Kate Baggott's Blog: Cornfields of the Sea, page 4

What September Is...

There is a yellow highlighter glowing on the pages right beside my keyboard. I am sitting in an office downtown with a ghost writing assignment that is already late. It is sitting beside me while I write this post, reminding me that I have bills to pay and other people's brilliant ideas to translate into a language with universal appeal.

It is easy to dismiss ghost writing as something I do just to pay the bills, but it is more complicated than that. Other people's ideas, their work and their research is every bit as interesting as my own. When I think about what is going on in my own life too much, the opportunity to crawl into someone else's head for a while is a huge blessing.

Plus, other people know how to sell their own books to readers. I'm still struggling to find an audience for my books, but I'm not too upset about it. Reading is often a time and place situation.

And then there's the end of the famous author fantasy. Last night, while I was taking a break procrastinating avoiding the laundry and dishes not ghost writing, I was reading Blue Nights by Joan Didion whose work I've admired since I read Slouching Toward Bethlehem as a university student. It reminded me that, really, being a famous author protects you from nothing. You still have to experience tragedy, worry, loss and mortality. You can use the prettiest synonyms for all of those things, but eventually the text runs out for all of us.

Obviously, I need to start reading some cheerier stuff. Any suggestions?

Normal Activities in Abnormal Times

If you read my last blog post, you'll already know that my little family and I are going through some tough times right now.

Living under the threat of court appearances and legal fees doesn't dominate my every thought. There are lots of completely normal events and activities that fill our time in hugely meaningful ways.

One of the most normal events happening to me right now is the launch of Dry Stories with Morning Rain Publishing. This is what writers do. They write books and get them published. They share the links to KOBO and to Amazon so their fans (I have at least 8) can buy those books. Today, I have a completely normal task to complete in announcing the release of my new book.

It feels good to be normal.

There is also one way it feels good to be abnormal. When I was in elementary school and was being bullied every day, I never imagined that I would one day be surrounding by a crowd of loving and dedicated friends, but I am.

So, it is my great privilege to share with you the abonormal and remarkable list of people who populate the Dedication and Acknowledgements notes from Dry Stories:

"Dedicated to Brian and Mary Christina for taking me on every adventure.

"Acknowledgements become giant tasks with the expressions of love they invite an author to make, even when they are written for short books. To everyone at Morning Rain publishing, I send my thanks for the privilege of your attention and your hard work to make short books a big deal.

"I once got a fortune cookie that said: “Your greatest treasure is the friends you have.” No other form of divination has ever been so accurate.

"While I may have forgotten a name or two on this list in hurry and confusion, I have not forgotten your place in my heart. To Luna Kwan, Amanda and Judith Allan, Regina and Don Moorcroft, Cecilia Moorcroft and Annie Moorcroft, Karrie Porter and Karrie Bannerman, to Renee Frigault, Ali Hewison, Michael Prescott, Yvonne Young, Dawne Grummett, Shani Ferguson, Christina Zola, Jordan Christensen, Jennifer Mason, Joanne Clendening-Kasunic, Anita Windisman, L.Ward, Pete Bevin, Sylvia Degrow, Jane and Pat Dunphy, Elinor Hughes, Kevin Powell, Andrew Noble, Dondy Razon, Rhonda Sussman, Meshell Gudz, Laurie Smyth, Vanessa Stockton, Marina Zvetina, Margaret Wolfhart-Stoll, Sharon Kavli, Kristine Williams, Robin Hotton, Jennifer Bogart, Sarah Hagarty, Maral Maclagan, Elmar Kirchner, Ingo Saatweber, Marianne O’Neil, Alison Fraser, Rachel Kremen, Juliane Okot-Bitek, Leanne and Steven Cvetan, Tanya Fusco, Sandy Feldman, Allison Paige, Matthew Burpee, Jennifer Evans, Sonja Oldwin, Jill Hodges, Stacy King, Michele Marques, Suzanne Roberts, Allison Martin, Robert Land and Jean Bridge, Laurie Boese, Jocey De la Fontaine, Rebecca Morgan Quin, Kelly Peters, Yvonne Bobrowski, Bill Sweetman, Trevor Twining, Trishia DiFruscio, Cheri Raymond, Jenna Kane, Shawn Syms, Kirsty Alke, Gloria Gamat, Sean Sullivan, Anne Field, Gareth Hackett and David Carmichael I send my thanks for rescuing me from threats both internal and external. To you I send my best sense of obligation and my heartfelt promise to pay it forward. You have been my precious sources of strength and hope in times of scarcity and fear.

"To my brother Owen, my sister Sarah and our mother Cathy Baggott, I send my endless thanks for that special combination of chaos and security you bring to my creativity and to my heart."

Thank you. I couldn't have made this perfectly normal launch post without you.

Sketching Out the Situation

The last time I wrote an entry for this blog, it was to tell you that I could not write about my situation.

Today, things have gotten so desperate that I have to write out a sketch of the situation.

Here it is: my husband, who is not yet my ex-husband, has accused me of international child abduction under the Hague Convention.

First, let me assure you that I haven't kidnapped anyone.

Just over a year ago, my husband gave me permission to bring the kids to Canada until the end of this summer. At the end of that term, we all expected to return to Germany for a holiday together.

Suddenly, in March, my husband sent me an email demanding that I return the children to Germany by March 31st. He also made it clear that I was not welcome to accompany them. I found out about the divorce file he had re-opened while I was conveniently abroad by accident.

I obtained legal advice to ascertain if his revocation was something I had to take seriously and was assured that there were defenses against an unreasonable demand like his.

My husband filed a Hague Convention application on March 24th and I was served at the end of June.

The interesting thing about the Hague Convention is that it allows one person to accuse another of abduction without any kind of investigation. The German Justice Department did not look into court files or make sure documentation submitted with the application was true, they just forwarded it on to the Central Authority in Ontario.

The Central Authority in Ontario just accepted the application and referred the case to be fought in the courts. This is the down side of cutting back on the budgets of government offices. They don't have the resources to do their jobs, so they pass the buck onto other government ministries, like the courts, that are overwhelmed with lack of resources too. In any case, it makes the Hague Convention -- which is meant to protect children from real international abductions -- easy to abuse.

There is no barrier to someone in Germany submitting a false claim. According to the German Department of Justice web site, any German resident who claims his or her children have been unlawfully removed from the country can claim legal aid and translation expenses...they will even pay for legal representation outside Germany, which means they are probably paying for my husband's Canadian lawyers.

If I were still a German tax payer, I would be really upset that my money could be used to support the abuse of international law. If I were a German lawyer, I would be even angrier. German lawyers typically charge 50 to 100 EURO per hour and they get almost nothing for legal aid cases they are required to take. In contrast, Canadian lawyers charge $250 to $750 an hour and you can bet they are not going to give a German government program a discount.

That leaves me with an unjust and, frankly, completely unsubstantiated battle that requires legal specialists in both Canada and Germany, certified legal translators and lots and lots of other costs. I think it's reasonable to say all of this will cost between $20,000 and $30,000 by the time it's done.

It's my great hope that this will be resolved in my favour and that my husband will have to pay all my costs. That said, the German to English translator is just a freelancer -- not a $500 an hour lawyer -- and she needs her money.

While I would love to use this post to ask about 400 people to buy Love From Planet Wine Cooler, because I think I did a good job and want people to read it, I know that is not going to happen.

Instead, I have to swallow my pride and ask for help in the way my friends have been recommending. I've started a GoFundMe campaign to pay for the translation costs. I need documentation to fight these ridiculous charges and protect my relationship with my children. If this strikes a nerve with you, please consider helping me.

If you can help, I promise to pay it forward. And, if you want one, I will email you a copy of Love From Planet Wine Cooler. All you have to do is email me baggyk(at)yahoo(dot)com

I cannot tell you how much it hurts to push the publish button on this post, but I have no other choice. I hope you won't judge me too harshly.

What I Cannot Write

All of my life, writing has been my refuge. All of my life, writing has been how I sort out chaos and put the world to rights. All of my life, writing has been about giving myself a voice even when there was no one to listen.

All of my life I have relied on writing.

Today, I am silenced. I cannot tell a wider audience about what I am going through and how it is a comment on our society's tolerance of abuse, of misuse of the justice system and of the preference of our paid professionals to do the easy thing over the moral thing.

Right now, when I most want to scream & shout for the righting of a serious wrong, I am silenced. I am silenced and it sits badly on my heart. Remaining silent in the face of dishonesty and immorality is contrary to every moral I hold as a writer.

I am, for the moment, not allowed to speak for myself or for those I love most. This is wrong, but that is all I can tell you.

My Creative Life Is Diverted

Turmoil.

I live it.

Mostly, I'm learning how to live through it, but it is one of the more challenging life lessons I've been handed.

Turmoil happens. We've all been through it and will go through it again.

This time, it has zapped all of my creative energy. Wait. That is not true.

It has zapped all of my productive creative energy. I can still imagine my life's antagonists making crucial mistakes that would set me free. I still have elaborate fantasies of magical events like lottery wins to pay legal costs AND life expenses. I can still conjure up a brew of faith that all will be resolved without my having to inject the situation with time and money and energy I just don't have.

Yes, my imagination can still perform remarkable acts. It just cannot write a story. It cannot write a story right now.

What does offer its comfort is other kinds of writing work. When I can write in the realm of facts, research and quotes, all my intellect is engaged and I can focus completely on the task at hand for hours at a time.

Facts aren't cold. Quotes aren't without personal impact. Research really is often like the most interesting kind of detective work. These three things are the setting, characters and plot of information rather than entertainment.

Entertainment is not a distraction I can afford right now.

I do wish there was a way to construct some elaborate scenario and to rescue my children and I from our current turmoil the way characters in stories manage to make one brave or brilliant choice that changes everything. But no. I need patience and persistence. I need focus so that facts, quotes and research can shine through these life dramas and end this one...even if a happy ending for all is impossible.

Heartbreak Comedy

Romantic comedy is fun. One relationship ends so that a friendship or the even funnier intergenderhositilityship can deepen and become the happily ever after relationship all of us are supposed to have...if we are attractive and heterosexual. We all know the formula.

And, here is something worth considering, it might be the heartbreak that is the real turning point. This is where the protagonists in the story might get a little self-awareness, decide to end the pattern of self-hatred that leads to bad relationships choices, or you know, hang out with her friends and have a good time. Or, here's another idea, after a particularly horrible marriage break up, she might just hang out with her children and have a good time while they sort out a new life together.

This morning I watched one of those horrible reality TV shows...OK, it was Come Dine With Me Canada, in which one of the participants was described as a "desperate divorcee." The show has been badly copied from its British version, which is full of sarcasm from the commentator, not outright nastiness from heavily-coached participants, but that is not the point. Is this really how WNetwork, once known as "the Women's Television Network," sees its primary audience? Are they really so dismissive? So prone to dishing out stereotypes without thinking?

Obviously.

While I only have a sample of 400 Facebook friends and 2000 Twitter followers in several countries to draw from, I can say I have never met a "desperate divorcee." And I'm not just saying that because "divorcee" is a word best left in 1963.

I don't know any desperate divorcees.

They aren't among single mothers.The single mothers I know are too busy working like mad to feed their kids.

They aren't among married mothers. Most of the women I know, once married, manage to stay married, work like mad to to feed their kids and keep their husbands healthy, well-fed and busy sharing all the work and responsibility of raising a family.

They aren't among never-married women. The women I know who have never married are scaling the heights of professional success. That is not true of all of them. Reality is a big place. Others are unmarried because they have been caring for elderly parents, suffering from serious illnesses or fell in love with men they could not recover from losing. Others could not recover from the hit of religious guilt around all things sexual. And then, there is the matter of rational choice. Heterosexual marriage can be a horrible deal for lots of women and some choose to avoid it altogether.

Desperate divorcees aren't among lesbians. Not even among divorced lesbians. They're a healthy demographics, lesbians. At least, that's the impression I get from their Facebook posts.

And "desperate divorcee" is not me. I'm too well-friended, too well-familied, too tired, too busy, too involved with too many different projects to feel desperate for anything or for anyone I may not have.

But do you know what? There is comedy in heartbreak that does not come from another romance. There is comedy in heartbreak that does not come from watching your ex suffer, stereotypes about libidos or from the dismissive, insulting nature of the word "desperate."

There is laughter in finding a way to make it through the month when finances are difficult. There is laughter in making a new home. There is fun in setting new routines and making new rules for the good of everyone. There is comedy in friendship and frustration and recovery. There is no need to be dismissive, insulting or hateful toward others to find it.

And you know, I'm not going to rely on WNetwork or anyone else to prove that. I started working on these ideas in Love from Planet Wine Cooler. I started, but obviously I need to go deeper and explain more thoroughly what it is to be so full of life and love and laughter. And, one day, I will write you that book too.

A Statement of Belief

It's Sunday. I have friends and relatives who are religious. Some of them are even in positions of leadership in their communities of faith. Not all of them mark Sunday as their day of rest and reflection. I respect them. I respect their faith. I even admire it.

There was a time in my life when I longed to add my voice to those of my brothers and sisters in faith and affirm that I believed what they too believed. There was that time in my life when I was captivated by mystery and ritual without superiority or judgement. There are still times when I can be drawn into those beauties and desire a greater faith.

Mostly, I don't desire it. Instead, I can affirm that my beliefs reach beyond what I have learned from experience, reading and research. I can affirm that hope persists in the face of both true hardship and of mild disappointment.

I can affirm that I have beliefs and to you, my brothers and sisters who read the written word, I can confirm these solemnly and in all the elegance and pedantry of a graduate-degree vocabulary:

-- I believe that there is a cure for ignorance, for stupidity, for dismissive thought and lack of thought. This cure requires a respect for reading and thinking and talking. This cure requires a courage to ask questions and often to utter the words "I do not know" or "I was wrong about that."

-- I believe that there are circles of care we have to nurture for the good of all even when they are difficult. These are private: the bond between parent and child, brother and sister, old and young, reader and writer, music and ear. These are public: the support for schools, safe roads, health care, good manners and ever watchful eyes.

-- I believe in love's mysteries, whatever form they may take for each of us, but I am still a proponent of caution. Be careful with your love, your affection and concern. Ensure it is wanted, appreciated and welcome. The balance needed to feel and act, to act and feel is one that we can seldom perfect. A gentle word may often be better than a sudden embrace. An embrace may be needed to keep the coldness at bay. We have impulses we need to keep pure of heart to see clearly what is required of our love.

-- I believe in recovery. Mistakes can often be corrected, compensated or learnt from. These are lessons of self-awareness and the awareness of others that is fed by empathy and a need to achieve some understanding. In understanding there may come peace if not forgiveness.

And from these statements of belief I draw some kind of strength to attempt to explain the phenomena of life with more fluency, to communicate the experience of being human more completely and to connect more meaningfully to you, my bothers and sisters of the written word.

This, I confess to you, is my prayer for our languages, our literature, our arts, our sciences and our lives on this planet.

Creative Conditions

On the surface, three generations living in one house during the depths of winter would seem to have the potential to create a lot of stressful situations. That is also true after a deeper examination.

One of the topics people like to talk about is how difficulties inspire creativity. The Great Depression inspired Steinbeck and Fitzgerald. Championing the poorest of the poor worked out for Dickens.

These days, I find myself caught between privilege and difficulty. I'm not certain what the conflict of awareness and experience is doing to my creativity.

I had always been aware of how class differences play out in terms of economics and education. What I was not aware of was how class shapes identity. The ethnic English living in England, for example, are no more a united culture than multicultural, multilingual Canadians. Their differences, though, are based on class identity and how that influences what they eat for breakfast, how they vote and what sports they play out in the streets.

Canadians of my generation and my parents generation have this idea, even though the economy in most of the country is in bad shape, that class is fluid. That means, you can still work your way up if you work hard enough, meet the right people, buy into the right values and learn how to play the game by the right rules.

It doesn't always work. The rules, and how they are interpreted, are not necessarily taken from the same book. And, if your only goal really is just to make money, there are lots of way to win or lose depending on whom and what you are willing to betray. Or, as my education bent mind wants to believe, what you are willing to learn and from what source.

The great writers from times of difficulty have always tracked and influenced these conflicts of desire and status.

I am not a great writer, and mostly I doubt whether I am even a good enough writer these days. I know we are all living through a significant time in the world's evolution. I cannot even begin to see the narrative, the story in the chaos, but I know it does not lie in the consciousness or awareness of "social problems" among those who remain comfortable. The rules of that reading game are from another book too.

And you would think, I would just sit down and write some new rules as a place to start a new story. But, the snow is thick on the ground and there are three generations hiding from the cold wind in one old house. Every single one of us wants a code for the others to live by, even if it will only free the one who writes it. It's not fair. It's no way to play by the rules, even if that is the kind of time we are living through.

Everything I've learned about book marketing

There's a PR mishap I often remember.

Subway sandwiches were once sued, or called out, or embarrassed on twitter for not being 12 inches long as advertised. Naturally, a man noticed that the subs were actually only 11 inches long.

I never would have known I was paying for an invisible inch. I grew up in a country where the system was metric but the culture was imperial. As a result, I generally take his word for it when it comes to size without breaking out a ruler.

We get so used to lies, they just become background noise we filter out. Politicians, advertisers, students, they all depend on us not really hearing the words to "no new taxes," "troops out of Afghanistan," "completely flushable," and "8 solid inches."

And, to that background noise you can add the words "best seller." You've probably seen it in a million tweets and it really means nothing.

The fact is that it is, and always had been, difficult for writers to get their work noticed and even more difficult for them to sell it. There is a myth that, in the old days, newspaper reviews, literary supplements and television interviews used to sell books. They didn't. Mostly, authors went on press tours and did readings and travelled and travelled and sold three copies of their books at each stop. Most books didn't, and don't, make money. I've heard it said that there are really only 5 people in Canada who are making a living as authors. 5 out of 31 millions.

Why do people think it looks easy? What is driving all of us to send out desperate tweet after desperate tweet that are, let's face it, just annoying?

Part of it is, as media savvy as all of us should be, we really don't understand the mechanisms at play. You might have 2000 twitter followers and 482 friends on Facebook, but they are not a target market. They are people. And, of those people, only about 150 of them are invested in you, your life and your success at whatever you do. Those 150 also include your muse, your inspiration, your guides, your nurturers and your group therapy members. All of them will expect to get your book for free.

This is where some consultants will try to get your money by asking this question: how do you convert followers and friends into customers? The short answer is that you can't. The thoughtful answer is that you don't.

When I look at the first ten followers on my twitter feed, four describe themselves as authors or writers, two are accounts from companies hoping to sell services to authors or writers and one is related to music and two are related to other areas of reading and academic life I maintain an interest in. Only one is an actual person out looking to connect with others, talk about sports and beer and other fun stuff. He's not also not among the target readership for my book.

Before authors self-publish, they generally submit their works to more traditional publishers and agents with a little outline of marketing opportunities and audience development. Telling them that you have 20,000 twitter followers and hundreds of people re-pinning your book cover on Pinterest is not going to impress them. Social media marketing gets a lot of press these days, but just because all of the networking sites have been called marketing platforms, doesn't make sending out tweets or status updates or cute photographs or even viral videos marketing. Although, I would love it if your cat read my book on Kindle or Kobo or on your phone the way she plays with those apps for iPad and you sent me a video of it to share around.

Writing this blog about book marketing isn't about marketing either. Have you, in the last three hundred words, even thought about buying my book? It's called Love From Planet Wine Cooler by the way. No? Fine. I may have started this blog as a marketing tool, along with about 100,000 other writers, but I went into it knowing it wouldn't actually sell books.

As you know, I've been conducting experiments in book marketing. I've done some traditional advertising here on Goodreads and tried giveaways. I've compared different efforts and written about them. The one effort that I made and enjoyed immensely was the public reading.

Still, if I were going to base my self-respect as a writer on how my book has been selling, I would be a mess. Except, I'm not. I'm not a best-seller, but I continue to get published in magazines and anthologies and journals. I win the occasional award and use the money to buy my kids treats and milk and winter coats. And, sometimes, I read a piece one of my students has written and get excited about discovering new talent. The word endures and, really, when I see someone describe themselves as a "best-selling author" every five minutes or so, I have no urge to call them out on exactly what that phrase means. We are all into creative writing after all.

What People Like to Read

In December 2012 I won the America's Next Author Competition with a story called Finnegan & Grandfather Cheng.

In 2009, another Finnegan story called Finnegan at the Pioneer Graveyard, won the Dylan Days Creative Writing Contest.

A smart writer might conclude from these events that readers like 17 year-old Finnegan and the other characters I've been writing this series of stories about. A smart writer might write more Finnegan stories, or at least edit the stories she has on file and give readers what they actually like.

I am obviously not a smart writer. I have a streak of contrariness that insists readers should just like whatever I feel like writing...even if I haven't made those characters especially likable.

Luckily, I am not just a writer. I'm a mother whose kids have not taken to reading like ducks take to water. I'm also a teacher/instructor/lecturer whose students have always faced different kinds of challenges than I have personally. Fortunately, my kids have forced me to read books like the Captain Underpants Series and to learn how to deal with reading resistance.

Fortunately, I've taught people who don't speak English and been forced to learn to simplify my overwrought vocabulary.

Fortunately, I'm always broke due to the time I've dedicated to parenting, teaching, being contrary and writing instead of just making money.

My life choices mean I have to seek out opportunities that combine my four life interests. One opportunity I found recently is the Story Share Contest, The contest was designed to create materials for beginning readers. By beginning readers, the contest sponsors mean teen and adult readers who are confronting literacy issues to become better readers. As a parent and as an educator, that is something I have to support.

It actually inspired me to adapt another Finnegan story for the occasion. If I've done it properly,Finnegan, His Old Man and Uncle Reeve should appeal to beginning readers and Finnegan's other fans alike.

And, if not, I'll just go back to being contrary.