The Promise was released in audio format on December 10^th and by the 15^th I had The Liars submitted for evaluation. Just before Christmas, I was invited to do a seven-minute piece on the Let’s Get Writing Christmas Special which aired December 23^rd.

With all the audio excitement over with, on December 26^th I pulled out the dormant and dusty 20k words and asked myself the question – do you want to write this book? I slept on it, well for about three hours. I woke with this aha moment and started writing furiously. On January 11^th, I finished the last line at 10:54 pm. The next morning, I had an offer to publish and it will be out in July. A few days later, The Liars was finalized and in audiobook format for sale.

On February 4^th, I was the first in a WANL series of “Ask Me Anything” where I had an interview with Michael Smith. It was a great night for the launch of that series.

I did Four Friday’s readings for The Liars in March. I learned I won the Arts and Letters Competition for a short story called The Glitch. I read that on Facebook live in April. Now, I have several short stories for which I’m looking for homes as well.

I worked on fine-tuning of The Stolen Ones which I finally titled with a name I loved. Beta Readers are heralding it so I look forward to a new fingers crossed – post-pandemic launch in late summer.

So as you can see, this past year was not a write-off, not in any way. I’m happy to have looked back to the year that was to find out what it really was. I launched a book, finished a novel, published three audiobooks, started another novel, wrote several short stories, and worked full time besides.

Now I’ve started this blog and want to see where that takes me.

I got my vaccine yesterday and this morning I woke more hopeful than I’ve been in a long time. I didn’t realize I needed to put a shine on my hopefulness, but I guess the faded luster crept up on me. Reflecting on blessing can keep it shined.

I’m happy to say I accomplished my goal of having four books published in four years.  I’ll have my fingers crossed for a successful next offering. I’ll roll with whatever comes. The Liars would have been mor successful without the pandemic. But so would the world. I’ll look for the positive. I’ll focus on the things within my control and when I’m ready to write – mentally and physically, I’ll do that.

My hope is recharged, my family, thankfully is well, and the sun shines on this day. Reflecting on the positive allows me to see it. And, as my grandson just reminded me, there is no bad time for ice cream or pizza. It’s as simple as that or as complicated as I allow it. I choose ice cream.

Thank you for reading.

 

 

When Life Hands you Miley

 When life hands you lemons, the thought is that there is always lemonade to be made. So what do you do when life hands you Miley Cyrus? That was the conundrum I faced one bright spring day at the airport in Toronto. I made lemonade.

In order to set this up, I must state that my children were in their teens during a few years of busy travel with work. It became the norm that I was gone almost as often as I was home, it wasn’t a problem, just a fact. The girls didn’t question where I was going nor what I was doing, because when your mother is a “spy”, she just doesn’t disclose details. Their imaginations were very active when it came to my work, and they told everyone that their mother was, indeed, a spy. (I can assure you I’m not – said every spy ever lol)

So this particular day I was in Toronto. Just the week before, I had left Toronto airport and was telling the girls when I got home how my t-shirt had triggered this big event, I was like the Reitman’s commercial. I had to go through the scan and then go to be searched in a room – Reitman’s got it right, clothing can do that.

Because of that and being the spy thingy, when I called Shawna from Toronto the next week and said that I was in a high secure area at the airport it didn’t fizz on her. When I said that Miley C was there, she didn’t question that either. To be truthful, Shawna was the second child that I called. The first call had been to Stacey, but she ignored her mother’s call – though to this day and to her chagrin, she says she didn’t see my number come up – again I digress and it was her loss at that time.

So, I handed the phone to Shawna, and she had the big ole discussion with Miley about her new song – Wrecking Ball – and some of her other songs, her acting, her concerts, etc. The conversation went on for fifteen minutes or so before Miley said she had to go to catch her plane, she was getting ready for a concert.

I took the phone back and Shawna screamed and cried before I hung up. She told me I had made her life. “OMG Mom, I’m going to die. I just talked to Miley Cyrus.” When she told me to get a picture with Miley I told her I couldn’t because she was already gone.

When I got home that Friday they all asked me questions about how I knew it was her, what had happened, was I excited, and so on.

So there you have it. Or do you?

In truth, I believe Stacey would have been more suspicious, and Sharon would have been downright disbelieving, so perhaps it was good that the first call was with Shawna and that I left it there.

You see, when I hung up from Shawna, I thanked Rachel, the daughter of a co-worker, who had been not so eager to pull the prank at first. Apparently, it is not a thing you do anywhere else, or maybe I’m just a weird parent. Rachel sounded so much like Miley that she could be a voice double. Hearing her voice took me all of two minutes to come up with the scheme. It took about twenty minutes of convincing before Rachel reluctantly took the phone from me, but she got right into it when she was talking to Shawna.

We chuckled when I saw a Facebook post from Shawna saying she’d just talked to Miley, and the posts from her sisters asking why it couldn’t be them, etc. etc.

So you might think that I must have felt bad. But I didn’t. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Needless to say I didn’t tell them the difference. Well, until about five years later. You know all those times people post “you know who is reading your posts”, so I posted, “you know if your daughters read your posts” and told of the prank I had played those years before.

Shawna was the first to be devastated over it. She had been fully convinced that one of the highlights of her life had been speaking to Miley. “Way to destroy me, Mom. LOL,” she replied.

Mean Momma, I know. But when life hands you Miley Cyrus, or the voice of Miley Cyrus, what else can you do?

 

 

Then There Was That Time That I Opened the Winter Olympics

There are times that you are exposed to something so out of the ordinary that it stays with you for a long time. For some of us, it is more than others. One such time was when I was invited to open the Winter Olympics in Long River, PEI.

Now why in the name of God would such a thing happen to a gal from Newfoundland? I still ask myself that same question and I’m not sure I’ve ever gleaned an answer that fits the honour that was bestowed by that action. It lines up with the time I welcomed Pope John Paul to Canada and when I met Danny Romalotti (not many will remember him), the latter probably coming in third.

It all kind of happened in a non-descript; perhaps in a yeah, whatever, kind of way. The Olympics were being planned, I told my great friend Carla that I just might go, never thinking I would, and she kinda said, well why don’t you come to open them. And that’s where it sat until the stars aligned and I was on PEI the last week before the country shut down in March 2020. Coincidentally, that was the weekend of the Olympics.

Now the Olympics weren’t the only gig in town. There was competition with saving crows but that’s a tale for another time because it's something that is near and dear to Carla’s heart, however, I digress.

The Olympic Committee, the drivers Alain, Marlene, and Brian, were hard at work but, like any idea, it is only as good as the leaders' commitment and the community behind them.

Although I’m usually in the thick of things, for this event, I basically just had to show up. By the time I had gotten there all the prep work had been done on the river ice, all the games had been outfitted, even down to the ax-throwing stations. It was quite the scene.

One game I couldn’t pronounce nor had ever played involved throwing stones across the ice to take each other’s out of a big ring (no it wasn’t curling), because, plus there was curling – real curling rocks and all. In another place, bowling was set up with frozen two-litres Pepsi bottles, and there was mini golf, nine holes! The ax-throwing was impressive, full-size boards, beautifully done, and just amazing.

None of this getting ready was done in a day, as you could imagine. Months of planning went into it. Invitations, teams, etc. Ice needed measuring for safety, tractors had to keep the ice clear, lines had to be drawn, the area had to be set up and safe. Then there was the praying for good weather. Nobody was disappointed. Hundreds showed up, adults, kids, dogs.

The mascot was a cheezy Christmas Snowman aboard a punt with a ragged and tatter sail sitting proudly out on the ice, and for good measure, there was a cauldron that would burn all during the day. That was my job, light the fire and declare the Olympics open.

This came with some pageantry of course. Once the crowd had gathered I took the torch and marched behind the bugle player to the readied cauldron and lit ‘er up. Cheers erupted and the games began.

Once the play was underway and the competition got heated, so did the BBQ, hotdogs and hot chocolate. The Olympic Committee oversaw the happenings of the day and it went off without a hitch. Points were awarded based on scores in the games and a winner, complete with gold, silver, and bronze medals were declared.

What a day. I’m not sure I’ve heard such laughter and good-naturedness in one place at minus four or five degrees for a long time. Once the events were finished, the crowd helped put things away and dispersed. More than my day was made that cold winter’s day.

The river blew in with snow over the next few days before the last remnants of the games disappeared in the spring thaw a few weeks later. All physical signs of the Long River Winter Olympics vanished with the exception of the ax-throwing board which lay in wait for the next event.

This, of course, is not a story of the Winter Olympics, it is a story of community. Where you live is where you live – eat, sleep, nowadays probably work; but, when you live in a vibrant community, that is where you really live. That is where you make memories. I can promise you, that I have memories of feeling special and proud to be part of something so simple yet so complex. It was a wonderful day, I had to do nothing only show up. Kudos to the folks in Long River who have many traditions put on hold until this pandemic is all over. Thanks for allowing me in to this wonderful community. Thanks for reminding me we all need to live a little bit on the “hell let’s just do it” side of life.

Here's to never losing this attitude and encouraging and supporting it in our own communities. 

Thanks for reading.