Author: Paula

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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….

 

 

 

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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

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Adventures from an author’s book tour journal

Paula Wild's books

I went on my first book tour in 1995. Even though my pub­li­cist did all the ground­work and prepped me like a pro, I had no idea what to ex­pect. I still don’t.

The biggest un­known is the audi­ence. There may be two or there may be 200 plus, and the size doesn’t ne­ces­sar­ily re­flect the qual­ity of your book, your name re­cog­ni­tion or all the work your pub­li­cist and the host have undertaken.

Return of the WolfWhat you can count on is that at some point, there will be a wild­card. My first was an eld­erly man, ob­vi­ously in some stage of de­men­tia, who kept ask­ing why all the im­ages in his book were dif­fer­ent from every­one else’s. Then there was the home­less wo­man who at­temp­ted to dom­in­ate the Q & A ses­sion with in­co­her­ent stories.

But the most wor­ri­some was the men­tally dis­turbed man (even­tu­ally in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized) who got a hold of my phone num­ber and called re­peatedly to say he wanted to “get me alone some­where” so he could tell me what ob­scene acts my friends were en­ga­ging in with chil­dren. In his first call, he said he’d been at my present­a­tion the night be­fore but there were too many people around for him to talk to me privately. The gig had ended late at night and vehicles left the isol­ated park­ing lot quickly. I was glad a friend had ac­com­pan­ied me.

’ll nev­er for­get the trip on a gravel road that was so full of potholes I kept look­ing in the rear­view mir­ror to see what part of the car might be fall­ing off. But at least I had con­trol over the vehicle’s speed and was the only per­son reacting.

That wasn’t so while fly­ing to east­ern Canada for a present­a­tion at a writer’s fest­iv­al. The wo­man on my left had a pan­ic at­tack when the plane ex­per­i­enced tur­bu­lence. Despite mul­tiple flight at­tend­ants of­fer­ing re­as­sur­ing words, as well as coach­ing on deep breath­ing, the dis­traught wo­man shrieked at every jostle. I asked if she’d like me to hold her hand and she said yes. Lunch had just been served so I nibbled at my sand­wich with my free hand. When the man on the oth­er side of me began moan­ing and hy­per­vent­il­at­ing, I put my sand­wich down and held his hand too.

My ac­com­mod­a­tion while on tour has ranged from me­diocre to wa­ter­front ho­tels. The icon­ic Sylvia Hotel in Vancouver’s west end is my fave. Quaint charm at its best. But that isn’t al­ways the case. At one des­tin­a­tion, I was es­cor­ted to an un­oc­cu­pied but fur­nished house where I was to spend the night. As we entered the front door, the loc­al or­gan­izer said, “Oh good, nothing’s in the traps. Yes, plur­al, as in five baited mouse traps.

Presentations in­volving PowerPoint can be tricky. I al­ways re­quest a tech per­son be present to as­sist with setup, but that isn’t al­ways pos­sible. Several times I’ve had to crawl along stage floors with the audi­ence look­ing on while try­ing to con­nect com­pat­ible cables.

Once, after re­cruit­ing a teen from a nearby cof­fee shop to get things go­ing, someone turned on the wash­room light at the same mo­ment someone else plugged in the kettle for tea after the event. The room was plunged into dark­ness and when power was re­stored the screen re­turned to “no in­put sig­nal found.” Once again, I ran down the street to get the teen.

A book tour of­ten means at­tend­ing as many gigs as pos­sible in the shortest amount of time. On one Vancouver tour, I was in­ter­viewed by two ra­dio sta­tions, ap­peared on three tele­vi­sion shows, gave a present­a­tion at the down­town lib­rary and had a photo shoot for the Globe & Mail all with­in 24 hours.

To say I was ex­hausted is an un­der­state­ment. That’s why hav­ing a good road­ie is a god­send. They can drive, carry boxes of books and sell them if necessary.

Yes, tak­ing ex­tra books is im­port­ant. Buyers may ex­ceed the host’s ex­pect­a­tions, or the ship­ment may be waylaid.

A road­ie can also be de­terrent to po­ten­tially dan­ger­ous strangers.   

Going on book tour is the coun­ter­point to be­ing a writer.  You are no longer se­questered in a room by your­self; you are at the head of a room in front of a lot of people, in many cases, most of them unknown.

It is ex­cit­ing and daunt­ing. Will they like your book? Will they buy your book? Will they stare at you in rapt awe or will they bom­bard you with awk­ward ques­tions? All are possible.

The im­port­ant thing is to re­mem­ber that you are an au­thor on book tour, which is some­thing to be proud of no mat­ter what happens.

Photo cred­its:

Woman with books Mykta Dolmatov/Dreamstime.com

Red car Irina Miroshnichenko/Dreamstime.com

 

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Gumboots in the Straits

 

Gumboots in the Straits, Nautical Adventures from Sointula to the Salish Sea is hil­ari­ous, in­sight­ful and totally can­did. Each chapter chron­icles the es­capades of young men drawn to British Columbia’s West Coast and the in­side wa­ters of Vancouver Island in the 1970s.

This dec­ade was a time of up­heav­al cre­at­ing a ma­jor shift in so­cial norms. Countless young people were seek­ing a bet­ter life, anchored on the con­cepts of peace, love and free­dom. The ac­cess­ib­il­ity of the birth con­trol pill, the in­creas­ing pop­ular­ity of marijuana and grow­ing con­flict over the Vietnam War all con­trib­uted to the changes that took place.

A lot of people were on the move res­ult­ing in an in­triguing cul­tur­al stew of hip­pies, back to the landers and Vietnam war res­isters find­ing their way to re­mote areas of the BC coast. They came from the US, oth­er parts of Canada and sub­urb­an areas of the province.

Many shared a cer­tain in­no­cence, even na­iv­ety, about what life in less in­hab­ited areas would be like. But there was also op­tim­ism and a will­ing­ness to take on the chal­lenges in­volved in learn­ing new ways of liv­ing and earn­ing an income.

Most of the men be­came com­mer­cial fish­er­men for at least part of their work­ing lives. And most had no ex­per­i­ence when it came to trolling, gill­net­ting or sein­ing. Some learned un­der the guid­ance of men (be­ne­vol­ent or oth­er­wise) who had been earn­ing in­come from fish since they were teen­agers. Others figured things out through mul­tiple ex­per­i­ences of tri­al and error.

Skippers yelled, boats sank, people fell over­board, days off were of­ten spent at the nearest pub and big crew shares were cel­eb­rated. For the most part, fish were plen­ti­ful and if you were will­ing to work hard, the money was good.

I ini­tially bought this book as I know half of the twenty-sev­en con­trib­ut­ors. Learning the back­story of these men was in­triguing but I was equally en­grossed in the stor­ies by people I’ve nev­er met. I par­tic­u­larly en­joyed the chapters ac­know­ledging the sup­port of their fe­male companions/​spouses.

Kudos to Jane Wilde and Lou Allison for doc­u­ment­ing this unique era in Gumboot Guys, Gumboot Girls, Dancing in Gumboots, and now Gumboots in the Straits, all pub­lished by Caitlin Press.