J.C. Paulson's Blog, page 5

You stand on sacred ground

One day, while still working with Karen Briere, she sent around this incredible quote from Beatrice Warde, American typographical scholar, born Sept. 1900. It rings in my memory; it stands for the passion we feel, we authors and journalists, for newspapers and books and anything else worth printing, and it can still choke me up.For those of us who really give a damn about print, about words, about worlds created, about worlds covered in truth. This is a printing officeCrossroads of civilization Refuge of all the arts Against the ravages of time Armoury of fearless truthAgainst whispering rumour Incessant trumpet of tradeFrom this place words may fly abroadNot to perish on waves of soundNot to vary with the writer's handBut fixed in time having been verified in proofFriend you stand on sacred ground.This is a printing office.

Sharing the love on Twitter

The guts of this blog originally and partly appeared as a column in the Saskatoon Express, but has been edited and updated.This whole Facebook thing got me thinking about Twitter. If FB can mess with our heads by sending us all kinds of spam and sell our personal data to creeps, what’s happening on my Twitter feed?Not a heck of a lot, at least as far as I can tell, since I’m sort of insignificant. I get a crazy number of ads, but not much bad stuff happens; whereas, I have been experiencing some weird and interesting things on FB. That's not the case with others. Those with 10 million followers — think Robert Downey Jr. — have to battle the hackers, the posing wannabes and weirdos, and distinguish their sites from fan sites. I don’t know how many fan and fake RDJ sites are out there, but I suspect they are legion.So, RDJ and many other celebs have been putting little blue checkmarks beside their Twitter handles to verify that yes, it’s “real-ly” them. Now, I’m finding more regular folk doing the same.But is Twitter, in general, a better, safer place to engage? I don't know yet. I'm still new to this, in many ways. And I'm certainly no expert in social media safety.So, a little Twitter background. A few months ago, I joined an author’s support group which also does a lot of tweeting, and I hooked up with people, mostly authors, from far away — Ireland, Scotland, England and the Netherlands, for example. Via this bunch, I also found a few rabid fans of the TV series Outlander (all authors want to be Diana Gabaldon, or at least as successful as she is, when they grow up).Call me stupid, innocent, or generally disinterested in celebrity news, but it had never before occurred to me to follow an actor, politician (outside Canada), or any other famous sort of person. I used Twitter mostly to stay on top of breaking news.Suddenly, I’m following Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe from Outlander, along with Scott Kyle (who was kind enough to follow me), as well as Douglas Henshall (Shetland series), Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones, now watching) and the Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman.It’s been kind of fun, connecting with people in other parts of the world and following celebrity stuff. It has also been revealing, and that I did not expect. Some famous people actually use Twitter to do nice things. Some don’t.Let me give you an example. I don’t think I can have two conversations without Donald Trump’s angry, nasty and unhelpful tweets coming into one of them. Here’s a beauty.@realDonaldTrump: The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our “Weak Laws” Border, had better be stopped before it gets there. Cash cow NAFTA is in play, as is foreign aid to Honduras and the countries that allow this to happen. Congress MUST ACT NOW!Okay, I know it's different being an artist than POTUS. But it still hit me (call me a late to the game if you must) how social media can be used for good instead of evil, for building up instead of tearing down (Mexican border wall excepted). So, for contrast, example one:@RealHughJackman tweeted kudos to Cate Blanchett, who spoke up for thousands of #Rohingya @refugees at risk during monsoon season in Bangladesh. (I couldn’t find a Blanchett tweet on this, by the way.)Then he sent out a salute to women around the world on International Women’s Day, especially "the fiercest woman I know" @Deborra_lee (That’s his wife, Deborra-lee Furness.)Also for Women's Day came some truly moving and meaningful support from @SamHeughan, who plays Jamie in Outlander. He posted a love letter to "every female body" and a video at #https://vimeo.com/258115234 (password: female form.) He noted that regardless of body type, every women's shape "has been the definition of perfection at some point" and that we are all exposed to unattainable ideals of beauty. As does Downey with Random Act Funding, Heughan directs his own charity called My Peak Challenge, whereby he inspires people to achieve fitness/health/whatever they want to strive for, and supports charities from the proceeds.He also made a £100 rugby bet with his co-star when Scotland played Ireland. When the latter won, @caitrionambalfe picked her charity: a seven-year-old boy who has a rare kind of muscular dystrophy. ( http://www.victory4vincent.com/). And she matched Heughan's £100. Yes, they paid up; I checked. (The journalist in me.)A bunch of other people matched their money, too. The power of celebrity, sure; but also the power to inspire health, help a little boy, support charities . . . as opposed to the power to intimidate, anger and denounce. And, they're clearly running their own accounts, unlike other celebs who get branding companies to do it for them.And then I thought . . . can everyone behave this way, if on a smaller scale? Imagine the good we could do if we used social media the way (I think) it should be used. No sniping, no hacking, no threatening. No racist or misogynist comments. No data mining or fake news.Just kindness, love and support. And opinion, sure, minus the above sniping.Saskatchewan's recent tragedy also showed how that could be done (although at least one commentator was horrible about the disaster. Sigh. She is not from Saskatchewan.) When the Humboldt Broncos hockey team was in an unthinkable crash that killed 16 and injured 13, people used Twitter to connect us all. Showed us how to provide support; pointed us to the GoFundMe page; kept us up to date on the terrible but important news. #HumboldtStrong. You can do that on Twitter, more easily than Facebook, right? Where you have to make friends first?From kind and passionate celebrities to those of us muddling through our less visible lives, we can do social media with grace, and object when we encounter the opposite. Political views have a place, certainly, but they need not be put forward with hate or derision. Promotion has a place, too, but not to the exclusion of being human. My middle name must be Pollyanna. But let's try to love each other, for heaven's sake, on social media as well as everywhere else. It obviously can be done.Hugh Jackman photo by Pedro Haas. Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan photo by Sidewalks Entertainment. Both photos Flickr Creative Commons.More

Broken Through. Title design.

OOO. Here's the first title design for Broken Through, book two in the Adam and Grace series. I'm starting to vibrate, even though the thing won't be done for months yet. Maybe weeks. Fingers crossed. That is all.

American friends. Enter for a chance to win a copy of Adam's Witness

I'm trying a new thing — an Amazon giveaway, this one available only in the U.S. If you're elsewhere, Adam's Witness on Kindle is on 'sale' for .99 US (about $1.25 CAD) until the end of March. Or free on KU. Call it the push before book two.See this #AmazonGiveaway for a chance to win: Adam's Witness (Adam and Grace) (Volume 1). https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/14e697e... No purchase necessary. Ends the earlier of Mar 7, 2018 11:59 PM PST, or when all prizes are claimed. See Official Rules http://amzn.to/GArules.

97,643 words. And . . . done.

How long does it take to write a book? 97,643 words. Eleven months. Don't ask how many hours.On Feb. 21 at 6:16 p.m. I finished the first draft of Broken Through, and immediately thought I might, um, barf. My legs wouldn't hold me up. It rather came as a shock.While one side of my brain was fairly sure I would finish the thing at some point, the other side laughed at me. Which was right?Luckily, my main characters followed me around the house threatening mutiny if I didn't get it done. Adam, particularly. Man, that guy is ferocious. Grace, as her name might indicate, was a little more understanding. And Bruno (above)? How is he feeling?Here I go. Off to beta readers, editors, book cover designer, and months (dare I hope weeks?) of pre-publishing angst. If you're interested at all in sneak previews, possibly extra bits like short stories, be a dear and subscribe on this website. Thanks.Whew.

4, 3, 2, 1 . . . Chapter countdown. Broken Through.

This (above) is not Adam. But as they say, always use a photo with your blog posts. It is, though, reflective of how Adam is feeling: a little frustrated. Hurry up, I hear him saying. He needs a hair cut.I felt a strange vibration. Yesterday, 6:20 p.m. I'd felt it before; it was very familiar, yet distant.And then I remembered. It happened one year and two weeks ago. I was so close.Three (or four; who really knows exactly?) chapters to go. A week later, I had finished Adam's Witness.Here I am again. Broken Through. I know how it ends, although I suppose I always did. But I also, I think, know how to get there.That moment when you know you've almost finished a book is visceral, bizarre, thrilling, terrifying. I wonder if all authors get that feeling? Painters? Goldsmiths? Anyone?Have I done a good thing, or an idiotic one? Something in between? Time will tell.Of course, the best moment (pre-publication) is when you close your computer and say, done. Draft one. Done. I did it. But there's this strange feeling that comes before that; you're so close you can taste it. You can't stop. You don't want to.You sure as hell can't think about anything else. (Chicken for dinner? Sure, honey. Whatever. Oh, you mean I'm supposed to eat? Where's the coffee grinder?)So if you're reading, I have a question.What do you think of the title? Broken Through. It means two things in book two. It's an unfair question, since you have no idea what is actually IN the darn thing, but would it make you wonder? Enough to try reading it?Pile on. Adam, Grace, hold on. Almost there.

On following your muse: It might just save your life . . . and other benefits

I'm being overly dramatic. About the saving your life part. I think.When I awakened at three one particular morning, as I had for months after a traumatic career ending moment, I was, for a change, not in tears.I saw a (beautiful) reporter, a (stunningly handsome) cop, a (stupid homophobic) decision by a church and a (dead) bishop. Where did that come from? Would I remember it all at a more reasonable hour of the morning?Didn't think so. But I did.It became Adam's Witness, a novel I never thought I'd write. Nor any novel, really. I'm not much of a believer in intervention, divine or otherwise. But somehow, I do think my brain was trying to save my sanity, or myself from a black mood I could not shake. The mood did not actually improve much for a long time, in the overall; but the creative muse eventually took hold and if nothing else served as a distraction. There's nothing like diving into someone else's life. Even someone fictional.And now, I am powerfully inclined to pitch my method of mind-bending to others. If a creative or athletic or other positive new thing is calling you, I advise answering the mental phone. Even if it's hard. Let me tell you, publishing a book online and in print by yourself is not the easiest thing you'll ever try, creatively or technically. (I'm sure that goes for all other pursuits.)And I haven't entirely sorted out why it changed my mind. Altered my brain. But it absolutely did; I'm quite sure it forged new synaptic pathways, and no kidding. As to the other benefits, there's always a chance someone else might actually like what you did. Your book. Your painting. Your photograph. The fact that you ran 10K when you could barely walk around the block six months ago. As for the other benefits: I'm incredibly grateful to the readers of my city and the bookstore McNally Robinson for putting Adam's Witness at the top of the local fiction bestseller list for 2017. How did that happen? Like I said, you never know what following that muse may bring. http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/the-bo... believe it.

Win one of three copies of Adam's Witness on Goodreads

I've decided to plunge into the Goodreads world, and I have a giveaway going starting today and ending on Jan. 15. Three books are up for grabs.If you're a Goodreads reader, all you have to do is push a button and enter to win.If not, you can sign up and then go for it.Here is the link.https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh... chooses the winners at random, giving me no opportunity to pick favourites. Which would be, like, fair.While you're there, you could enter to win a whole bunch of other books too — bonus! Cheers, everyone.

Life happens everywhere. Love happens everywhere. Even in a small(ish) prairie city.

Write what you know, they say.I’d add to that, write where you know. Unless, of course, you’re locating your novel in 1700s Scotland and going viral with, say, Outlander. Research works, too.More than one person has wondered, and asked, why I placed Adam’s Witness in Saskatoon. (More often, I get asked, who is Adam based on? I’ll get to that one day.)Folks often think that novels must be set in exciting and enormous cities — New York, London, Paris, Moscow — to have enough scope for imagination and to fire the imaginations of readers. The other alternatives are exotic locations or pretty towns in rural France. They’re probably right that such locations are appealing to a wider book-buying audience.I asked the great mystery writer Gail Bowen the same question, actually, in an interview for the newspaper I work for. Why locate the Joanne Kilbourn novels in Regina, Saskatchewan? But I only asked because I thought readers would be curious about that. I was quite sure I understood.And she told me that life happens everywhere, not just in New York or Paris.Every village, town, city or other type of community holds the ingredients for a novel: love, hate, passion, murder, jealousy, redemption.To be sure, every city is unique, as well: cultural makeup, geography, functional or dysfunctional institutions and governments, brilliant or evil leaders — all in their own ways.Saskatoon is both unique and representative, and I hoped very much to illustrate my beloved home town both ways, in both fictional and realistic ways. It’s physically beautiful. Vibrant. Growing. Community focused. People smile and say hello while traversing downtown sidewalks. Try that in New York.People also hide darkness in their hearts. They crave love. They act on passion. We’re all human beings, with animal instincts and sophisticated problem-solving abilities, whether we’re perpetrating a crime or solving one. Or falling in love.Saskatoon is the universal city, just like every other. It’s Adam and Grace’s city.And it’s my city.

A peek at book two

Book two underway at 50,000 words. Here's a peek at an early chapter (with some spoilers redacted). Feedback welcome.Wasn’t that a mighty storm?Wasn’t that a mighty storm in the morning?—Traditional American folk songGrace awakened to pounding on her front door. Her heart lurched; it was early in the morning, still dark even in July, and raining like hell with claps of thunder punctuating the night. Who would be knocking at this hour, during a storm?Well, she couldn’t ignore it. Slipping out of bed, Grace hit the light switch, and immediately realized the power was out. Hell, she thought. Hell, hell, hell.By the time she made the hallway, she could hear the voice behind the door.“Grace! Belle amie! It’s me, Suzé! Open up, for God’s sake.”Relief flooded Grace, followed immediately by concern. What was Suzanne doing at her door at this hour, in this weather?“I’m coming!” shouted Grace, over a fresh rumble of thunder. Seconds later, she threw open the door to reveal her drenched friend.“Suzanne! What is going on? Come in . . .  get in here, you’re soaked.”Suzanne was shivering, as much from fear as from the drenching rain.“Do you have power? Doesn’t look like it,” said Suzanne, surveying the dark house, as Grace started rummaging through the kitchen for a flashlight and towels.“No. Do you?” asked Grace, holding out two dish towels.“No. No power, no phone. Grace, I’m scared. Something happened, next door. I tried texting you. Did you sleep through that big clap of thunder? I thought the world had ended. Le jour finale.”“It did wake me up — it was insanely loud, wasn’t it? But I must have gone back to sleep. Oho, here’s the flashlight. Give me a sec and I’ll find you a better towel and maybe a blanket. You’re freezing, by the look of it. I can’t make you tea, though.”Grace found a big, white, fluffy towel and put it on her friend’s head, then wrapped the TV-watching blanket from the couch around her shoulders. She found some cold tea in the fridge, and poured them each a glass in the beam of the flashlight.“What do you do when the power’s out and your phones don’t work?” asked Suzanne, through chattering teeth.“Honey, try to calm down. We’re okay right now, safe here together. Warm up for a second, then tell me what happened.”Suzanne took a big gulp of her tea.“I think there was someone trying to get into (her) house,” she said, then explained what had happened, and described the sound she thought she’d heard.“Could it have been (her), in the back yard?” asked Grace, digging out candles and matches.“That occurred to me, but I don’t think so. What would she be doing back there with no flashlight? It was pitch black, except during flashes of lightning. I thought maybe she’d be out there checking her trees, too, but I could see my garage and trees through the back window during the lightning. She’d be able to as well. And there were no lights inside — no candles or anything. What should I do now?”“We could wait until the phones come back on, and call her. If she doesn’t answer, we could call the police. Or, we could drive down to the police station. It depends how worried you are. You were there.”Suzanne thought for a minute. “You know, I’ve seldom been so terrified in my entire life, if ever,” she said, slowly. “My head says I may be over-reacting, in the bad weather and everything. But my stomach says something is wrong.”Grace had to admit to herself that the very last thing she wanted to do was climb into a car in the wild storm and drive downtown, then admit to the police that they were frightened . . .But Suzé’s gut was pretty reliable. Grace sighed. It was going to be a long morning.“Let me put on some clothes,” Grace said, finally. “You warm up. We’ll brave the storm and get down to the cop shop.”“You think it’s the right thing to do?”“Yes, I do. You’re so often right when things go wrong. Or right. Your feeling about those noises the other day appears to have been bang on. So let’s go. We can’t do anything from here.”*******The drive downtown was insane. Rain pelted on and poured down the windshield, rendering the wipers nearly useless. It was dark as hell in the widespread power outage, which had also taken out the street lighting; it was impossible to see anything beyond the car’s headlights — except during ear-splitting, eye-dazzling explosions of lightning.Grace and Suzanne were forced to shout at each another, it was so noisy. Grace was trying to be Suzanne’s second set of eyes, because driving around broken tree branches — some of them very large — was also part of the stormy obstacle course.“Shit! There’s another one on your right,” yelled Grace.Suzanne swerved.“Damn. That was a big one. Do you think we’ll notice in time if a whole tree has fallen across the street?” Suzanne shouted back.“God, I hope so.”It was the worst, the longest and the wettest storm in years, the two friends had agreed as they climbed into the car. There had been a spectacular rainfall in the early 1980s, when they were young: nearly one hundred millimetres of rain in just fifty minutes had flooded basements across the city (it was almost as bad out at Suzanne’s parents’ farm) and Grace hadn’t forgotten the aftermath of rescuing her toys and cleaning out the silt and sewage.The bridge was a river, ending in an enormous puddle at its base. Suzanne determinedly blasted through the two-foot-deep pool, praying the brakes wouldn’t quit on her.A few blocks later, they finally pulled up in front of the police station. Suzanne stopped the car, and the two women stared at each other.“What a trip,” said Grace. “Was it as bad getting over to my place?”“Pretty much,” said Suzanne, earning big points for bravery from her friend. “Thank God we don’t live too far apart.”They took deep breaths, then pushed the car doors open into the pressing wind, and, heads down, dashed to the front door of the station. They were instantly soaked, again; the rain was so heavy, it was like running through a waterfall.A cursory evaluation of each other in the vestibule provided the conclusion that nothing could be done about their drenched, makeup-free, drowned-rat-like appearances. Resigned, they approached the desk.But the young police officer on duty, amazed at their wild and dishevelled appearance if his widening eyes were any indication, could be forgiven if he thought he was being approached by two beautiful but crazy sea creatures. He smiled at the two women.“Enjoying the weather?” he asked. “Sorry. Seriously. Are you two okay?”