Tudor Robins's Blog, page 15

Wolfe Island Classic – a Weekend in Pictures

My older son was designated “official photographer” for the day, and had the great idea of taking a photo of one of our race bags.

There’s something happening nearly every weekend on Wolfe Island, and this weekend it was the Wolfe Island Classic – a 5K / 10K race with the slogan “Tough course, great people.” Very, very true. This is a hilly, windy, blistering hot course with no shade for ninety-nine per cent of the distance.

But it’s fun!

So, this is how our race weekend went:

First, my cousin and her family came to join us on the island for the race. It was their anniversary, and my parents’ anniversary so, of course, we needed to have a nice anniversary dinner:

Kebobs cooking …

Kebobs cooked …

… and a race for the loungers to eat them on!

So, that was the night before.

We woke up to a beautiful and, as usual, blazing hot morning and made our way into the village.

The 5 and 10K races start together, with the 5Kers turning around first. So my cousin, her husband, my husband, and my younger son finished before me.

Love this photo of these two discussing their race strategy – aka “How are we going to tackle the next hill?”

I enjoyed every minute of my run. I was wishing the whole time that I could take pictures – it’s such a pretty view across the water to Kingston – but I also wanted a decent time, and you can’t stop to take pictures and still run a quick race (or at least I can’t), so you’ll have to do the race yourself if you want to see the views.

Because it’s an out-and-back race, you can see the runners ahead of you as they head back. I knew there weren’t many women ahead of me, but I wasn’t sure how many. What I did know, for sure, is there was one woman who started out about half-a-kilometre in front of me, and who I was catching up to, bit by bit, every kilometer.

As I came into the final water station – about 1.5K from the finish – she was running about 100 feet ahead of me. My friend Valerie was handing out water, and she stepped toward me. I said “No thanks, I don’t want any,” and Valerie shook her head, pointed at the woman running in front of me, and said “You’ve got to go get her.”

My turn to shake my head. “I can’t think about that right now,” I told Valerie. I was trying hard to stay relaxed, enjoy my run, not let my competitive nature get the better of me, etc.

Then, as I ran away, Valerie kept yelling, “Go Tudor! Run Tudor! Go!” and boom – competitive nature engaged. I thought, “Oh, well, if Valerie thinks I should …” And that was it. I was passing that woman if it killed me.

And I did.

And I was the third woman to finish overall.

So, thank goodness Valerie yelled at me, or there would have been no medal for me!

Sorry, this is the best picture of me I have from on the course. Here I think I was cursing Valerie’s name for making me run so hard!

 

But then I got my medal and that made me happy!

The best thing about the Wolfe Island Classic – well other than the joy of running! – is the finish line. It’s at Acacia Gold Kennels and there are always both mature dogs and puppies waiting. Everybody wants to take one home!

The dogs move around too much to get a good shot, but there were about fifteen of them – it was pretty adorable!

And the puppies are just adorably fluffy!

The final best, amazing, fun thing about running on Wolfe Island, is you walk straight across the road from the finish line and jump in the lake. I run with my swim suit under my running clothes.

Nothing feels as good as getting in here after running 10 hot K!

So, that’s it, that’s all – another Wolfe Island Classic done. If you’re thinking you’d like to do it next year … you should! Feel free to ask me anything about it.

Sorry Alberta … we’ve got big skies right here in Ontario

The skies on Wolfe Island are huge – all the time. They’re breathtaking blue and cloudless, and they’re pretty full of white fluffy clouds. But when a storm’s coming in … well they’re never the same twice, and they’re always really, really cool.

The following three shots are of our family rapidly retreating down the path in the hayfield between my parents’ place (aka “The House”) and the cottage. It looks like it could rain any minute …

They’re also running because they’ve just gotten out of the pool and they’re cold!

 

They’re almost out of sight.

 

Everyone’s safely inside now! Except me …

And here are a couple of other “big sky” shots of the passing storm. I should add, this one – like many storms – swirled around us, but never did hit. We often see storms racing by on the New York, or mainland Ontario shores. We get all the drama, but only get rain a small amount of the time. Kind of nice …

I loved the wave pattern in the clouds in this shot.

 

If you look really, really hard, you can just barely make out some of the 87 wind turbines on Wolfe Island on the far shore across our bay.

How Glamorous is a Book Launch?

I love this picture I took on Friday on my way to launch Wednesday Riders and Fall Line at the opening of the Stone Heron Art Gallery on Wolfe Island, because it kind of sums it all up:

My dad didn’t live on Wolfe Island for very long before figuring out he needed a pick-up. This one is about the bare minimum you can get away with!

Things to note:

1) I drove to the launch in a pick-up truck.

2) I lugged my own books – you can see Fall Line and Objects in Mirror on the top of the boxes in the back of the pick-up. Appaloosa Summer and Wednesday Riders are tucked lower down.

Now, if you turn your attention to the reflection in the back window of the pick-up, you’ll note:

3) Me, in my Little Black Dress, perched precariously on the back of the truck taking the picture. This is also the dress I wore to load the books in the back of the (somewhat cobwebby) truck.

4) Our gorgeous, sweeping, St. Lawrence waterfront.

I like how this picture combines the sublime and the (slightly) ridiculous aspects of a typical book event.

For some authors it may be that book launches and signings are all glitz and glamour with other people doing the heavy lifting, but for mid-list authors like me, I think it’s fair to say we’re like ducks – staying calm on the surface, but paddling like hell underneath.

You may see me in a little black dress, smiling and handing books out, but you won’t know I chose that dress because it won’t show dirt, spider webs, or the ketchup that got dropped down the front of me when we stopped for lunch in Smiths Falls.

It’s fine, it’s fun, but just so you know, it’s not really, exactly glamorous!

On. My. Kindle …

I’m really enjoying Kate Lattey’s books!

One of the many writing advice newsletters that pour into my inbox recently told me my readers want to know what I’m reading … really? Do you? I mean, mostly, I’m reading my own stuff – with a red pen in my hand – but, yes, I do read other things, too, and if you’d like to know what those things are, I present (duh-duh-duh) On. My. Kindle!

I thought of calling it On My Nightstand but, let’s face it, anything on my nightstand will NEVER get read. Ever. By the time I go to bed I’m asleep in about six seconds. I do as much as I can in every day and I am TIRED when I hit my mattress.

And, realistically, I’m also reading fewer, and fewer print books. And, also, fewer and fewer traditionally published books. At least, I think I am. If I can keep up with this “On My Kindle” thing, I guess we’ll all know for sure if that’s true.

So, first let me tell you what’s on my Kindle that I’ve recently been reading. I went on a total Kate Lattey bender. I read Dare to Dream, then Dream On, and then jumped into her Pony Jumper series: First Fence and Double Clear (books one and two). I really like Kate’s writing, and I love how so much of what she writes about is familiar (horsey) but there are some cute New Zealandey differences. Kate’s cute guys don’t drive pick-ups – they drive “utes.”

If you want to dip your toes into Kate’s world, you might want to start with First Fence. It’s a quick read, and you can then easily move onto Double Clear and her other books if you like it. It’ll ease you into the interconnected world of Kate’s characters – you don’t have to know all about them to enjoy the writing, but it’s fun when you do!

Note: In an upcoming newsletter of mine I’ll be doing a contest to win a Kate Lattey eBook of your choice. So, get started now and you can choose a book you haven’t read if you win!

And, oh yeah, Kate is an indie writer and you know what that means right? You can afford to buy all her books! They are very reasonably priced! Yay, indie writers and good book prices!

OK, onto what I’m reading right now on my Kindle. Here it is:

A smart friend recommended this book and it was that recommendation alone that overcame my resistance to paying $13.99 for a bunch of code …

This is not something I would have read a couple of years ago. I used to NEVER read non-fiction. Like never, ever, ever. Except in magazines and newspapers, but you would not catch me buying a non-fiction book. That began to change when I started to buy non-fiction writing books. There are now quite a few of those I could not do without. And then I read Monty Roberts The Man Who Listens to Horses – that book changed my life as a horse-lover, and as a person.

So, this book. Well, I was talking to a friend who’s training for a triathlon, and I’m training for a half-marathon, and he said “You should read this book.” He then went on to sell it a little bit (and, please never underestimate the value of selling a book to your friends – writers like me love readers like you who sell our books for us) and so I bought it.

I’m just into it, but some observations – this book was written by a man. You can so tell. There’s something muscular about the writing. I like it, but it was no shock at all for me to find out the author also wrote / writes for Esquire, Men’s Health, and Runner’s World. I can see this book growing out of those magazines.

What do I think? I’m going to keep reading. It’s fun to read about something I love doing – need to do – I understand the compulsion behind this book.

What else do I think? The cover sucks. To me there are many missed design opportunities on this cover. (What you see above is not the cover of the print book – you can see that here). And the price is steep. So far indie writers are winning on covers (I like Kate’s simple cover pictured above) and price. But I’m prepared to enjoy Born to Run.

Lurking on my Kindle for me to read next? Possible another Monty Roberts book:

I already snuck a peek at this book’s premise and read this in the preface:

My students will often hear me offer the following quotation: “My way is the best way – for me today.” I will go on to tell them, “If you show me a better way, it will be my way tomorrow.”

Horsemen like Monty Roberts and Buck Brannaman always teach me as much about myself as they do about horses, and I’m confident From My Hands to Yours will carry on this tradition.

To sum up, that’s where my reading is right now. As we head into cottage season, it could go really wonky. I have a bunch of Gossip Girl books I bought for a buck each at a secondhand sale and those might come out – I have no idea what to expect from them!

I talked about two traditionally published authors, and one indie author here. Here’s my analysis of their quality:

1) Writing Style – Kate Lattey, excellent, Christopher McDougall, excellent, Monty Roberts (from past experience) straightforward but it’s not about the writing (also I’m not sure what the writing process is in his books).

2) Price – KL (Indie), excellent, CM and MR (Trad) too expensive for eBooks.

3) Cover – KL, strong, CM and MR, weak.

4) EBook formatting – KL, strong, CM – I’ve already found a few errors in chapters one and two so … I’m going to have to say fair to poor based on what I’ve seen so far. I’m not into the MR book enough to say. Also, both the traditionally published books have reams and reams of stuff up front – including the ToC – and it takes ages to get to the meat of the book. Many indie writers know better than to do that – who wants to sample a ToC and a bunch of front matter on Amazon? You need to let interested readers actually check out some of your writing!

Have any questions about what’s on my Kindle? What’s on your Kindle?

Fall Line Released!

I’m very excited to say you can now buy Fall Line, as an eBook, or in print (eBook everywhere in the world, print book everywhere but Canada … sigh).

I’m also very excited / gratified to have already received my first Goodreads review of the book, and it’s a lovely one. Reviews can be lovely, blood-boiling, insightful, depressing, thought-provoking, gut-churning, and many more things, but every now and then you get a review that just GETS it. Like you wonder could the reader have possibly seen the emails you were sending back and forth to your editor because she seems to have touched on all those details you agonized over … this was one of those, so it’s a great first for Fall Line. Here’s an excerpt:

“I liked every aspect of the skiing. Loved the anticipation of the first decent snow fall, the hard push of training, the nerves of races, the team’s comradery and Chris and Tilly’s love of the sport. It all made curling up under a blanket to read this book so very cozy. The sport dominates the storyline, but it thought that was perfect and fitting. Tilly and Chris’s friendship is solid. I loved how you could feel their friendship and see it in how they interacted … As they progress (or don’t progress) to more than friends, the tension between them builds. You know what Chris wants and you know what Tilly wants, it’s just a matter of Chris getting it together. Will it happen, won’t it happen? But it’s not an agonising read and I never gave up on the characters or the story.

A sweet romance all wrapped up in the loveable and challenging sport of downhill skiing.”

I hope you have a chance to read Fall Line soon and I’d love to hear what you think!

Track Meet!

It was a long day, but it was a fun day.

Here was one of the most brilliant things the teacher coaches did – they brought a big clock and stuck it to our tent. So, no asking “What time is it?”

Add to that the schedule, printed on really big paper, laminated, and posted for all to see … and not one kid asked me “When am I running?” and not one kid missed their race … amazing!

I’d love to send you pictures of the great performances I witnessed today, but that would involve posting pictures of other people’s children, which I don’t like to do, so let me leave you with what I think is a very inviting shot of a track, just waiting for feet to fly down it …

It was a good day!

Foot fetish?

I’ve just noticed something about all my covers:

Cowboy boots:

Sandals:

Ski boots:

So many feet!

Not sure how this escaped my notice before … also not sure if this means it’s a trend to be continued, or broken!

Question #2

Moving onto the second question Lynn asked me last week, which was:

Lynn asks: The next book is about skiing – is it hard to write about winter when you’re sitting on a cottage dock? Or is skiing something that is always fresh in your mind? Between skiing, and horseback riding, and running – are there any common threads? Anything similar between them that draws you to each?

Hmmm … I think I’ve skied for so long that it’s just embedded in me. I’ve skied for even longer than I’ve ridden. I can’t say I have any memories from a time before I skied. So, yes, I guess I can always conjure up the feeling of skiing. When I’m doing it, it’s fresh in my mind, and when I’m not (sitting on a cottage dock) I long for it (depending how long it’s been since ski season ended; in early June I might not long for it quite as much as I do by the end of August).

As for skiing, horseback riding, and running, they all give me different things. There is a common thread, but I’ll come to that at the end.

Skiing – This is the most social of the activities I do. I will, and sometimes do, ski alone, but mostly I ski with my family and, often, I ski with friends. With skiing there’s so much non-skiing time – in the lodge, on the lifts, hanging out at somebody’s ski place at lunch or after skiing. I love being out in the middle of winter. I love embracing the cold, and the snow. I love feeling sun on my face. I love going fast and getting out of breath, but I also love the people I ski with. We all have a love of skiing and the outdoors in common, so they’re probably the people I find it easiest to hang out with. Also, we may all go our separate ways in April, but we just pick up again in December, no problem – like we were never apart. It’s lovely.

Riding – Riding is semi-social. I ride and interact with others, who are like-minded, which is nice, but my strongest riding relationships have been with my first coach, and my horses. When I’m riding, I forget about absolutely everything else. If I have any problems at all – even if I have a cold – those things will simply leave my mind. I have to think that’s probably good for me; it’s probably good for anybody to have something that just lets their mind still for a while.  Riding is also very physically demanding – far moreso than skiing. Every ride is a workout – sometimes I don’t even know how much of a workout until the next morning – ouch!

Running – Completely anti-social! Saying hi to people on the running path is as social as I get. What do I love about running? Everything. Getting somewhere using my own feet. Breathing hard, muscles working, sweating – yes, I do like sweating – being outside, being able to do it anywhere, in any weather. Thinking. I think all the time while I’m running. Unlike riding, there’s no mind shut-off, but my mind does focus – so I’ll take a problem -real-life, or writing – and work it through during a run. I need my runs to plot my stories.

So, they all give me different things, but what do these activities have in common? A sense of accomplishment, I guess. The picture at the top of  this post was taken on our ski holiday in March when a huge (unexpected) dump of snow came overnight. I surprised myself by how well I skied in the powder (rare in our part of Canada). All day, I pushed myself and got through deep drifts and the powdery moguls that formed and I was really proud of myself for tackling it – so, accomplishment.

Having said that, I’m not a great skier. I’m a strong recreational skier, but I’m not great – I never will be – and that’s OK with me.

Riding, however, is different. I’m a good rider, overall, and there are parts of my riding that are near-great. I never was a top-level competitor, but I do believe I could have been if I’d put in the time, and money (and had some lucky breaks). Being able to do something at a high level, with the physical and mental / strategic challenges that accompany that is very rewarding. I am always getting better at riding. Literally, every time I ride, I’m better than the last time. Where just maintaining my skill is OK for me in skiing, standing still in riding isn’t fine with me. I’m always seeking ways to improve my riding – both physically, and mentally – so, more accomplishment.

And running – well every run is an accomplishment. Here’s another place where I’ll never be anything more than a strong recreational participant – and that’s OK with me – but I also always want to be working on my running. I like maintaining my fitness so I can run certain distances in certain times. That’s important to me. In running the measure is myself – my own last run – which also gives me a sense of accomplishment.

I have thought about what I’d do if I was forced to give up one of the above activities – they’re each so much a part of me that it would be incredibly difficult – so let’s just say I hope it will never happen, and leave it at that!

How about you? What are your activities you can’t live without?

The Sky is Falling!

… or, wait, maybe it isn’t …

The above capture is from the home page of the Writers’ Union of Canada. So, full disclosure, having been a member, here’s what I think about TWUC:

They mean well.
They’re doing the best they can with what they know.
They don’t know everything.
As a Canadian writer, I don’t feel they represent me.

Before I let my membership in TWUC lapse, I told them what they’d need to do to keep me (they asked, so I told them). Mainly, I needed help and advice – not in snagging a publisher – but in standing up to my publisher. In trying to get my publisher to help me sell my book. In trying to get my publisher to actually reply to my emails. TWUC listened, and made nice noises, and then sent me a letter saying they were sorry to see me go.

So, you’ll understand if I feel TWUC represents, not current writers and their current needs, but the established industry as they understand it.

Which, from the results of their own survey, is not making writers any money at all.

In fact, what this survey tells me, is not that this is a “cultural emergency for Canada,” but rather that writers represented by unions, associations, agents, and traditional publishers continue to lose money. This doesn’t surprise me. My traditionally published book is a money-making disaster for me.

TWUC states that “everyone — governments, corporations, institutions, and individual consumers — have a part to play in fairly compensating writers for the content they expect, need and enjoy.”

So, yes and no. I agree with the copyright part of this argument. Taking something for nothing is just wrong. Taking something (my writing) for free and making money off it for yourself, is despicable. A combination of weakened copyright laws in Canada, and the greedy piggishness of many institutions mean that universities can copy part of my book, put it into a coursepack with a bunch of other partially copied books, not pay me, or the other writers anything, and make money by selling that coursepack. And it’s legal.

That’s wrong, that’s immoral, and that certainly flies in the face of universities standing up for the best interests of their own graduates.

In this case, if you use something, you should pay for it – or at least get permission.

However, I’m less enamoured of the granting system in Canada. I’m not actually convinced grants have served our publishing industry very well. Because I was a Canadian author, published by a Canadian publisher, my publisher got a grant. That seems nice, and boosterish, and nurturing at first.

Until you’re on the other side of it, like I am now. Until you’re wracking your brains trying to figure out why publishers don’t always seem to put a huge amount of effort into selling books. Isn’t that best for everyone? Isn’t that how they make money? Or … wait … maybe not. Maybe quite a bit of money is made by just publishing books by Canadian authors. Maybe a lot of bills are paid that way. Maybe there’s less of an incentive to sell, sell, sell, if there’s less of an upfront risk.

So, governments … not so sure.

As for individual consumers – I’d say they are doing their part. You guys are doing your part! It’s not your fault that, when you buy a traditionally published book (for a lot of money) only a tiny percentage goes to the author.

When you buy my self-published books, I get up to seventy per cent of what you spend, and that’s good with me – that’s fair compensation – so thank you!

I hope you’ll keep supporting writers’ work by buying our books. And I hope you’ll speak up if you see somebody using a writer’s work without compensating them (there’s a simple word for that – STEALING). However, I also hope you don’t think the sky is falling.

I don’t think it is. I think the TWUC survey is a snapshot of a particular portion of the writing world in Canada, and I agree, that portion is not doing well. I think that’s too bad, and I think it’s an opportunity for everybody involved to take a good, hard look at their own decisions and choices and figure out how they want to move forward.

P.S. I was asked to fill out this survey but it was SOOO long that it would have greatly reduced my work-pay ratio for the month, so I passed it by. But to give a simple answer to the TWUC question – no, I am not getting paid less for my writing as time goes on. I’m not rich, but I’m moving forward. Which is all I’ve ever really wanted …

Question #1

OK, so I asked for questions and Lynn gave me three amazing ones. I’m going to answer one right now, just because I can (and because I’m procrastinating!).

Lynn asks: Your upcoming book is told from a male perspective. Did you find it hard to write from a boy’s point of view? In general, how do you find the voice of your main characters – does it just come to you, or do you write towards it with many iterations?

First of all, Lynn’s talking about Fall Line which, indeed is told from the perspective of fifteen-year-old Chris Myers. I’ve posted the Fall Line cover before, but never the full jacket, so – just for fun – here it is:

Cool, huh?

OK, let’s talk about Chris. So, the answer to Lynn’s question is yes and no. I had no trouble writing Chris. He was in my head, I knew him, I wanted to tell his story. I adore him.

The trouble came later. Fall Line is – bar none – my most re-written book EVER. And I hope it will remain my most re-written book ever, because I never want to re-write a book as many times as I’ve re-written Fall Line.

I changed from first to third person. And then back again. I changed from Chris’s point of view to Tilly’s (female protagonist), and then back again. And then back again. And then back again (not kidding). I considered swapping POVs chapter-by-chapter.

I have so much extra / deleted material for this book – I have more than the book I’ll be publishing in extra material.

So what was hard wasn’t writing Chris’s story, it was knowing whose story to tell. His? Or Tilly’s? Or both?

But Chris himself – what he’d think, what he’d do, what he’d say – I knew it.

Which is easy for me to say now. I mean, only a few people have read the book. The test of whether Chris resonates with readers in general will only come when those readers meet him. But that’s true for all my characters – male and female.

There is one caveat to the above. There were a couple of small, specific, times when I got unexpected help with writing from a male POV. When you read the acknowledgements in Fall Line you’ll see how lucky I’ve been with the help I got, and what generous people I know who guided me with material for this book.

One of those people was supposed to help with ski details – which was great – but a couple of times I ended up firing him emails asking “Would a guy say this?” or “If you said this to a guy friend, would he punch you?” His answers to those particular questions were golden, and have helped me feel much more comfortable with the (almost) finished manuscript.

Bottom line, simple answer to your question, Lynn – I enjoyed spending time with Chris. I looked forward to writing his story. Which is why I’m so excited to know I have a second book to write about him after I get Fall Line out!