Author: Paula

Posted on

A different way to start the New Year

Sometime in October I got scooped up in a so­cial whirl that kept me go­ing from birth­day parties to con­certs, dinner’s out and more day after day. That ended in mid-December when I headed south to spend two weeks cel­eb­rat­ing the hol­i­days with family.

So much fun! So much good food! And it was won­der­ful to spend time with fam­ily and friends! But, of course, the busier I got, the less time I had for writ­ing. Each week I thought that would change but it didn’t. By the time I flew home on the last day of 2025, I was ready to get back to work.

The last leg of my jour­ney was delayed for hours due to a thick shroud of fog draped over Vancouver Island. When the plane fi­nally touched down in Comox, I was giddy with re­lief. I just wanted to get home and back to “my real life.”

The cab dropped me off at 12:10 a.m. on New Year’s Day. As I stepped into the near black­out of my front door, I felt some­thing sub­stan­tial, yet squishy, un­der my feet. My im­me­di­ate thought was dead an­im­al.

I fumbled for the small flash­light I’d at­tached to my keyring. I didn’t find it but did man­age to open the car trunk and ac­tiv­ate the car alarm. Looking around at all the dark win­dows in my com­plex, I giggled and called out “Happy New Year!”

When I fi­nally got in­side and was able to shed some light on the mat­ter, the dead an­im­al turned out to be a large wreath someone had left on my door­stop. What a relief!

I love the New Year and the op­por­tun­ity it of­fers for big dreams and in­tro­spec­tion. I usu­ally spend about an hour plot­ting out what I want to ac­com­plish in the up­com­ing months.

I fully in­ten­ded to do that when I woke up the first morn­ing of 2026. But both my body and brains said no. I was tired, so de­cided to wait a day be­fore dash­ing off a list of projects.

The next day’s re­peat re­bel­lion of body and brain made me real­ize my en­ergy bank was empty. I de­cided to give my­self a couple of days to recover…which stretched into a week!

I ate and slept when I wanted, puttered, went for sol­it­ary walks in the woods and, aside from a few short emails and texts, com­mu­nic­ated with no one.  I was sur­prised to find it not bor­ing but relaxing.

When I did sit down to form­al­ize what I want to ac­com­plish this year, I spent a few minutes con­sid­er­ing what gave me en­ergy in 2025 and what drained it.

The an­swers were ob­vi­ous: en­ergy and joy came from writ­ing, tai chi, mu­sic, and spend­ing time in nature and with fam­ily and friends. The drains: too many ap­point­ments and too much socializing.

I love hav­ing fun with friends and fam­ily but, as a writer — and in­tro­vert — I alsoPaula and Shannon Bailey at Nuchatlitz Provincial Park. Photo by Dodie Eyer need alone time. I ad­ded “fix the teetertot­ter” to my 2026 list. I’m not cut­ting out any so­cial activ­it­ies out, just mak­ing sure there’s more balance.

And you know what? I found my mini-re­treat so be­ne­fi­cial, I ad­ded it to the list too.

Top photo by Rick James

Bottom photo by Dodie Eyer 

 

Posted on

Canadian books & Christmas

 

One of my fond­est early child­hood memor­ies is of be­ing tucked up in bed and read a story or two be­fore I closed my eyes on the day gone by. It didn’t mat­ter if the read­er was my mom or dad, one of my grand­par­ents, an aunt, or even a babysit­ter. I eagerly looked for­ward to be­ing im­mersed in an­oth­er realm and the ex­cite­ment of turn­ing the page to dis­cov­er what came next.

I still be­lieve in the ma­gic of books and their abil­ity to in­trigue, in­form and ex­cite read­ers. And I con­tin­ue the child­hood tra­di­tion of read­ing in bed be­fore ven­tur­ing into dream­land each night. I’ve laughed, cried, and at times been so creeped out that I’ve had to leave my winter co­coon of flan­nel sheets and cozy quilt to make sure all the doors and win­dows were locked. 

So, it’s no sur­prise that books are at the top of my Christmas wish list

Thanks to Canadian au­thors Steve Pitt and Kristen den Hartog for the idea, text and image.

each year. And that they are my go-to for gifts to give oth­ers. Make that Canadian books, please, as I love to sup­port the arts and cul­ture of the vast coun­try I live in.

Avid read­ers know where to find the books they like or dis­cov­er some­thing new to ex­pand their world. But if you’re new to, re­turn­ing to the pas­time of read­ing, or not sure what might ap­peal, your loc­al book­store will be happy to help out.

You can also pick up (or sub­scribe to for $25 a year) BC BookWorld to find out about new re­leases. Or check out ABCBookWorld, for in­form­a­tion about more than 12,800 British Columbia authors.

A few Canadian books I’ve read recently:

The Conjoined by Jen Sookfong Lee

By the Time You Read This by Giles Blunt

In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje

Canadian books on my Christmas wish list include:

The Broken Detective by Joel Nedecky

Surviving the Nazis by Evelyn Kahn

Rufus and Calliope by Sarah Louise Butler

Personally, I can’t think of a bet­ter way to spend a winter even­ing than cuddled up with a book by a Canadian au­thor. So, if it isn’t already part of your hol­i­day tra­di­tion, con­sider ask­ing for and giv­ing Canadian books as gifts this Christmas.

Posted on

My favorite part of writing a book – it’s not what you think

A laptop in the woods, waiting for a writer.

 

Writing a book can be a lot of fun but it also re­quires a lot of hard work and dis­cip­line. And each au­thor has their fa­vor­ite as­pect of the task, which may shift over time.

I’ve usu­ally thought about a top­ic for a long time be­fore mak­ing a com­mit­ment to write 60,000+ words about it. So, that gen­er­ally means I have a good idea of how the be­gin­ning and end will be shaped.

These sec­tions are ex­cit­ing and fun to de­vel­op. I also really like in­ter­view­ing people, tap­ping into their ex­pert­ise and learn­ing about their ex­per­i­ences and perspectives.

But then there’s the muddled middle, which seems to quickly turn into a bog of en­nui that is im­possible to es­cape. I have clear point A and C but where oh where is the all-im­port­ant point B to join them in a co­hes­ive man­ner? This is my least fa­vor­ite part of writ­ing a book. Inevitably, there are many false starts, gnash­ing of teeth and mut­ter­ing or worse be­fore this sec­tion comes together.

And then there’s the edit­ing. My fa­vor­ite part of writing!

Why? Because I have a frame­work to build on, adding, de­let­ing, re­fin­ing and mov­ing text as needed. It is cre­at­ive, fun, and a re­lief to fi­nally be on semi-sol­id ground.

A page edited with red ink.My edit­ing takes place in a vari­ety of ways. I usu­ally be­gin re­view­ing the text on my com­puter, then shift to hard copy as the eye picks up dif­fer­ent glitches in dif­fer­ent me­di­ums. Reading the story aloud is an­oth­er way to make sure every sen­tence is up to par and cre­ates a co­hes­ive, dy­nam­ic whole.

I will re­view the ma­nu­script many times, hope­fully mak­ing few­er changes as I pro­gress. When I think the story is as good as I can pos­sibly make it, I send it to my publisher.

Then things get even bet­ter as the pub­lish­er as­signs one or more ed­it­ors to go over the ma­nu­script with me. People ask if I get up­set when someone sug­gests chan­ging, adding to or even de­let­ing parts of some­thing I’ve worked on for years.

The an­swer is a re­sound­ing no! By this time, I’m so im­mersed in the story, I can no longer tell what its strengths and weak­nesses are. I need a pro­fes­sion­al to look at the ma­ter­i­al with fresh eyes. This is a vi­tal com­pon­ent of a good book, so if I was go­ing to self-pub­lish, I would hire an editor.

Now back to the cur­rent muddled middle….

 

 

 

Posted on

From wanna be writer to published author  — The story behind my first book

 

Wanting to write a book is one thing. Making the com­mit­ment is an­oth­er.  Especially if it’s your first book.

Three ques­tions I al­ways ask my­self are: Is my in­terest in the top­ic com­pel­ling enough to ded­ic­ate a sig­ni­fic­ant amount of time to it? Will the story in­trigue an agent and/​or pub­lish­er? Will any­one be­sides my moth­er buy the book?

I was will­ing to in­vest time to my first book – Sointula Island Utopia — but wasn’t sure about the agent, pub­lish­er and read­ers. Well, I thought my sib­lings would prob­ably buy books, as well as my mom, so I had four po­ten­tial sales. I de­cided to go for it.

Strangely enough, the seeds for that first book were planted in the Sointula Credit Union.

I lived in Sointula, BC for thir­teen years (1975−1988) and for ten of those years, I was the only full­time em­ploye at the cred­it uni­on. At that time, it con­sisted of one room up­stairs in the Sointula Co-op.

Having grown up in an urb­an en­vir­on­ment, life in a small sea­side com­munity of 750 people who pre­dom­in­antly had Finnish an­cest­ors and primar­ily made their liv­ing from fish­ing was an ex­cit­ing adventure.

The cred­it uni­on didn’t have chequing ac­counts, so mem­bers pur­chased money or­ders to pay their bills. That meant they of­ten spent fif­teen minutes or more with me.

I was en­thralled by their stor­ies.  Especially the ones about the early days of the Finnish set­tle­ment on Malcolm Island, the vis­ion­ary (Matti Kurikka) they in­vited to lead them in their uto­pi­an en­deavors, and the achieve­ments, set­backs and scan­dals that followed.

Paula WildFor sev­er­al years I had been ful­filling my child­hood dream of be­ing a writer and had mod­er­ate suc­cess pub­lish­ing arti­cles in magazines and news­pa­pers. But I was itch­ing for some­thing more. Something big and chal­len­ging to fo­cus on.

Every day at the cred­it uni­on, I thought, “Someone should write these stor­ies down.” Then one day, I wondered, “Why not me?”

I ap­proached the BC Archives in Victoria, and they agreed to sup­port me by provid­ing cas­sette tapes (pre-di­git­al times!) and guid­ance on con­duct­ing in­ter­views. Along with my oth­er re­search, I in­ter­viewed people liv­ing in Sointula, as well as oth­ers who had moved away. I was sur­prised at how eager every­one was to talk to me and how can­did their stor­ies were. A few people were so moved by their memor­ies that they cried.

Along the way, I conquered my shy­ness, learned what types of ques­tions gen­er­ate the best an­swers and honed my writ­ing skills. But doubt was a beast liv­ing in the re­cesses of my mind. Was what I work­ing on good enough to be published?

Then I saw an ad in a Comox Valley news­pa­per for Blue Pencil Café ses­sions with au­thor, Susan Mayes. I’d loved her book, The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin and knew she would give me hon­est feed­back. I signed up, paid my fee and sent three chapters for her to review.

I was so nervous when I met Susan that I wouldn’t ac­cept a cup of cof­fee or drink from the glass of wa­ter provided for fear I’d spill them. To my sur­prise, she was ex­cited about my story and en­cour­aged me to com­plete the manuscript.

I floated home and spent as much time as I could writ­ing. But Susan hadn’t totally ban­ished the beast. Early on in my re­search, I’d real­ized that the Sointula story had two parts. The first was the early Finns’ en­deavors to cre­ate a bet­ter life. The second was the sim­il­ar hopes and dreams of the hip­pies, back to the landers and war res­isters who moved to the is­land in the 1960s and 1970s.

Part one was fin­ished but did I have the stam­ina to write part two? Should I just call it quits and try to find a publisher?

Deciding I needed an­oth­er pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion, I pre­pared an out­line of the book and sent that, along with a couple of chapters, to Harbour Publishing.

A couple of weeks later, I re­ceived a post­card from Howard White, co-founder and pub­lish­er of Harbour Publishing. He said they were in­ter­ested in the story and liked my outline.

One of many news­pa­per and magazine arti­cles I wrote while re­search­ing Sointula Island Utopia.

It was a shock when Sointula is­land Utopia be­came a BC Bestseller and was awar­ded a BC Historical Federation Certificate of Merit for its sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to BC history.

I couldn’t have done it without the help of many people – those I in­ter­viewed, those who trans­lated Finnish doc­u­ments into English, and the ad­vice of Susan, Howard, and the BC Archives. I am forever grate­ful for that early encouragement.

But here’s the thing, a suc­cess­ful book isn’t just about a good story and de­cent re­search and writ­ing. It’s also about the pro­fes­sion­al edit­ing, design, mar­ket­ing, and pub­li­city that a good pub­lish­er can provide. That’s what show­cases your work and makes the pub­lic aware of and in­ter­ested in the book. Of course, in the di­git­al age, a good so­cial me­dia plat­form helps too.

I re­cently donated the re­mainder of my Sointula re­search – oral his­tory tapes, tran­scrip­tions of the tapes, hand­writ­ten notes, news­pa­per arti­cles, and more, to the Sointula Museum. I’m so glad the ma­ter­i­al has gone home.

Photo on book cov­er by Rick James