Apr 2010
Mission Accomplished
29/04/10 22:05 Filed in: Writing
I sit here stunned. Just twenty-four hours after
writing on this blog that I still hoped to be
able to get the draft of The Silent Goodbye
reviewed, revised and copy-edited before my trip to
Ontario next Tuesday, I actually finished the task
tonight.
Every last detail of it. I reviewed the novel line by line, with the macro and micro comments of my first three readers in my mind (and, often, on sheets in front of me). I corrected minor errors and revamped entire scenes. I brought consistency to names and descriptions and made sure that words requiring capitalisation (like "Alderman" and "Jury") were, in fact, capitalised throughout. I added in chapter breaks and even made sure the chapter numbers made sense.
I'm impressed with myself. I'm pleased with the finished product.
I saved the revised draft as a PDF file and will have a copy printed tomorrow, double-sided, to carry with me to Ontario next week. While there, I'll have several more copies made (See how clever I am? Why make the copies here and have to tote them to Ontario when I can make them there instead!) and deliver them to my next set of readers. These readers aren't going to be asked to review and offer comments: just to enjoy while I start looking into the possibility of getting the novel published.
That's the next major task: trying to get the thing published. I know it's a long-shot but I have to say this is the best piece of fiction I've ever written. I think it's of publishable quality. I believe it's interesting and exciting enough to sell pretty well. I just hope I can find an editor and publisher who will feel the same.
Every last detail of it. I reviewed the novel line by line, with the macro and micro comments of my first three readers in my mind (and, often, on sheets in front of me). I corrected minor errors and revamped entire scenes. I brought consistency to names and descriptions and made sure that words requiring capitalisation (like "Alderman" and "Jury") were, in fact, capitalised throughout. I added in chapter breaks and even made sure the chapter numbers made sense.
I'm impressed with myself. I'm pleased with the finished product.
I saved the revised draft as a PDF file and will have a copy printed tomorrow, double-sided, to carry with me to Ontario next week. While there, I'll have several more copies made (See how clever I am? Why make the copies here and have to tote them to Ontario when I can make them there instead!) and deliver them to my next set of readers. These readers aren't going to be asked to review and offer comments: just to enjoy while I start looking into the possibility of getting the novel published.
That's the next major task: trying to get the thing published. I know it's a long-shot but I have to say this is the best piece of fiction I've ever written. I think it's of publishable quality. I believe it's interesting and exciting enough to sell pretty well. I just hope I can find an editor and publisher who will feel the same.
Back Into It
28/04/10 04:44 Filed in: Writing
I've been too busy lately (both at work and at home)
to spend much time on the revisions of The Silent
Goodbye, my latest Phillip Gold novel. That's
put my self-imposed deadline of getting copies of the
completed second draft printed in time for my trip
back to Ontario next week in some jeopardy.
I hate missing deadlines. Ever since I worked in the newspaper business (first at the student paper at McMaster University and later at a daily newspaper in Lindsay), I've always believed that deadlines are frightening but necessary things. In fact, I've learned to value them a great deal simply for the fact that they force you to finish one project and move on to the next. Most writers (no matter if they write fiction, poetry, news or academic work) could probably spend a lifetime on a single piece, revising and polishing, updating and improving. Deadlines curb that perfectionist tendency and ensure that the writer actually shares his or her brilliance with the world.
So I wasn't very happy with myself as day after day passed with no progress on this review and rewrite process.
Yesterday, however, I managed to turn things around, find some time to work and create some real momentum. I followed up one good day's work with a second today and, with luck (and tenacity), my newly found energy might carry me long enough and far enough to meet that deadline.
What is amazing me, however, is how slow the work actually goes. I'm trying to balance a number of things as I work my way through the novel: the macro comments on character, plot, action that have been offered up by my three first readers; their micro comments on punctuation, grammar, diction, paragraph structure and the like; my own dedication to addressing consistency issues (characters whose hair changes colour, for example, or whose names change spellings); as well as the need to insert chapter breaks into the body of the book.
I've done pretty well, I think, with the first three on that list but, I have to admit, I've already lost track of the chapters. I think I got up to Chapter 11 and then simply forgot about it. Maybe that's something I have to add in at the end of the revision process.
Still, the progress of the past two days has given me heart. I'm about a third of the way through and have high hopes of getting the revisions done and copies printed before next Tuesday, when I board the plane heading east. No guarantees but the deadline is looming. And helping to motivate me as well.
I hate missing deadlines. Ever since I worked in the newspaper business (first at the student paper at McMaster University and later at a daily newspaper in Lindsay), I've always believed that deadlines are frightening but necessary things. In fact, I've learned to value them a great deal simply for the fact that they force you to finish one project and move on to the next. Most writers (no matter if they write fiction, poetry, news or academic work) could probably spend a lifetime on a single piece, revising and polishing, updating and improving. Deadlines curb that perfectionist tendency and ensure that the writer actually shares his or her brilliance with the world.
So I wasn't very happy with myself as day after day passed with no progress on this review and rewrite process.
Yesterday, however, I managed to turn things around, find some time to work and create some real momentum. I followed up one good day's work with a second today and, with luck (and tenacity), my newly found energy might carry me long enough and far enough to meet that deadline.
What is amazing me, however, is how slow the work actually goes. I'm trying to balance a number of things as I work my way through the novel: the macro comments on character, plot, action that have been offered up by my three first readers; their micro comments on punctuation, grammar, diction, paragraph structure and the like; my own dedication to addressing consistency issues (characters whose hair changes colour, for example, or whose names change spellings); as well as the need to insert chapter breaks into the body of the book.
I've done pretty well, I think, with the first three on that list but, I have to admit, I've already lost track of the chapters. I think I got up to Chapter 11 and then simply forgot about it. Maybe that's something I have to add in at the end of the revision process.
Still, the progress of the past two days has given me heart. I'm about a third of the way through and have high hopes of getting the revisions done and copies printed before next Tuesday, when I board the plane heading east. No guarantees but the deadline is looming. And helping to motivate me as well.
Ahh Spring!
The air is warm and the sun is shining. Bits of plant
life are turning lovely shades of green. Golf courses
are opening their gates and manicuring their
fairways. Spring is in the air!
I spent this past weekend celebrating spring with 27 holes of golf, some gardening and not much else. I hardly touched the revision of The Silent Goodbye and managed to finish reading only one Dick Francis novel: Knock Down, another of my favourites. I did get a chance to watch Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a very successful, very Canadian action comedy that provided lots of laughs, some great characters but falls down on the plot.
Patti finished her reading of The Silent Goodbye, my latest Phillip Gold novel, and has already provided some excellent insights and pages of micro-comments on the smaller stuff. I hope to get back to the revising process today with a view to getting the finished, polished draft done before my trip to Ontario in early May. I find that setting myself deadlines is very helpful in sparking me to complete tasks.
The break from actual writing work has not been a complete loss from a creativity standpoint: while lazing about or walking the fairways I have been thinking about how to revise and improve my first and second Gold novels, A Fleck of Gold and All That Glisters. I am so pleased with how much action there is in The Silent Goodbye that I have been trying to come up with an interesting, preferably court-base subplot for each of the earlier novels and, while Fleck continues to provide challenges, I believe I have come up with a good approach to Glisters.
The idea I've had for Glisters involves incorporating a Phillip Gold short story I wrote a couple of years ago into the beginning of the book, then using it to flow into the main plot of the existing novel. The introduction of Violet, the short story, should add punch to the opening, a court-room counterpoint to the main Kevin Dallanger kidnapping plot and a great deal more action overall. The rewrite process will also allow me to transition the book into third-person while moving it in time from a point before the events of The Silent Goodbye to a time following that novel.
I know. I know. I'm full of ideas. It's putting them into action (or written words) that is the problem.
I spent this past weekend celebrating spring with 27 holes of golf, some gardening and not much else. I hardly touched the revision of The Silent Goodbye and managed to finish reading only one Dick Francis novel: Knock Down, another of my favourites. I did get a chance to watch Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a very successful, very Canadian action comedy that provided lots of laughs, some great characters but falls down on the plot.
Patti finished her reading of The Silent Goodbye, my latest Phillip Gold novel, and has already provided some excellent insights and pages of micro-comments on the smaller stuff. I hope to get back to the revising process today with a view to getting the finished, polished draft done before my trip to Ontario in early May. I find that setting myself deadlines is very helpful in sparking me to complete tasks.
The break from actual writing work has not been a complete loss from a creativity standpoint: while lazing about or walking the fairways I have been thinking about how to revise and improve my first and second Gold novels, A Fleck of Gold and All That Glisters. I am so pleased with how much action there is in The Silent Goodbye that I have been trying to come up with an interesting, preferably court-base subplot for each of the earlier novels and, while Fleck continues to provide challenges, I believe I have come up with a good approach to Glisters.
The idea I've had for Glisters involves incorporating a Phillip Gold short story I wrote a couple of years ago into the beginning of the book, then using it to flow into the main plot of the existing novel. The introduction of Violet, the short story, should add punch to the opening, a court-room counterpoint to the main Kevin Dallanger kidnapping plot and a great deal more action overall. The rewrite process will also allow me to transition the book into third-person while moving it in time from a point before the events of The Silent Goodbye to a time following that novel.
I know. I know. I'm full of ideas. It's putting them into action (or written words) that is the problem.
There's Nothing Better Than Constructive Criticism
14/04/10 21:56 Filed in: Writing
I am well into the process of reviewing and editing
The Silent Goodbye very carefully, on a
line-by-line basis. It's an interesting task: you
pick up each word, examine it, test it, consider it,
then either leave it in, chuck it out or change it.
You do the same with each phrase and every sentence.
Is it working? Is it effective? Is it interesting?
It is slow work but important. My friend John is especially keen on this kind of editing job, constantly encouraging me to delete as many adjectives and adverbs as I can. He hates the word "suddenly" and has even suggested that I use the "search and replace" function on the word-processing software to find and delete every word in the book with "ly" at the end of it. He has also reminded me that dialogue tags should be simple: use "he said" over any other tag in almost every situation.
Meanwhile, still on the micro-comment level, Ross has reminded me that publishers and editors hate ellipses ("...") and told me to remove them all. Patti has found several occasions where I refer to a character as "Watson" where his real name is "Weston". Yikes. She's also realised that I have gotten the names of the two street gangs in the novel confused at times, more proof of my terrible memory.
Those things are easy to fix and I plan to address them during this careful edit. It's the bigger, macro comments that represent more work.
Two of my readers have expressed concern that Gold is too relaxed even while he is on the run from a professional killer. "Would a guy who's got a price on his head go grocery shopping in public?" one asked, sarcasm dripping. Ross wants me to make a secondary female character stronger and more assertive. Patti thinks I need to rewrite the backstory for Stacey McLean to make it more realistic while John has strongly encouraged me to review and rewrite the climactic scenes to make my hero more proactive and heroic.
I wish I could reject these suggestions outright. It would be a lot less work. But you don't ask good, intelligent people to critique your work and then refuse to implement their excellent suggestions just because you're lazy, do you? Not me. Guess I've got some rewriting to do.
It is slow work but important. My friend John is especially keen on this kind of editing job, constantly encouraging me to delete as many adjectives and adverbs as I can. He hates the word "suddenly" and has even suggested that I use the "search and replace" function on the word-processing software to find and delete every word in the book with "ly" at the end of it. He has also reminded me that dialogue tags should be simple: use "he said" over any other tag in almost every situation.
Meanwhile, still on the micro-comment level, Ross has reminded me that publishers and editors hate ellipses ("...") and told me to remove them all. Patti has found several occasions where I refer to a character as "Watson" where his real name is "Weston". Yikes. She's also realised that I have gotten the names of the two street gangs in the novel confused at times, more proof of my terrible memory.
Those things are easy to fix and I plan to address them during this careful edit. It's the bigger, macro comments that represent more work.
Two of my readers have expressed concern that Gold is too relaxed even while he is on the run from a professional killer. "Would a guy who's got a price on his head go grocery shopping in public?" one asked, sarcasm dripping. Ross wants me to make a secondary female character stronger and more assertive. Patti thinks I need to rewrite the backstory for Stacey McLean to make it more realistic while John has strongly encouraged me to review and rewrite the climactic scenes to make my hero more proactive and heroic.
I wish I could reject these suggestions outright. It would be a lot less work. But you don't ask good, intelligent people to critique your work and then refuse to implement their excellent suggestions just because you're lazy, do you? Not me. Guess I've got some rewriting to do.
Positive Responses Spawn Positive Feelings
12/04/10 21:18 Filed in: Writing
Writing is a solitary art. You sit alone at your
computer, or with your pad and pen, and compose a
story. It takes hours and hours, weeks upon weeks,
even years to complete a single novel. And, when
you've finished a draft, you have only your own
perception of whether or not it's any good.
That's why those first readings are so important. You pass along your precious draft to your partner, a friend or two, your colleagues in your writing group, and you hold your breath. Will they like it? Will they find horrible flaws in your plot, your characters, your writing itself? Will they be too kind to tell you it needs a heck of a lot of work?
I'm lucky to have some fantastic readers in my life, people I know will give an honest opinion and criticism that I can use to make my writing better. My partner, Patti, is one of those readers. She's making her way slowly through The Silent Goodbye and she's already compiled a long list of comments and corrections. My former writing group pals, Ross Pennie and John Hewson, are also trusted and valued readers: they know good writing, they know how to offer constructive feedback and they aren't afraid to tell the truth (both positive and negative).
So the last little while has been quite a nervous time for me, as Patti, Ross and John have worked their way through the novel. I'm glad to say that Patti, though she still has a way to go in the book, has been very positive and has provided some excellent insights and suggestions. Ross is also about half-way through the novel (at last report) and he, too, seems to be enjoying the writing while giving some excellent and useful feedback.
And then the other night I heard from John, the first of my readers to finish the book. And, I'm thrilled to say, he appears to have liked it a lot. He, too, has made some really excellent suggestions on how to make it better but he is also clear that he thinks it's of publishable quality. That's great to hear. And such a relief.
I have really felt positive about The Silent Goodbye since I was well into writing the first draft but it's nice to have my positive perceptions verified by my trusted readers. Oh, sure, there's still a lot of work to do. I've just started a line-by-line review where every word comes under scrutiny (is it necessary? is it the best word to use?) and every scene is tested to make sure it makes a worthwhile contribution to the book.
But I also now feel much more secure in the knowledge that three trusted readers have read at least part of the book and have enjoyed it.
That kind of feedback gives me a boost as I start the revisions. And creates excitement for a review of the other Phillip Gold novels as well as the Abigail Massey stories too!
That's why those first readings are so important. You pass along your precious draft to your partner, a friend or two, your colleagues in your writing group, and you hold your breath. Will they like it? Will they find horrible flaws in your plot, your characters, your writing itself? Will they be too kind to tell you it needs a heck of a lot of work?
I'm lucky to have some fantastic readers in my life, people I know will give an honest opinion and criticism that I can use to make my writing better. My partner, Patti, is one of those readers. She's making her way slowly through The Silent Goodbye and she's already compiled a long list of comments and corrections. My former writing group pals, Ross Pennie and John Hewson, are also trusted and valued readers: they know good writing, they know how to offer constructive feedback and they aren't afraid to tell the truth (both positive and negative).
So the last little while has been quite a nervous time for me, as Patti, Ross and John have worked their way through the novel. I'm glad to say that Patti, though she still has a way to go in the book, has been very positive and has provided some excellent insights and suggestions. Ross is also about half-way through the novel (at last report) and he, too, seems to be enjoying the writing while giving some excellent and useful feedback.
And then the other night I heard from John, the first of my readers to finish the book. And, I'm thrilled to say, he appears to have liked it a lot. He, too, has made some really excellent suggestions on how to make it better but he is also clear that he thinks it's of publishable quality. That's great to hear. And such a relief.
I have really felt positive about The Silent Goodbye since I was well into writing the first draft but it's nice to have my positive perceptions verified by my trusted readers. Oh, sure, there's still a lot of work to do. I've just started a line-by-line review where every word comes under scrutiny (is it necessary? is it the best word to use?) and every scene is tested to make sure it makes a worthwhile contribution to the book.
But I also now feel much more secure in the knowledge that three trusted readers have read at least part of the book and have enjoyed it.
That kind of feedback gives me a boost as I start the revisions. And creates excitement for a review of the other Phillip Gold novels as well as the Abigail Massey stories too!
Net Book Starts to Net Results
10/04/10 18:37 Filed in: Writing
I have now transferred a great deal of my Phillip
Gold material (the latest drafts of the three
completed novels, for example) onto my cool tool net
book and am in the process of review: first, A
Fleck of Gold, the first Gold novel I wrote,
which I completed I think a decade ago.
The fact that I have deliberately chosen not to add word processing software to the WIndows Vista OS on the net book, choosing instead to stick with the simple Text Edit program that comes with Vista, means that I have had to resave each novel as a plain-text document, losing all formatting in the process. It sounds like a pain but, in fact, it has had the positive impact of forcing me to work my way through each one, reformatting and revising as I go.
I'm only part of the way through Fleck but I am already finding it to be a useful and worthwhile endeavour. As you may remember, my plan now is to revise the first two novels (Fleck and All That Glisters) completely to bring them into line stylistically with The Silent Goodbye, to address inconsistencies in character descriptions and behaviours and, if possible, to bump up the action along the way. I often find that, when I'm trying to revise, I get caught up in what's already written and skip my way through the book, defeating the purpose of revising: the reformatting task is forcing me to slow down and my revision work is all the better for the slow pace.
It's also great to have an instrument that I can take anywhere, that I can pull out whenever I have a half hour available, and that provides a comfortable typing platform and a screen large enough to read easily.
I know I have a habit of making big plans but I'm already thinking about bringing the Abigail Massey stories onto the net book and beginning the necessary work of editing and rewriting them as well. It's hard to imagine that, two years ago now, I was banging those stories out almost one per day and posting them on this website, almost entirely without revision! I think it's about time I gave them a rigorous review and rewrite. As one famous author once said, writing without revision is just typing.
It may be happening later than I had hoped but this new cool tool is indeed inspiring me to get back to work.
The fact that I have deliberately chosen not to add word processing software to the WIndows Vista OS on the net book, choosing instead to stick with the simple Text Edit program that comes with Vista, means that I have had to resave each novel as a plain-text document, losing all formatting in the process. It sounds like a pain but, in fact, it has had the positive impact of forcing me to work my way through each one, reformatting and revising as I go.
I'm only part of the way through Fleck but I am already finding it to be a useful and worthwhile endeavour. As you may remember, my plan now is to revise the first two novels (Fleck and All That Glisters) completely to bring them into line stylistically with The Silent Goodbye, to address inconsistencies in character descriptions and behaviours and, if possible, to bump up the action along the way. I often find that, when I'm trying to revise, I get caught up in what's already written and skip my way through the book, defeating the purpose of revising: the reformatting task is forcing me to slow down and my revision work is all the better for the slow pace.
It's also great to have an instrument that I can take anywhere, that I can pull out whenever I have a half hour available, and that provides a comfortable typing platform and a screen large enough to read easily.
I know I have a habit of making big plans but I'm already thinking about bringing the Abigail Massey stories onto the net book and beginning the necessary work of editing and rewriting them as well. It's hard to imagine that, two years ago now, I was banging those stories out almost one per day and posting them on this website, almost entirely without revision! I think it's about time I gave them a rigorous review and rewrite. As one famous author once said, writing without revision is just typing.
It may be happening later than I had hoped but this new cool tool is indeed inspiring me to get back to work.
In Loving Memory
08/04/10 19:29 Filed in: Personal
My mother, Janny Walma (nee Muys), passed away early
in the morning of April 9, 2009. I miss her very much
but, as so many people promised, my memory of her is
now less focussed on the terrible last night my
sister Janice and I spent with her a year ago and
more on the wonderful years that preceded it.
My thoughts right now are with my siblings and their families, my mom's sisters and brothers and all of my mom's friends who no doubt miss her as intensely as I do. On the first anniversary of her death, I offer this small collection photos as my way of honouring her life and remembering the happier times.
My thoughts right now are with my siblings and their families, my mom's sisters and brothers and all of my mom's friends who no doubt miss her as intensely as I do. On the first anniversary of her death, I offer this small collection photos as my way of honouring her life and remembering the happier times.
The Ups and Downs of Dick Francis
07/04/10 19:08 Filed in: Reading
My journey through Dick Francis has reached the 1970s
which, to be frank, is not necessarily the best
decade for Mr. F.
I just finished Bonecrack, a novel about a corporate consultant who is forced by circumstance to take over his father's horse training business and finds himself being coerced into apprenticing as a jockey the son of a violent mobster. Of all of Francis' books, this is the one that I like the least. I don't know if it's the plot or the characters or the hero or what, but I really have a hard time forcing myself to read it. I finally did just that: forced myself to sit down for a couple of hours and plow through it. I still don't like it much. I don't find the main character sympathetic and I find the idea that a big-time international mobster would personally torture someone into allowing his son to ride horses a bit far-fetched. But at least now I'm through it.
On to Smokescreen, one of the novels I like best. The hero is Edward Lincoln, a movie star whose father was a horse trainer. His task is simple: go to South Africa and try to figure out why the horses owned by a close friend are running so poorly. It's a fun book and "Linc" is a great character: a movie star who refuses to forget where he came from; an actor who is so protective of his personal life and his private self that he holds back in his performances on film. It helps that the plot is clever and interesting and the book is filled with nifty minor characters. It's also quite fascinating to see South Africa of 1972 depicted so vividly.
My other two reading projects (The Girl Who Played With Fire and Candide) come next. I just couldn't leave Francis directly following the disappointment that is Bonecrack.
I just finished Bonecrack, a novel about a corporate consultant who is forced by circumstance to take over his father's horse training business and finds himself being coerced into apprenticing as a jockey the son of a violent mobster. Of all of Francis' books, this is the one that I like the least. I don't know if it's the plot or the characters or the hero or what, but I really have a hard time forcing myself to read it. I finally did just that: forced myself to sit down for a couple of hours and plow through it. I still don't like it much. I don't find the main character sympathetic and I find the idea that a big-time international mobster would personally torture someone into allowing his son to ride horses a bit far-fetched. But at least now I'm through it.
On to Smokescreen, one of the novels I like best. The hero is Edward Lincoln, a movie star whose father was a horse trainer. His task is simple: go to South Africa and try to figure out why the horses owned by a close friend are running so poorly. It's a fun book and "Linc" is a great character: a movie star who refuses to forget where he came from; an actor who is so protective of his personal life and his private self that he holds back in his performances on film. It helps that the plot is clever and interesting and the book is filled with nifty minor characters. It's also quite fascinating to see South Africa of 1972 depicted so vividly.
My other two reading projects (The Girl Who Played With Fire and Candide) come next. I just couldn't leave Francis directly following the disappointment that is Bonecrack.
More Signs, More Fun
06/04/10 12:35 Filed in: Garden
The beautiful weather is finally running out but I'm
glad to say I took full advantage while it lasted.
With rain in the forecast for the next four days here
in Nota Bene, the gardens and lawns will thrive while
the walks with the dog will only get messier and
muddier.
Monday was a holiday for government and
quasi-government employees here in Nota Bene so two
friends and I took advantage by travelling an hour
south to St. Andrew's on the Sea, a resort town on
the Bay of Fundy famous for its whaling and its golf.
It's too early in the season for the former so we
took the Algonquin Golf Resort up on its offer for
lower greens fees for early-season players.
The course was in decent shape for the first of April (well, the greens were a bit of a disaster but the rest was not too bad) and the back nine of Algonquin is as pretty as any I've seen. Most holes between 11 and 16 run along the shores of the Bay and the views are spectacular. The view from the first tee is gorgeous (see top picture) but the first nine holes are, in fact, merely average. They are made quite challenging by the fact that most greens are
hidden when you're standing on the tee, meaning
first-time golfers like me were at a distinct
disadvantage. It's also a long course but the beauty
of that back nine makes all the challenges worth
overcoming.
The back nine, as I said, is amazing. We're told that the 12th hole, a short par three where you feel like you are actually driving the ball into the Bay, is the club's signature hole. It really is a glorious location and, I have to admit, that view (see second picture) makes the tee shot all the more difficult. I am pleased to say that I dropped my drive right on the edge of the green and, if my memory serves, made a par by two putting from about 18 feet. Not at all bad, if I do say so myself.
The fact that I didn't play too badly in my first effort of the year made it all the more fun!
On the garden front, my indoor seeding
experiment is working well. I've planted seeds for
tomatoes (beef stake and grape), zucchini, cucumbers
and beans in the small plastic trays and placed them
on the desk in our spare office. After a week's
carefully moistening of the soil, the results are
amazing. I've got growth from all five of my veggie
varieties, with only the beef stake tomatoes and the
beans lagging behind. I'm very impressed but, since
they all seem to be growing so well (especially the
zucchini: see the third photo), will I have to repot
them in something larger as an interim step until the
risk of outdoor frost ends?
It's a nice problem to have. After last summer's debacle where my tomatoes and cukes emerged on the vine just in time to freeze and rot in November's cold, I am hopeful that I'll have something more like a bumper crop this year.
The course was in decent shape for the first of April (well, the greens were a bit of a disaster but the rest was not too bad) and the back nine of Algonquin is as pretty as any I've seen. Most holes between 11 and 16 run along the shores of the Bay and the views are spectacular. The view from the first tee is gorgeous (see top picture) but the first nine holes are, in fact, merely average. They are made quite challenging by the fact that most greens are
The back nine, as I said, is amazing. We're told that the 12th hole, a short par three where you feel like you are actually driving the ball into the Bay, is the club's signature hole. It really is a glorious location and, I have to admit, that view (see second picture) makes the tee shot all the more difficult. I am pleased to say that I dropped my drive right on the edge of the green and, if my memory serves, made a par by two putting from about 18 feet. Not at all bad, if I do say so myself.
The fact that I didn't play too badly in my first effort of the year made it all the more fun!
It's a nice problem to have. After last summer's debacle where my tomatoes and cukes emerged on the vine just in time to freeze and rot in November's cold, I am hopeful that I'll have something more like a bumper crop this year.
Signs of Life
The second absolutely gorgeous day in a row. Clear
blue skies, temperatures in the low 20s, snow on the
retreat. Fabulous.
With the long weekend, I've been taking some time to start the job of tidying up the yard and getting ready for the real work. I wandered around this morning, picking up all the random garbage that had blown onto the property during the course of a windy winter and, low and behold, I found two tiny bouquets of pretty yellow flowers. Now, I am well aware that they might be a form of dandelion but that would spoil the joy of finding them pushing their way up into the world.
I have also been taking advantage of this quiet
weekend with beautiful weather to continue with my
reading. I finished Dick Francis' Rat Race
this morning. Not my favourite. I don't mind the main
character, Matt Shore, but I find the whole plot
extremely thin and a little too contrived. The love
interest, Nancy Ross, is no great shakes either.
Never fully developed, she takes on too much
importance too soon for the main character and that
makes for a fairly wooden relationship. On the other
hand, there is a pretty fantastic scene where Shore,
a commercial pilot, attempts to locate Nancy in her
tiny Cessna somewhere over southern England after her
plane was sabotaged and rendered without electrical
power. A beautifully written, tense scene. It's too
bad the rest of the book doesn't live up to it.
I've picked up Candide again but it's slow going. My French is okay but not strong enough to read this classic at any great pace. I'll keep working on it though and, when I need a break, I'll switch to The Girl Who Played with Fire. Some break!
With the long weekend, I've been taking some time to start the job of tidying up the yard and getting ready for the real work. I wandered around this morning, picking up all the random garbage that had blown onto the property during the course of a windy winter and, low and behold, I found two tiny bouquets of pretty yellow flowers. Now, I am well aware that they might be a form of dandelion but that would spoil the joy of finding them pushing their way up into the world.
I've picked up Candide again but it's slow going. My French is okay but not strong enough to read this classic at any great pace. I'll keep working on it though and, when I need a break, I'll switch to The Girl Who Played with Fire. Some break!
Peaceful Days
I had hoped the purchase of my new cool tool would
have spurred me into a writing frenzy. Alas, no such
luck. I love my new netbook and its ultimate
portability; I've taken it to numerous meetings and
kept useful notes. But I haven't actually gotten back
involved in the writing process yet.
That really shouldn't surprise me, however. I have just completed the long process of writing and revising my latest Phillip Gold novel, The Silent Goodbye, which currently sits with some of my readers, and I know it often takes some time to "change gears" before getting involved in another big writing project. So I'm not letting it worry me. I'm just noting it and waiting patiently.
And with the weather here in Nota Bene finally smiling down on us, it's hard to think of anything but getting ready for spring: I've got my vegetable seeds planted in their indoor gardens; I've tidied up the backyard; I've stowed the snow blower and rolled out the BBQ. With the long Easter weekend, everything is pointing to peaceful days with low stress and maximum sunshine.
To keep with that theme, I'm doing a lot of reading. I finished Dick Francis' Enquiry yesterday. I always forget about this novel when I'm thinking about my favourite Francis books and yet, when I read it, I always enjoy it thoroughly. Kelly Hughes is a jump jockey who is "warned off" racing in the book's first lines; that means his license to ride is suspended and he is not allowed to be anywhere near horse racing. The charges are trumped up and the evidence faked but it's up to Hughes to figure things out before it's too late to revive his career and before the villains finish him off. It's not a complicated story but it's a good one and I find the two major characters (Hughes and Roberta Cranfield, the snobbish daughter of Hughes' social-climbing employer) really fun.
I also have Stieg Larsson's second novel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, on the go. I'm having a hard time getting into it, perhaps because I can tell it's going to be intense and perturbing. At the same time, I'm dipping my toes into Voltaire's Candide in the original French. For that, I need to find time to focus. That's not going to happen while Patti's away and Marlee is entirely my responsibility. The dog just demands too much attention.
I had mentioned in an earlier post that I was planning to rewrite my first Philllip Gold novel, A Fleck of Gold, entirely from scratch, without going back and reviewing the now-six-year-old original final draft. I'm faltering on that plan. I feel a deep-seated urge to go back and re-read the original. Maybe that hesitation is also contributing to my current slow period for writing.
That really shouldn't surprise me, however. I have just completed the long process of writing and revising my latest Phillip Gold novel, The Silent Goodbye, which currently sits with some of my readers, and I know it often takes some time to "change gears" before getting involved in another big writing project. So I'm not letting it worry me. I'm just noting it and waiting patiently.
And with the weather here in Nota Bene finally smiling down on us, it's hard to think of anything but getting ready for spring: I've got my vegetable seeds planted in their indoor gardens; I've tidied up the backyard; I've stowed the snow blower and rolled out the BBQ. With the long Easter weekend, everything is pointing to peaceful days with low stress and maximum sunshine.
To keep with that theme, I'm doing a lot of reading. I finished Dick Francis' Enquiry yesterday. I always forget about this novel when I'm thinking about my favourite Francis books and yet, when I read it, I always enjoy it thoroughly. Kelly Hughes is a jump jockey who is "warned off" racing in the book's first lines; that means his license to ride is suspended and he is not allowed to be anywhere near horse racing. The charges are trumped up and the evidence faked but it's up to Hughes to figure things out before it's too late to revive his career and before the villains finish him off. It's not a complicated story but it's a good one and I find the two major characters (Hughes and Roberta Cranfield, the snobbish daughter of Hughes' social-climbing employer) really fun.
I also have Stieg Larsson's second novel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, on the go. I'm having a hard time getting into it, perhaps because I can tell it's going to be intense and perturbing. At the same time, I'm dipping my toes into Voltaire's Candide in the original French. For that, I need to find time to focus. That's not going to happen while Patti's away and Marlee is entirely my responsibility. The dog just demands too much attention.
I had mentioned in an earlier post that I was planning to rewrite my first Philllip Gold novel, A Fleck of Gold, entirely from scratch, without going back and reviewing the now-six-year-old original final draft. I'm faltering on that plan. I feel a deep-seated urge to go back and re-read the original. Maybe that hesitation is also contributing to my current slow period for writing.