Tudor Robins's Blog, page 31

Simple (Local, Affordable, Inspirational) Pleasures

I’m going to spend the next few blog posts showing you what’s making our summer so great.

The way this relates to writing is (a) all these things are right in our Ontario backyard, which means even a writer can afford to explore them, (b) they show you the real inspiration and the stories that are all around us, and (c) my next book is set in the corridor of Eastern Ontario (Ottawa – Kingston) defined by these posts.

So, here’s the first one – a celebration of a sometimes-dismissed, not-always-that-widely-explored town just an hour down the highway – Smiths Falls.

We really know we’re on holidays when, instead of rushing out the door to the cottage ASAP on Friday afternoon, we take our time, wake up on Saturday morning, don’t leave the house until about 11:00, and mosey down the road to stop in Smiths Falls for lunch.

We have a favourite patio, at our favourite Smiths Falls restaurant / pub – Rob Roy’s on Beckwith Street – and I think, from the photos, you’ll see why we like it so much.

This is the view from our table.

Same view, different angle.

This is my club sandwich!

And this is how they brought my nine-year-old’s hamburger when he said he doesn’t like anything on it but pickles. Now that’s a customized burger!

To me, this is one of many examples of places close to us that people from elsewhere would be blown away by – what a location! – but we just take them for granted.

Feel free to pitch in with your local – possibly overlooked – treasures. I think it’s good for all of us!

 

In Good Company

The first thing I thought when I received the email saying Greenhawk had decided to carry Objects in Mirror was Yay!

The second thing was, My books will be right beside Shelley Peterson’s!

As a Canadian author of equestrian-themed Young Adult, being beside Shelley Peterson is a very good place to be.  Her books have an impressive track record of capturing the imagination and hearts of young readers – especially those who love horses.

I have always said – to the point where my husband and my very patient sales representatives at Red Deer are probably sick of hearing it – that riders are also readers, and young riders can never get enough horse books to read. This was definitely true of me – I read the same books over and over again and, yes, it was partly because I loved them, but also partly because there just weren’t enough horsey books out there to satisfy my reading appetite. And I don’t know if any of the horse books I read as a young adult were Canadian, but I think not.

Picking up Abby Malone several years ago – when Objects in Mirror was still just a story in the back of my mind – reminded me of the magic a horse story can hold over a young reader (and older readers too!). I think it reinforced the idea that there was an audience who would want to read the story I held in my imagination.

So, now, to have my books being sold next to Shelley Peterson’s books is surreal and wonderful.

The book business is not like many other businesses. It’s not a case of Pepsi and Coke, and the customer is only going to choose one. In fact, it’s more like once they’ve had a Pepsi, the customer will want to try a Coke. Once a reader has read a good book, they finish and immediately think “What can I read next that I’ll like just as much?”

Realistically, authors can’t write as quickly as our customers can read, so we need them to find other stories, books, authors, they’ll enjoy while we work on our next offering. We need them to stay interested and engaged and reading so they’ll be ready for our next book.

In this way, I don’t believe at all that I’m in competition with any other author – Canadian, or YA, or horse-themed – and, similarly I don’t think I’m in competition with Shelley Peterson. What I do hope is some readers who’ve liked her work, might discover mine, and any readers I’ve reached who don’t already know about hers, will give it a try.

So, competition, no. But happy to be in her company? Absolutely!

 

 

Thank You Ottawa

I am pleased and grateful to be able to announce that I am a beneficiary of the 2013 City of Ottawa’s Arts Funding Program. Specifically the Creation and Production Fund for Professional Artists. More specifically, I’ve received an Emerging Artist Grant for English prose literature.

What does this mean? It means I can spend my summer focusing on creating a polished, submission-ready manuscript as a follow up to OIM. It means I don’t have to chase paid work elsewhere. For this reason alone, it’s great (as you can imagine). However, receiving a grant like this is also very validating. It’s validating of the applicant, as an artist, and it’s validating of the particular project. To receive this grant, three well-respected, artistically qualified jury members have to all agree you, and your project, are worth awarding money to.

I received one of these grants in 2009, before I was published, and it was really helpful in making me think I did have talent as independently assessed by a knowledgeable group of people. You might think it’s less important this time around – after all, I’m already published so I have some indication people think my work is good. However, it’s amazing how helpful it is to know the jury thought this project – this work-in-progress – was worth funding.

Part of the Terms and Conditions of accepting this grant is a requirement to acknowledge the support of the City. I do so happily. I sometimes complain about the city, sometimes don’t like the decisions they make, but this funding program really is meaningful. It shows a commitment to local artists and I definitely appreciate it.

Interested? You can apply. That’s the other nice thing about this particular program – whereas grants from higher levels of government require that you already have a book published to qualify, there is no such requirement with the City of Ottawa program. You just need to put together a compelling proposal, follow their guidelines, and hope it’s your year. There are all sorts of artistic grants, too – not just for writing and not just in English.

So, to sum up:

Tudor Robins gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the City of Ottawa.

Yes, I do.

Partridge Acres – Riding, Learning, Laughing

A huge thank-you to everyone at Partridge Acres for being so welcoming of me, both during my day camp visit last week, and at the (great) show on Saturday.

Just like the sign says, this place truly is a playground for anyone interested in horses and horseback riding – which makes it the perfect place to promote my book, which I wrote to appeal to anyone who has ever loved a horse.

The campers were engaged, interested, polite and full of great ideas. They were also kind enough to show me their favourite horses and ponies. Unfortunately the barn was too dark for good pictures of the ponies inside, but I got to photograph Otto, who seemed to be a great favourite both with the campers, and at the show, along with his turn-out companion Yoshi.

Otto.

Yoshi.

I don’t think I’ve ever been at such a relaxed and friendly horseshow. Like I said in the title, my impression is there’s lots of riding, learning and laughing going on at Partridge Acres.

I wish everyone there a great continuation of their show season!

There’s NO app for this…

I’m not sure how it happened, but I somehow ended up with TWO notebooks on the go.

This is quite challenging as I write quite a bit when I’m out and about – on the move with my kids – so I’ll grab a notebook, work on a scene and then, when it’s time to use and transcribe said scene, I won’t know which notebook I wrote it in.

And, you see, the pages are not always exactly neat. I also have a horror of wasting paper, so I tend to go back and fill in blank areas. So, suffice it to say, it can be hard to find the piece of writing I’m searching for in one notebook, let alone two.

Dropbox won’t fix this. Evernote won’t help. There is no app to help me with this situation.

You might wonder – why do I not just retire one notebook and use the other? Well, as mentioned above, I can’t put a notebook to bed if there are still usable spaces in it. But, if I think I’m going to have time to write quite a bit, I need a notebook with lots of lovely white pages stretching out to the end.

So, for now, two notebooks.

But one’s almost full.

And then there will be one. For a while…

 

 

Book visits

I’ve had one already and it didn’t just rain – it poured! You know, you can’t really sell books, or hand out bookmarks, or do anything involving paper, in the pouring rain. Lesson learned. But I still appreciated the invite to attend Meadowvale’s last Radical Jumper show and everyone I spoke to about the book was excited, supportive, effusive, etc.

I don’t know if you can tell from the above photo but it was WET.

My sons were sweet enough to come with me, although I think they regretted it before too long. Here they’re standing at the refreshment table, waiting for the kettle to boil for hot chocolate – highlight of the morning!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  This is the fantastic bookmark Red Deer created for me to hand out at the upcoming (July 13) Partridge Acres show, as well as any other events I attend in the future. Invite me to your book club and I’ll bring bookmarks – I promise!

Also, if you’ve already bought your copy of the book, and you now want one of these handsome bookmarks, just let me know and I’ll definitely give you one…

Stacks of books! Costco!

My brother just sent me this photo (thanks Matthew!) and bought a couple of copies of the book (thanks again!) in addition to the one he already bought from the Barrhaven Indigo to make sure they’d DEFINITELY sell at least one copy (triple thanks!).

I love being sandwiched in with all these mega bestsellers! I love that the book’s $7.49! Yay!

I hope this means lot of local readers will take a chance on it so it can be sold farther and wider.

And, a big thanks to Costco for supporting a local author. Much appreciated …

 

Fan Fiction Convert?

So, I’ve never been a particular fan of fan fiction. It’s not my cup of tea – even though I get why other people love it. And, come to think of it, if fan fiction had existed way back when I read Anne of Green Gables, I probably would have jumped on that bandwagon.

But we’re not talking about way back then – we’re talking about now – and, right now, this particular type of fan fiction is intriguing. Rob Ford – who knew?

There is no end of creativity in this world …

 

Happy Summer / Happy Canada Day

Because a writing-related post inadvertently slipped out earlier this week, I feel free to use my usual Saturday spot for a non-writing post to celebrate this city and this country and the fact that I now get to spend nine (I can’t believe it’s only nine – isn’t is supposed to be 10?) weeks with my boys.

The second-last day of school my older son’s class had a trip to Parliament Hill. I volunteered because I knew it would be fun, and it was. This is kinda, sorta how it went (without using photos which show any of the kids’ faces):

I could never get tired of looking up at this.

These are the Canada doors. The kids were invited to step up and rub the depressions on the door resulting from the Usher of the Black Rod’s ceremonial knocking to open Parliament. They thought this was AMAZING!

I had to take a picture of this guy because doesn’t he just look like an Ookpik? Who knew there was an Ookpik in Centre Block? I used to work there and I didn’t know it…

And then we went up. Travelling up the elevator, past the bells, to the best view in Ottawa.

This is one side of the best view in Ottawa.

And this is what the National Gallery looks like right now. The iceberg is called Iluliaq [Iceberg], and is part of the NGC’s major summer exhibition Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, the largest-ever global survey of contemporary Indigenous art. It also ties in nicely with the Great Hall window replacement project currently underway.

Kids enjoying the view. One of these is mine.

Our planned soccer game on the front lawn of Parliament had to be delayed as we waited for just a few people to finish their lunchtime yoga session on the Hill.

But then the game did go ahead, with the Canada Day stage and the Peace Tower in the background. Sometimes I really love raising my kids in Ottawa…

And finally, yesterday, we came home from school and cut into this. It’s a Kit-Kat ice cream cake, in case you’re wondering!

Happy Canada Day and Happy Summer!

 

Public Service Announcement – to potential self-publishers

As many of you know, I read far more publishing / writing / literary blogs than I probably should. The good thing, though, about reading so many blogs from so many different sources, is that I can start to see patterns. If one person says something, that may be just their perspective. When multiple people start saying things, I tend to put more credence in them.

At some point, I’m probably driven to investigate myself.

I’ve now heard so much about Author Solutions and other vanity presses with similar operating mandates, that I think it’s time to link to one of the blog posts which outlines many of the concerns about these operations. I’m not going to re-write what’s already been well-written and documented by others but I will add a couple of my own, basic, summary comments:

If it seems to good to be true it probably is. I understand that many people will have been hoping, and dreaming, and slogging to have their book picked up and published by a traditional publisher. I’m not saying this is the only way to success – it demonstrably isn’t – but, for many, it’s still the dream. So it can be easy to cave when somebody promises you an “in”. Just pay us $5,000.00 and there’s a really good chance a big publisher will read your book and publish it. Not saying it never happens – just saying the chances are tiny, and not worth $5,000.00 – and are just as good if you truly self-publish on your own and your book is a runaway success. Then the publishers will be lining up to take you on.

If you’re paying for things, you should understand what you’re paying for, and who’s doing the work. To be honest, many of the “features” being offered in self-publishing packages are either not measurable (the illusory “author support”) or are really easy to do yourself (getting an ISBN). With regards to items like cover design and editing – you should really know who is going to do this for you. Understand their credentials, see examples of their work, or you could be paying for a cover my 11-year-old could design (actually, probably not as good) and the person editing your book might have less experience than you.

Nobody cares as much about your book as you do. NOBODY. Even if you have a traditional publisher. Even if you have an agent. Your publisher may come the closest to caring as much as you do about your book, since they’ve actually invested real money in publishing it. Your agent may be a close second as he / she will only get paid if your book sells. But, still, they don’t care AS MUCH as you. So, if these people – who have some skin in the game – don’t care as much as you do, why would a vanity-press company which is going to get paid, no matter what, up front for selling you services? Sure, they may make some money from royalties, depending on the contract, but the bulk of the money they make is from you, the author, before your book is even complete. If your book never sells one copy, they’ve still made money.

I hope nobody comes here and thinks I’m against self-publishing. I’m 100 per cent not and, for certain future projects, have very nearly decided that’s the route I’m going to take. But NOT with one of these vanity presses. If I’m self-publishing, I’m SELF-publishing. Like most projects in life, I’ll decide what I can do myself. Then I’ll figure out who I know and trust that can do the things I can’t. Then, for areas where neither I, nor anyone I already know, has expertise, I’ll seek recommendations, do research, choose as wisely as I can. I’ll pay for the things I need to pay for and know, up front, what my costs are. If, and when, I sell any books, I’ll also know what part of that money is coming my way.

Again, I understand the temptation to not have to do the above. To not take ownership of each step in the process. To have somebody else say “There, there, we’ll do it for you and we’ll make it so great that probably Prince Charming will come along on his white horse and set you up for the rest of your writing career.” I understand it. But I urge you to resist the temptation.

IF IT SEEM TO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT PROBABLY IS.