Sherryl Caulfield's Blog, page 2

We all need a muse

 

If you’re a fan of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander then I suspect you can’t get enough of Sam Heughan playing Jamie Fraser in Starz’s mini series production. For there is a lot to love about Jamie. As women we need our heartthrobs. And as writers we need our muses.

 

I’ve long been a fan of Viggo Mortensen who played Aragorn in Lord of the Rings. Can you blame me? I was living in New Zealand when LOTR was filmed. The premiere of the Return of the King in 2001 was a three-day celebration that climaxed in a red-carpet procession broadcast prime time on national television.

It was an exciting time. The long white clouds of Aotearoa lifted and the planes of middle earth flew low and slow up the length of New Zealand. Aragorn was larger than life. Gollum crawled atop of Wellington airport. Trolls and nazguls menaced pedestrians in the main street. Everyone got into the spirit – including Viggo himself who wanted to give back to Peter Jackson and New Zealand for the incredible opportunity that had made his career.

I dragged my partner across Cook Strait to hear Viggo’s poetry reading (I scored tickets!) and to see his photography exhibition. I drank copious amounts of champagne. Mark didn’t complain. He is a bit of Renaissance man after all. Like Chandler and Monica of Friends we have an understanding Viggo would be my leave pass. Penelope Cruz would be his.

Around this time I discovered the Outlander series (Cross Stitch in our part of the world) with the dashing young Scot, James Alexander Malcolm McKenzie Fraser. And then came two more notable historical figures, Nathanial Bonner (Into the Wilderness) and Alexander Barrington (The Bronze Horseman). If you haven’t heard of these characters then you haven’t lived read! You are missing out on some of the best epic love stories ever written.

I’ve long pondered what makes these men so appealing. I say men rather than characters for they truly feel real, nothing fictitious about them – except…they are unattainable.

Passion and adventure have a lot to do with it. But more than that, for me it has to do with them being men of honour, sacrifice and resilience. These are defining qualities that I sought to bring to my characters, Samuel and Sonny, in Seldom Come By and Come What May. (And maybe I physically described the character of Silas in such a way that Viggo Mortensen could play him in the movie if ever there was one…but I digress)

Ironically the resilience goes much deeper than what is on the page or screen. Earlier this year I saw The Two Faces of January set in Greece in the 1960s. On the week-end just past I came across an interview with Viggo about this film and his rise as a leading man. It came at a good time for I was feeling particularly despondent. Here’s a snippet of the interview.

It took a long time for you to really break into the industry. I read that early on you were cut from Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo?

“I was cut from that… and I was cut from Swing Shift, the Jonathan Demme film with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Unfortunately, I was never told that I wasn’t going to be in it, so my family and me went to the movie theater expecting to see me and I wasn’t in it. I think the director or someone in the production should at least let the actor know that he’s not going to be in it…”

After I read that I just wanted to give him the biggest hug. How upsetting that must have been! But wait, there’s more:

“…another one I had the role but lost it. It was the part that Willem Dafoe wound up playing in Platoon. Oliver Stone cast me in that role back when it was going to be a much lower-budget movie, but he was having trouble getting the financing together. Then, he cast Willem Dafoe and I read about it in the news…”

“I read about it in the news”!! What? No phone call even?

“…And stupid me, I had spent the past year reading every possible book on Vietnam, looking at it from every angle possible, and doing my own, self-motivated boot camp. I got ahold of Oliver Stone’s number and called him and said, “What are you doing? The role was mine! Let me show you I’m the right guy for the part.” Willem Dafoe had just been in To Live and Die in L.A. and he was more “on the map” in terms of industry consciousness, even though I felt I was the person more knowledgeable about the character. I learned a lot there, too, and I don’t regret it. And Willem Dafoe did a great job in that film.”

There you go, still my muse in other ways. Such a great lesson in resilience and letting go.

Are you a writer? Who serves as your muse? If you’re a reader, what do you love about these leading men?

The post We all need a muse appeared first on Sherryl Caulfield.

Telling it like it is

Even the best authors – Richard Flanagan, Paullina Simons –struggle with mistakes

There’s a discussion over at The Book Bosses Facebook page regarding editing in self-published novels and a question:

Do you give a self-pub book with many typos and grammatical errors a lower rating?

It’s a very good question. They do have good discussions on that page. What do you think? The overwhelming response was: ‘Yes.’ There were two issues covered.

typos and grammatical errors
Poor sentence structure…you know when you have to re-read a sentence to try and work out its meaning, what the author is trying to say.

I’m probably one of those who prompted this conversation. I own my mistakes. Not happily. I know for a fact I had typos in my first book, Seldom Come By. I had 2016 when I meant 1916. I stumbled over haemorrhage. I had one too many ‘c’s in Rebeccca. Jon, a retired neurologist, wrote and explained the difference between chord and cord. And after I read his note, I slapped my forehead and said, ‘of course, I knew that but I forgot.’ The spellchecker never picked that one up. My 16 beta readers, yes 16 over three different versions, and my manuscript assessor, personally recommended by the managing director of Harper Collins Australia, did not pick this one up. It just goes to show.

These have all (fingers crossed) been fixed. That is one of the beauties of eBooks and print on demand. You can edit a file, upload a new version and then when people connect to their devices they are automatically sent the latest version. With a print book, from that point onwards, the latest version is the most correct version. But I know it doesn’t help at the time if there are mistakes in your version.

I know how frustrating this can be for readers because I am one too.

When it comes to writing and publishing I can’t talk for other indie authors, I can only share my own experience. Actually, that’s not correct, my friend Jennifer Collin, paid for a professional editor for her first novel Set Me Free, and after she published it, she was told it had mistakes. She was not happy  Jen, take heart, there weren’t that many.

I had three people plus myself proof the final version of Come What May, none of them professional editors, but people who are solid readers and have a good command of the English language, two of whom do a fair bit of writing in their day jobs. During those frantic 10 days I spent uploading what I thought was the final version to Amazon, Smashwords and CreateSpace (final files uploaded on 9 September) I was still finding tiny errors, odd spacing that I had missed. Oh the flagellation that goes on. The human eye, aided by glasses, can only take so much.

Over the years what I’ve learned through my corporate work and this publishing journey is that one person alone, no matter how good they are, can’t spot all the errors. Neither can many. Errors often are found once a document or book has been published; found by readers, who for some reason notice something no one else ever has till then. This is true. Keep reading to find out about my exchange with Paullina Simons.

So I think even with paying for a professional editor, mistakes can slip through. I investigated professional editing options for Come What May. To pay for an editor, the lowest quote I received was $2000. For me to recoup that at say 60% / $3 an eBook would require me selling close to 700 books. I still haven’t sold 700 copies of Seldom Come By. I can only wish. That decision was weighed up along with:

I earn well below the average Australian salary. It’s the life I choose as I try to juggle freelance marketing work, continue to write novels and promote those novels, while still trying to pay off a mortgage.
If I paid $2,000 would I end up with a perfect book? All my experience tells me no. Nearly every book I’ve read this year has had typos in it – even the ones I loved: Amy Harmon’s Making Faces, Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard and Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which has just been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. Even in my old favourite, Outlander, which I picked up again earlier this year in preparation for the TV series, I found a mistake that I had never seen before.

Many people know one of my favourite books ever is The Bridge to Holy Cross, called Tatiana and Alexander in some parts of the world. I first read it in September 2004 when I was ill and home alone in New Zealand while my partner was half a world away in the United Kingdom. Then in March 2006 I picked it up to read again on my birthday as a special indulgence and you’ll never guess what I found in the opening paragraph.

Have a read yourself and see if you notice anything. Here’s the link to the book on Amazon so you can see inside the current version. Better still; to save you the trouble I’ve pasted it below.

Did anything stand out in that opening paragraph? Well in case you missed it, here’s my letter that I sent to Paullina:

 Subject: Tatiana & Alexander – opening para

Hello Paullina

Greetings from New Zealand. I hope Spring is coming early to you in New York.  I’ve just been re-reading Tatiana & Alexander and for the first time ever I noticed something unusual in the first para and thought I would drop you a line about it. Maybe it’s something I’m not getting…however in the first line Alexander’s tie is described as red and then four lines down it is described as gray-and-white. Just thought you would like to know this in the event that it’s not what you intended.

I hope the writing on your next novel is going well

All the best

Sherryl Caulfield

And here’s her reply, sent on my birthday, such a wonderful birthday treat!

Sent: Saturday, March 04, 2006 1:59 AM

To: Sherryl Caulfield

Subject: Re: Tatiana & Alexander – opening para

Dear Sherryl,

May I say, it’s too funny.

I mean, the book has been read and revised and edited not just by me, but by my husband, and my two editors, and by two copy editors, and by four proofreaders. The last time was just this summer when I was getting it ready for the American publication. Just goes to show you, doesn’t it, how things skip by, and this is the very first time I’m hearing of it. Oh, well, never you mind. Oops.

More important, I want to thank you for your lovely card, sent last Christmas, that I just picked up this week from my post office box. It was very lovely of you to write me such kind and generous words that made my heart gladder.

Perhaps when I’m in New Zealand next, you can come to one of my little shindigs and I can shake your hand.

With my best wishes,

Paullina

I was reading the original version published in 2003. But the US version that came out in 2005 had 8 paid professionals working on this book – imagine the cost of that – and they all missed it too, along with Paullina and her husband. Incidentally, you’ll note it hasn’t been fixed. Because there are more important things to worry about! There are new books to write, which millions of fans want right NOW!

So my takeouts are:

People are only human, no one is perfect. I certainly am not, which really challenges my perfection streak!
I apologise for any mistakes in my books. I am sorry if you stumble over them, if they detract from the story and stop you enjoying it. Because, most of all, I want you to enjoy my stories. I sincerely hope you can see beyond those errors and enjoy the story for what it is. I sincerely hope you can find compassion in your heart for all writers – those of us who are self-published and those who are traditionally published – to cut us some slack.

Do readers deserve a perfect book? Yes, they do. I will continually strive for perfection. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to afford professional proofreaders and may even have a publishing team behind me. Please understand that still won’t guarantee a perfect book. In the meantime I will do my best to write a good story.

Please feel free to comment on this post.

With thanks to Paullina Simons for writing back to me all those years ago, for being so engaging on her Forum when she had the time and for touring Australia and New Zealand as she has done. Sadly I left New Zealand in 2006 and didn’t meet Paullina then but my sister caught up with her in Australia that year (see pic below). It was wonderful to meet her in Brisbane in 2008 and 2012. (Thumbnail pic above.)

 

 

 

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Win The Iceberg Trilogy 3 pack

I’m delighted to be launching Come What May, Book 2 of The Iceberg Trilogy, this week and to celebrate I am giving away a great 3 pack:

A personally autographed and dedicated copy of Seldom Come By
A personally autographed and dedicated copy of Come What May
A Paullina Simons autographed copy of her novel, The Bronze Horseman*.

* This is one of my favourite novels and what do you know, I have 2 autographed copies, so am keeping my old worn favourite, published in 2000, and giving away my spare copy published in 2008, barely touched.

The competition is running from Monday 15 September to midday Thursday 25 September 2014 Brisbane time and is open worldwide.

To be in the running you must enter via the Rafflecopter competition manager – SEE BELOW – and

Provide your name
Like my Facebook page
Comment on one of my Facebook posts
Share one of my Facebooks posts

You will once you sign-up to the competition you can do a number of activities multiple times (e.g. 3 & 4 above) to obtain Bonus points again and again for that category. When the competition closes, the more points you have earned, the greater your chance of being randomly selected as the winner. It’s a numbers game!! Good luck, have fun and thanks for getting into the spirit.

Winners will be announced here and on my Facebook page on Friday 26 September and I will email you. You have 3 days to notify me at: info@sherrylcaulfield.com to collect your prize.

Sherryl’s Rafflecopter giveaway

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In memory of Auld Lang Syne

How music and memories entwine

I am not as musical as I would like to be, not as musical as my brother, father and paternal grandmother that’s for sure.

Granma Jessie Caulfield was a fine pianist. She could play practically anything by ear. I used to love listening and watching her play In the Mood, Baby Elephant Walk and the mournful Godfather theme song. She never seemed to tire. She had a pianola, which we all wanted to play. Even though it was hard work pressing those pedals, press we did, hoping that by osmosis we too could twinkle the ivories just like her.

My grandmother had been playing the piano since the nineteen teens. During the second world war her husband, my grandfather, a taxi driver, would often arrive home for dinner, calling out as he came up the stairs, ‘Another one for dinner, Mama,’ giving her five seconds warning to rise, warmly greet a US soldier and put on more vegetables. But it was never a bother. She loved welcoming people into her home. Afterwards, she would play the piano for them with my aunt and uncle joining in for sing-alongs.

She played at country dances and private parties as well, and as my father grew up, he too would join her, playing the piano accordion. Years later when my brother, Greg, and I arrived we would tag along to these social events and at the end of many a gathering, everyone would form a large circle, hold hands, sing and charge to Auld Lang Syne – literally translated as ‘old long since’ but commonly translated as ‘for the sake of old times’.

It was my favourite part of the entire evening, albeit a challenge sometimes for me to stay awake till this climax – particularly on New Year’s Eve. To me, singing Auld Lang Syne was a sacred ritual that bound people together in a way that words or physical actions rarely ever did. To stand in that circle and hold someone’s hand gave me a palpable sense of belonging. This humble Scottish tune fills me with bittersweet nostalgia every time I hear it. It fills my throat with a great lump of emotion every time I sing it. Sadly it’s an important tradition, a beautiful tradition, that is dying.

In Come What May there is a moment when something sacramental is called for to mark the significance of an occasion. And in that moment one of my characters steps forward and sings Auld Lang Syne.

This version and this clip come close to capturing what that moment was like. The singer is Daniel Cartier from New York; the clip was filmed on a windswept winter’s day on Cape Cod.

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Years ago I went to Cape Cod on a windswept winter’s day. I was in Boston attending meetings with a spare weekend in between. My partner, Mark, was with me and we decided we’d go to Provincetown, even if were January and far from sunny. We’d seen enough of Boston in winter. (Seriously, this was my fourth winter visit.)

Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, was charming, full of wooden clapboard houses  and shopfronts. I bought a set of earrings made from space shuttle material, or so I was told. The Sonoma chardonnay we drank over dinner was mellow and superb. Everywhere we went the people were wonderfully friendly and as Mark and I discovered wonderfully gay. We could very well have been the only straight couple in town. We stayed in a place that reminded me of the inn from Nights of Rodanthe. Being the quiet season we had a choice of rooms. We chose one on the bottom level at the rear with glass windows around three sides opening to a bleached wooden deck hovering just above the grey sleepy sea. Late that afternoon a storm with winter lighting (!) swept across the harbour. It was exciting and elemental, lashing all around us while we were high and dry in our glass cube.

Years later when I was writing Come What May and wanting my character to sing Auld Lang Syne I went searching for the song, just for the pleasure of listening to it once more. And that is when I stumbled upon Daniel. His version warmed my heart in so many ways, reminding me how fortunate my life has been, reminding me of loved ones who are no longer with us, reminding me of the beauty of wide open spaces and the communion of kindred souls.

I hope you love it just as much as I do and come back here again when you get to that part in Come What May. Here’s what Daniel has to say about his rendition:

It’s one of those rare songs that makes me feel joy and sadness all at once. Faces from the past… faces from the present… all come together and tug at my heart. 

The one constant we have in life is change. In every life there are heartwarming hellos and heartbreaking goodbyes. That’s not always easy to handle. Embracing the new. Letting go of the old. Laughter and tears. This song has always driven these points home to me.  

I recorded this version in my home studio. The whole process took 10 minutes. I had a good cry when I was through. A few days later – my partner and I filmed the video with a cellphone, on a deserted beach of our beloved Cape Cod. It was well below freezing and very windy. I think we were on the beach for 15 minutes.

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And now…What Comes Before

Here is it – What Comes Before  – a FREE collection of scenes from             Seldom Come By giving you the opportunity to spend more time with Samuel and Rebecca and the young Dalton family.

However it come with a WARNING: this collection contains MAJOR SPOILERS.

If you have not read Seldom Come By then see you later.

Seriously, don’t spoil it for yourself or me.

There are 8 mini chapters in all, totaling 8,000 words. These were in an earlier draft of Seldom Come By and would have appeared in the last section,             The Promised Land. They cover the time period from 1926 to 1939 and all take place before Come What May.

In Come What May, the Dalton children grow up fast and Gene goes on to take centre stage. However, in What Comes Before you’ll get to hear Rebecca tell the Dalton family about what happened in the days and months before she arrived in Toronto. You’ll meet the young Dalton children and get to know their characters a little bit more. You’ll also see Grandpa Dalton once more, but mostly you’ll enjoy the banter and love between Samuel and Rebecca.

Readers have given me feedback that they would love to spend more time with the Dalton family so I’m delighted to be able to share this with you.

So all you have to do is click on the link below depending on the format you want and download.

ePub (for Kobo, iBook etc.)
PDF (for computers and iPADs)
Mobi (for Kindle)

 

The post And now…What Comes Before appeared first on Sherryl Caulfield.

Come What May is close!

 

Dear Readers

Thank you for your patience with me as you wait for Come What May, Book 2 of The Iceberg Trilogy. I have spent the last five weeks doing rewrites and edits of my manuscript. The good news is nothing much has changed in the arc of this novel. I’ve just been able to add greater insights, emotions and depth to the characters and some of the events that they go through. I’m much happier with the novel now and I’m hoping it will have a similar emotional resonance as my debut novel, Seldom Come By.

I am aiming to release this in mid-late September – the exact date will be advised shortly – with the Advanced Readers Edition (ARE) for Netgalley, bloggers and review sites being available on 1 September.

However, as a thank you to my supportive readers of Seldom Come By I am also going to GIVE AWAY 6 copies of the ARE (ebook) on 1 September as well.  I’m running the competition over here on my Facebook page.

The competition is geared around reviews of Seldom Come By.

3 winners will be drawn from people who have already written a review.

3 winners will be drawn from people who write a review between now and 31st August.

(Cut off will be midnight Hawaii time.)

So if you have been meaning to write a review of Seldom Come By I hope this will be the incentive you’ve been looking for.

If you haven’t read Seldom Come By yet but have been meaning to, well great news, the ebook is on sale for $1.99 until 31st August. You can buy it here.

Here’s the various locations where you can write a review:

The site where you purchased your ebook from:

Amazon
iTunes – Books 
Kobo
Barnes & Noble

Or Goodreads or Book Movement

You have to signup to be a member of both Goodreads and Book Movement but membership is free, painless and worthwhile and I would really love it if some of the book clubs who have read my book could write a review on Book Movement!!

 

The post Come What May is close! appeared first on Sherryl Caulfield.

The summer of her fifteenth year

14 July 2014

One hundred years ago  today, restless and adventurous Rebecca Dalton turned fifteen in the midst of the most exhilarating summer of her life.

There was Samuel, the astounding  shipwreck survivor. There was his sensational smile and his sunny voice. There was horse riding along Sable Island beach. And soon, there would be the most amazing iceberg she had ever seen. And let’s not forget her sister, Rachel.

As a special treat in honour of Rebecca’s birthday, here’s a deleted chapter from Seldom Come By, letting you in on the secret musings of both Rachel and Rebecca during their unforgettable summer of 1914.

The summer of her fifteenth year was a summer of many firsts for Rebecca, and for Rachel and Samuel too. In what was undoubtedly the busiest time of the year, the presence of Samuel buoyed and energised Rachel and Rebecca like nothing else. Neither girl had ever spent such time in the presence of a man so clearly different from the one they knew so well. Without even trying, Samuel was warm, friendly and helpful. He was easy to be with – never solemn or withdrawn or grumpy. He was just himself. And at times himself was extremely playful.

Throughout these long summer days, Morna’s ‘keep them busy, keep them apart’ stance had mellowed into a ‘keep them together; there’s safety in numbers’ approach. After all, two’s company, three’s a crowd. But even she in the end was swayed by her growing ease with Samuel, her faith and her belief that his gratefulness towards them would prevent him from doing anything to upset them.

Besides who had time for mischief? That year Newfoundland was a summer wonderland and it did not disappoint with its ample abundance. The earth, the sea and the sky were laden with nature’s bounty And to add to their haul, care packages had started to arrive for Samuel from his mother and brother after he had written advising of his intention to bide out the summer with the Crowes.

Her father had spent a Saturday showing Samuel how to work some of his seldom-used lobster pots so Samuel could bait and check them every day or two in his absence. Rachel had taught him the fine art of jigging for squid in between cooking meals and preparing the smokehouse. Smoked fish made a pleasant change to the salted variety they got from the Deception Coop as part of Silas’s haul. Meanwhile Rebecca and her mother had single-handedly prepared a hay field so they could harvest at the end of the season to feed their stock over winter. 

In the midst of their growing friendship with Samuel, neither girl would give voice to the fluttering of her own heart. For Rachel delighted in Samuel’s company. She became more relaxed and flowing and for the first time in her life felt like a woman, ready to be a woman. She would lie in bed at night thinking of his bare shoulders and wanting to run her hands across them, wanting to know how that would feel and what changes might happen inside her, inside Samuel if she could do that, if she had permission to do that and to look inside his eyes for meaning there. She would toss and turn trying to settle her imaginings. It seemed to her that Samuel also delighted in drawing her out, in watching her rediscover her own playfulness. Yet Rachel still wore the mantle of maturity and protocol, bound by religious rights and wrongs, hoping and waiting and praying for the day when Samuel would drop the playfulness and share with her the yearnings of his own heart – the yearnings for her heart? For in Samuel she had found a companion and confidant, one she would like to claim for her own, yet it wasn’t her place to do so. She was neither brave nor sure. She was only hopeful and amazed that she could spend so much of her waking day thinking of him and concealing these thoughts from everyone. What had occupied her mind before him, she wondered?

Rebecca’s world was in a spin. She’d oscillate between wanting to gaze upon Samuel’s face, but not wanting to catch his eye, as then the hollow, sickening feeling would start up again in her stomach and she’d barely be able to breathe. To steady herself, she plotted a raft of questions to ask him as his strong sonorous voice would calm her and his replies would always entrance her. How long do you think icebergs last for? Where would you like to travel to next? How many ships does your Uncle have in his fleet? And whenever her interest was piqued she was never afraid to gaze into his animated face, to ask every question, to tap every last ounce of information and experience his body had to offer and his soul too, though she did not know that at the time. She had no notion of possession. And she was no copycat either. She was someone who wanted to live her life fully, as fully as possible. And she saw in Samuel her best opportunity to do that. He was her closest ally in mind and spirit.

But every so often in their conversations, Samuel would pause and stare at Rebecca, almost as if he was wanting to ask her a question, something entirely different to the topic at hand. Unknowingly she would hold her breath, and before long she would part her mouth and breathe through it, then Samuel would swallow before continuing. At times like this she couldn’t handle looking into his eyes. Instead, she would lower her gaze and stare into his mouth, at his teeth and his tongue and watch the words as they came out, listening to the rich deep timbre of his voice. And that was something else about him that stirred her; how someone who was only nineteen could possess the most masculine soothing voice she had ever heard.

No one noticed the subtle changes in Rebecca’s behaviour. Everyone was so preoccupied with their own business and their own version of Samuel that none noticed her ingrained eagerness giving way to teenage tremoring and the wonder of her own awakening.

As time marched on, the girls formed an unspoken pact where neither would talk about Samuel or the time they spent alone with him. Each was stockpiling their own treasured memories, not wanting to know or invade or upset the motives and dreams of the other.

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About Gene

Here’s a little bit about Evangeline — Gene, Samuel and Rebecca’s younger daughter. I thought you might like to know a little bit more about the girl who grows up to have her own epic adventurous love story in Come What May, Book 2 of The Iceberg Trilogy.

When Samuel and Rebecca visited Montreal when the children were younger Gene’s favourite all time outing was the marketplace. While the other children were goggled-eyed over what was on offer, Gene’s eyes were only for the people. She would stare at the Indian woman in a patterned cotton dress with a man’s black panama hat on her head and the nuns draped in black with a crown of white wimple around their heads. Gene had asked who they were and before Rebecca had time to reply, Abby said, ‘They are God’s angels.’

‘No they’re not,’ countered Gene. ‘If they were they would be wearing white.’

‘That’s right,’ Rebecca had said, ‘They are nuns. They belong to the Catholic Church.’

But even so Gene was fixated by them. She said to her mother, ‘They look a bit like that statue back home Mommy. Maybe they do have wings under those dark outfits.’

‘Yes they do look a bit like that statue on top of the pillar but no they don’t have wings underneath their outfits,’ Rebecca had replied.

‘Maybe if I became a nun, I would grow wings,’ Gene mused.

The post About Gene appeared first on Sherryl Caulfield.

The youngest son

In Come What May, the sequel to Seldom Come By, Rebecca and Samuel’s children come into their own. The story opens where Seldom Come By left off — in Newfoundland in the summer of 1939. Jonathan, their eldest is twenty-one years old and has remained in Montreal, but their other four children are with them in Salvage. Abigail is twelve, Morton is eight, Gene is nearly six and Joel, just four. Here’s how Joel came into the world — a deleted scene from Seldom Come By. FYI, Leise is Analeise, Samuel’s older sister. 

Rebecca thought the phone was a fabulous invention, particularly on a day like the one she was having. ‘Hi Leise. How are things?’

‘We’re home alone without the children. It’s weird, hard to get used to. They’re all at the flicks. What about you?’

‘Oh, I’m coming along,’ said Rebecca in a sing-song voice.

‘Coming along now?’ asked Analeise in alarm.

‘Oh I think so.’

‘Is Samuel with you?’ 

‘No he’s taken Jonathan ice sailing down on the lake. I’ve got the girls and Morton here with me.’

‘Pack your bag,’ said Analeise.  ‘We’ll be there in five.’ Seven minutes later Rebecca heard Analeise calling out for her. ‘Where are you?’

‘In here,’ cried out Rebecca.

‘In the bathroom,’ queried Analeise.

‘Yes, come in. I’m sure you’ve seen it all before.’

Rebecca was inside the bath, squatting. Her bottom half was naked. On her top half she was wearing just a singlet.

‘My God, Rebecca!’ Leise rushed to her side. ‘Is the baby that close?’

‘Like a steam train,’ she said. ‘Talk about an iron will,’ and then another contraction came over her and all Rebecca could do was grunt and push with it.

‘Are you pushing already?’ 

‘I’m pushing, he’s pushing,’ she said between puffs. ’I swear this child is a boy. It’s like Morton all over again but ten times as fast.’

Analeise leant over to have a closer look at what was going on. Her gasp said it all. Meeting Rebecca’s eyes she said, ‘Well, he’s about to head into the world, that’s for sure.’

Swallowing, Rebecca said, ‘That’s what I’m counting on,’ as she blew the air away.

‘Just hold your horses,’ said Analeise. ‘Wait a minute while I wash my hands at least and grab some clean towels.’ Analeise tore off her coat and washed her hands and went to the linen cupboard down the hall.

She returned with some towels, one of which she knelt on as she crouched next to Rebecca, patted her on the shoulder and said, ‘Okay I’m ready.’

On the next contraction, out came the baby’s head and then after another half minute his whole body. A boy, as Rebecca had predicted. Rebecca took her bloodied son to her chest and collapsed back into the bath  ‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ Rebecca said. ‘I am so pleased that’s over with. Thank you,’ she said looking at Analeise.

‘Hey, I didn’t do a thing.’

‘You were here. I wasn’t alone. That was plenty.’

When Samuel came back an hour later, he found Analeise in the kitchen and his brother-in-law Randal reading to his children.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise. Where’s Rebecca?’

‘Hi back,’ said Analeise. ‘She’s upstairs.’

‘Has her labour started?’ asked Samuel, suddenly very alert.

‘I’d say you’re not far off,’ said Analeise.

‘Thanks for coming over,’ said Samuel giving his sister a quick hug as he walked by. ‘If you need to go home, Jonathan can look after the kids now.’

‘Oh we’re in no rush. We don’t mind,’ she said.

‘Okay, Thanks. I’ll just have a shower and then we can go.’

‘I’d probably look in on your wife first if I were you.’

‘Ha,’ said Samuel.

When he walked into their bedroom he found Rebecca asleep and a baby tightly bound nestled beside her. Samuel had to shake his head and blink three times. He picked the baby up and took him to the window to have a closer look at him. He was stunned at the day’s events and that his wife and Analeise had delivered this healthy robust baby without him.

‘I thought we might call him Joel after your friend,’ said Rebecca in a weary voice.

Samuel started and turned to her. ‘I think by your superhuman efforts today you’ve earned the right to call him whatever you want.’ He bent his head and kissed his wife. ‘Congratulations. You’ve got all that you asked for haven’t you? Two boys and two girls.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Rebecca, ‘after all those years in the wilderness I have been blessed.’ 

They stopped at Joel Adonis Dalton.

Here’s a pic of ice boat sailing then and now. The b&w pic taken in 1912 on Lake Ontario.

The post The youngest son appeared first on Sherryl Caulfield.

Ever wanted to go to Rio?

Australian children’s and young adult author, Julie Fison, has a new book out this month called How To Get To Rio. It’s part of a cool new Choose Your Own Ever After series that lets the reader decide how the story goes. I have loved this concept ever since I read The French Lieutenant’s Woman which had three possible endings.  How To Get To Rio has seven possible endings – I can’t wait to explore them!  So today I have invited Julie to share with us a little about her latest book and upcoming projects.

Tell us more how this series works

Julie:  The Choose Your Own Ever After series is a very positive series for tweens. The reader has a series of choices to make throughout the story, and with every decision, there’s a consequence. There are no nasty endings in this series, but the message is clear – choice, not chance, determines our future. Opportunities might come our way by chance, but it’s what we choose to do with them, that is important.

That’s so true!

And what about your new book?

Julie:  The series kicks off with Hot, Cold Summer by Nova Weetman and my story, How To Get To Rio. In this one, schoolgirl Kitty McLean has to choose between going camping with her best friends or going to an exclusive beach resort with popular-girl Persephone. She wants to spend the holidays with her besties but she also wants to get to know Persephone better. The beach holiday has an added attraction – the very cute Rio, is going to be there. The decision is the first of many choices Kitty has to make in the book.

How did the pick-a-path format differ from other books you have written?

Julie:  In the other stories I have written, the main character comes up against a problem early on in the story, and spends the rest of the book trying to resolve it. How To Get To Rio is basically seven short stories in one, but they all evolve from the same opening chapters. That meant a lot of threads had to be woven into the opening chapters so they could all unfold in different paths. The plotting was a big challenge! But I had fun working out where equally appealing choices would lead. I’d love to backtrack on my own life and work out where I would have ended up if I had decided not to leave Australia at the age of 21 looking for adventure!

Where does your writing inspiration come from?

Julie:  I was a television news reporter for many years, but the idea of writing fiction crept up on me during a family holiday on the Noosa River, in Queensland. My sons teamed up with friends and spent the holidays exploring sandbanks, dodging stingrays, building camps, avoiding snakes and generally having a boys’-own adventure. I was inspired. The result was a series of adventure stories for young readers called Hazard River. The books are fast-paced and fun with an environmental twist.

Every beach holiday and camping trip I’ve ever been on – as a girl and as a mother – is in How to get to Rio. It’s essentially about friendship, but it’s also full of family food fights, leech attacks, shopping expeditions, beach soccer and of course boys. It’s action-packed!

Noosa was also the inspiration for the first of my books for young adults – Tall Dark and Distant. The next – Lust and Found – is set in Cambodia, another of my favourite destinations.  I visited the country many years ago, so I did a lot of research to update my knowledge when I wrote Lust and Found, and I was seduced by the place all over again. I knew I had to go back.

So, last year, when my son did a volunteer project at an orphanage in Cambodia, the whole family tagged along. We spent almost a week in Siem Reap visiting the Angkor Wat Archeological Park. It was certainly busier than it had been on my last visit. Bus loads of tourists pour in to the park every day, but it’s still possible to get away from the crowds in the massive sprawling complex of temples. And Angkor Wat at sunset is stunning, even if you have to share the experience with hundreds of others! 

(Read Julie’s blog on her trip to Angkor Wat here: It is an enthralling place to visit.)

What’s next for you?

Julie: I have another book in the Choose Your Own Ever After series coming out in July – The Call of The Wild. I’m very excited about this one because the main character, nature-loving Phoebe, has to choose between going to a party with her friends or helping at a save-the-orangutan fund raiser. The topic is close to my heart because I spent time in Borneo many years ago, and was blown away by the orangutans at the Sepilok Sanctuary near Sandakan. At that time you could walk into the forest, and the orangutans would appear out of nowhere when the ranger arrived with a bucket of fruit. One cheeky orangutan opened my friend’s money belt and ate her cash, another grabbed onto my hand and wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t easy to escape! 

As I was editing The Call of The Wild, an interview on the radio caught my attention. Orangutan rescuer and campaigner, Lone Dröscher Nielsen, was in Australia to promote her rehabilitation work in Borneo. Lone quit her job as a flight attendant in 1999 and moved to Borneo to help save wild orangutans from extinction. Since then she has established the world’s biggest reserve for these incredible animals.

When I checked out the website, I discovered that the foundation was looking for supporters to adopt a baby orangutan called ‘Julie’. Julie. It was a surprise, not just because we shared a first name, but also because people don’t call their babies Julie anymore. (It sure was big in the 60s, but now – not so much.) That’s what I call synchronicity!

 I knew I had to do something. And here’s why:

Thousands of orangutans are lost each year as their rainforest habitat is destroyed by logging, forest fires, plantations and mining. This could lead to the extinction of one of the world’s four species of great apes – one of our most intelligent and peaceful relatives.

(Save the orangutan website http://www.savetheorangutan.org/)

My other book for this year is a story for young adults – Counterfeit Love – a tale of ambition, power, deadlines and romance, set in Hong Kong. Counterfeit Love comes out in July. I hope you enjoy it!

I’m really looking forward to that one as I loved living in Hong Kong and can’t wait to see how you’ve brought that to life. Same with your Borneo story

 

Julie:  Thank you for having me on your blog, Sherryl. I loved Seldom Come By and I am looking forward to the sequel!

See Julie Fison’s books and blog at http://juliefison.com

Buy How To Get To Rio at Boomerang Books http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/How-to-Get-to-Rio/Julie-Fison/book_9781742977744.htm

Follow Julie’s Blog Tour

Sherryl Caulfield http://www.sherrylcaulfield.com/

Kids’ Book Review http://www.kids-bookreview.com/

DeeScribewriting http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com/

Dim’s Write Stuff http://dimswritestuff.blogspot.com.au/

Cereal Readers http://www.cerealreaders.blogspot.com.au/

Bug in a Book http://buginabook.org/

Buzz Words http://www.buzzwordsmagazine.com/

The Book Chook http://www.thebookchook.com/

 

 

 

 

The post Ever wanted to go to Rio? appeared first on Sherryl Caulfield.