Hurricane Irene came to town this weekend and, after a week of hype, turned out to be rather tamer than expected. Sure, we got about 60 mm of rain here in Fredericton in a 24-hour period but we suffered nothing close to the damage we were led to expect.

Not that Irene wasn't the perfect way to end a crazy week here in New Brunswick. A week ago Monday, I managed to jam an umbrella and my baby finger into a door handle at work and break the bone in the tip of the finger. Talk about painful!

Then on Tuesday, we felt the effects of that big earthquake down in the States, leading to the evacuation of many buildings in downtown Freddie as they were checked for structural damage. On Wednesday, we witnessed a tree-branch break off and smash into an electrical transformer on the street outside our office, leading to a bright orange flash, some ominous crackling in the ceiling of our building and wisps of smoke coming from the transformer. The mall near us was without power for several hours as a result.

Finally, we get Irene. Despite the fact that she failed to live up to her hype, she still packed some power. Sunday saw rain from dawn until dusk and well into the night, followed by high winds Monday morning. The winds seem to do the most damage: we lost power to our house at about 1 p.m. on Monday and we just got it back late Tuesday afternoon.

Quite the week, I think. Still, it's not a bad thing to take an evening away from all of your electrical gadgets and just sit reading with your family, with nothing but candlelight to illuminate the books and keep the seamless darkness of the outside world at bay.

Today's Photograph: Puffy clouds in the skies over Fredericton, after the storm has passed.

Tags: hurricane Irene, earthquake, Fredericton, New Brunswick

I am currently faced with the interesting challenge of drafting a promotion plan for a novel I wish to submit to a publisher for consideration. I have promoted many things in my life (both professional and personal) but this is a new challenge. How do you convince people (and, preferably, a lot of people) to purchase a print version of your novel?

I've convinced people to take courses, to attend workshops, to rethink their approach to problem solving, to consider a new career. But that's different, I think, from convincing them to shell out their dollars to buy my book.

I mean, I think my book is pretty good. I think it's well written and interesting; it has a strong plot and compelling characters; it will surprise you and hold you in suspense. But that's easy for me to say: how do I convince you to choose my book as your next source of entertainment and diversion?

The question came into even sharper focus recently when my elder sister found herself wandering around an outlet of one of the massive bookstore chains, looking in vain for help in finding the book she wanted to purchase. During her fruitless search, she came across a table set up in a small clearing among the shelves at which sat a pretty despondent and lonely looking person with a stack of books in front of her. This was an author, a Canadian author who obviously figured that setting up a table in Chapters would be a good way to sell some books.

And, apparently, after working very hard to convince the manager of the local store to allow her to do this, she had discovered to her immense sadness that she had been wrong: this was not a good way to sell some books. It was really just a good way to throw away four hours of your life that you'll never get a chance to live over again.

So my sister took pity and actually bought the book. My sister, by the way, is like that. She'll buy a book from a lonely author, give money to a freezing street person, tip a university student waiting tables at an East Side Marios a hundred bucks on a twenty-dollar lunch just because she knows what that tired but still friendly kid is going through.

And then she read the book. And she passed the book on to my other sister for her to read (which, of course, somewhat undermines the nice gesture of buying the book since she should have convinced my other sister to buy a copy of her own. But why pick nits?).

And my other sister Skyped me and said: "Hey, I just read this novel. It was published by this publishing house in Toronto and I kept thinking, as I read it, this publishing house should publish Mark's book. This one's really good but Mark's is even better. And they're somewhat similar so clearly this publisher would consider Mark's book."

My sister's idea is a really good one. I have reviewed this publisher's book list and my work would fit right in. So I'm going to submit it. But they require a promotion plan as part of that application so I have to think of ways to promote the book and convince people to buy it.

And I think we've already established that setting up a tale in a bookstore somewhere is really not an efficient way to sell your novel. Unless you think selling one book every four hours to a kindly sympathetic shopper who only found you because she couldn't find a salesperson to be efficient.

Which leads to a question: when you buy a novel, how do you decide which one to buy? And another question: the last time you purchased a novel by a writer you had never heard of, what convinced you to buy it?

Please send your ideas to me at mark.walma@gmail.com. I'd very much appreciate the help. I've already got some ideas of my own that I think are pretty good but I'd still appreciate your blockbuster thoughts as well.

Today's Photograph: The skyline (if you can call that a skyline) of downtown Fredericton (if you can call... whatever) taken from the north shore of the mighty St. John River at water level. Now that's a river!

Tags: Writing, Novel, Publishing, Mystery, chapters book store, skype

So I'm sitting at my desk, working on the computer, and all of a sudden the screen in front of me starts swaying from side to side. I feel a bit woozy and think: am I sick?

Then I hear my colleague in the office next door say, "I think I'm feeling a little sick."

"Is your computer screen swaying?" I ask.

"Yeah. It is."

"Then you're not sick. It's an earthquake."

I stand up and look around. All kinds of other faces are popping out of offices all over the floor. "Did you feel that?" "Are you feeling sick too?" "What was that swaying?" "Did someone say 'Earthquake'?"

We all stand looking at each other for a second, kind of stunned, then someone points out that things were still swaying.

"I'm not good with these things," says my colleague. "I kind of freak out."

And then she does, in a very mild way. So we all agree we should make our way down to the ground floor and out of the swaying building. Some of us, not thinking clearly, take the elevator. We get to the lobby and out onto King Street in downtown Fredericton and find all the other buildings in the area are also quickly emptying themselves of people.

Sirens bring fire trucks to the NB Power building across the street. Then the media start to show up, cameras on shoulders, microphones in hands. Someone with a faster Blackberry than mine does a quick scan of the internet and announces that a strong earthquake had hit a short while before near Washington, D.C. We must be feeling the distant rumblings here.

I was right. It was my first earthquake. Surprisingly scary.

Tags: Fredericton, New Brunswick, earthquake, King Street, Downtown, Washington

I'm wondering if maybe New Brunswick is wearing off on me a little. When I first arrived here, I was amazed at the level of patriotism that most of the locals feel, the way they celebrate Canada Day, follow Canadian sports, get involved in everything and anything Canadian. That's not something I'm used to in Southern Ontario, where cynicism has replaced patriotism almost across the board.

Sure, I've always been a bit of a "Rah Rah Canada" kind of guy, rooting for our hockey teams, our Olympic athletes, our peace keepers overseas. I've read up on my Canadian history and I have a pretty good handle on Canadian geography. I vote in elections and follow the results pretty closely. I even like to watch Canadian TV shows, like The Mercer Report, 22 MInutes, Corner Gas and stuff like that.

But the level of patriotism the people feel here in the Maritimes took me by surprise.
So there I am today, at the Fredericton Fairgrounds, watching the RCMP's Musical Ride and I suddenly start feeling, well... patriotic. Proud to be from the land of the Maple Leaf. I don't know what it was about the precision prancing of those magnificent horses and their red-clad riders but I found myself with a distinctly Canadian positivity.

Amazingly enough, a local citizenship judge was the guest of honour for the performance and, when he took over the microphone and told us all (and there were a lot of us there) that we were going to renew our citizenship pledge together, and in both official languages, I surprised myself by feeling deeply moved.

And, of course, thanks to my recent French Immersion course, I was able to complete both versions with no problems. Now, keeping up with the operatic performance of "Oh Canada" that followed.... well, that's another story.

Tags: RCMP, Musical Ride, Fredericton, Patriotism, New Brunswick, citizenship, Canada

Bonjour.

I'm beat. Studying another language for eight hours a day is exhausting. You never get a second's rest when you have to focus on every word, every syllable. And what's with all these verb tenses? I'll tell you one thing, it's not just the verbs that are tense anymore...

Still, it's coming along well. If I had a fuller vocabulary, I think I could be a pretty good French speaker. And building a vocabulary is easy: just listen to others when they speak, listen to French music, read French books and watch your favourite TV shows and movies in French. That's one of the nice things about living in Canada: most DVDs come with French subtitles (and you can sometimes purchase copies of movies where the actors actually speak French!).

The other students in my class have much bigger vocabularies than I do. And some of them even know a lot of French sayings and French slang. Nothing makes you sound more like a strong French speaker than when you sprinkle your conversation with lingo.

You might have noticed that I've added a photograph to this blog. It has nothing to do with the text. I just thought it would be nice to spice up my writer's blog with the odd photograph from my other blog (Fredericton 365). Good idea, eh? This is a shot of the main street of North Head on the island of Grand Manan at night. I really like this shot. For more like it, head for that blog. If I can figure out how to link it to this, I will. Otherwise, the link is located on the mainpage of this website. Yep, it worked!

Tags: French, immersion, Athene, Photography, Fredericton, Grand Manan, North head

I'm lucky enough that my work has decided to send me for French language training this week. I studied French from grade 7 all the way through high school and into University but it's been now about 25 years since I've taken any kind of class in it.

Wow, is it ever great. I'm glad to report that a lot of what I learned from my professors and teachers so long ago has managed to find some way to stick with me. I'm not the best in my class (not by far) but I'm also not the absolute worst.

It's a good group and the instruction is really good as well. They offer a nice combination of grammar lessons, conversation practice and games. I'm finding that I'm pretty strong in the grammar work but not so strong in the area of vocabulary. And when I get tired at the end of the day, I really start to lose all the words I learned at one point or another in my life.

And that's the biggest thing about this immersion training. It's exhausting. You have to focus and concentrate every moment of the day to keep up and that's not something that any of us are really used to in life. I get home at the end of the day and I feel like I've run a marathon.

Still, I think it's working. I'm finding that I'm thinking a little bit more in French and able to string sentences together with greater confidence. Am I bilingual? Of course not. But I'm doing okay. Well, not okay enough to try to write this blog in French but, still, not too bad.

Tags: Fredericton, French, immersion, grammar, Athene

We've become Tina Fey fans of late.

First it was her dead-on Sarah Palin imitation on SNL. Next, it was an article on having a second child that Fey wrote in The New Yorker. Then came Date Night, a clever, very funny movie that surprised us. Then, Patti was given BossyPants for her birthday. I haven't been allowed to read it yet (Patti's still laughing her way through it) but I'm looking forward to it. And now we've picked up the first season of 30 Rock, the sit com that is all Tina Fey. She writes it, produces it and plays the lead role, Liz Lemon.

And we're loving it. We've watched the first eight episodes in a matter of just three days. That's a consumption rate that far outstrips The Big Bang Theory and we love that show.

Fey's Liz Lemon is a classic character and her relationship with her new boss (played by Alec Baldwin) is just great. The writing is strong and Fey manages to pull all the disparate characters together into a cohesive unit.

There's something really endearing about Fey and the character she plays on this show. Fey is a very successful entertainer yet seems to be able to maintain her balance, her sense of self and of perspective. In spite of her success, she comes across as being amazingly well grounded and thoughtful, a moral, honest person with little ego and a real sense of her responsibilities to others.

And I am impressed with the way 30 Rock as a whole approaches comedy. It's hip and strange and willing to take chances. The actors all seem willing to risk looking stupid or undignified, in order to make the comedy work. And it's clever too. There's a bit about product placement in an early episode that just killed us.

One of the strongest points of the show, however, is its willingness to give a joke the time it needs to be really funny. Where other sit coms would have already moved on to the next punch line, 30 Rock rides the last one, plays it over again, stretches the moment, usually with hilarious results. In that same episode, for example, they let one of Baldwin's bits go on for several minutes and, by the end, you're choking with laughter.

I don't hear a lot of buzz about this show, not like the buzz Modern Family or Big Bang Theory have received, but so far we're really impressed with 30 Rock and its creator, writer, producer and star, Tina Fey.

Tags: Liz Lemon, 30 Rock, Tina Fey, BossyPants, Sarah Palin, Studio 60, Date Night, Big Bang Theory, Alec Baldwin

There is something transcendentally peaceful about sitting at the base of a light house, with night closing in, listening to the soft breathing and gentle rolling of whales in the water below.

Patti, Marlee and I recently took a short vacation on the island of Grand Manan, a section of New Brunswick that lies in the Bay of Fundy, just off shore where the province meets the state of Maine. We enjoyed many of the pleasures of Grand Manan but none so lovely and so peaceful as that evening at the foot of the Swallow Tail Light House, communing with the darkness, the sea and the whales.

We arrived just as the sun was setting and stayed long enough to enjoy the fullness of the darkness, with only a crescent moon (behind the light house) to provide us with light. We sat on a bench, located about 10 feet from the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Bay of Fundy. The water and the whales swished below us.

For a while, there was another couple, standing on a outcropping nearby, as silent as we were, enjoying the sea breeze, the whisper of the water and the occasional soft phhffting sound of a whale blowing, followed always by the rippling of water as the great mammal rolled gently back under water. I know that sounds over water can be deceptive but, sitting there with our eyes wide and our ears straining, we could have sworn the whales swam directly below us.

We had to endure the interference of the last mainland-bound ferry of the night as well as the inbound passing of a brightly-lit party boat, the air rent by the pounding music and the screaming partyers, but it was well worth the wait. By the time the last boat cleared, it was full dark and a pod of whales whispered by.

In that darkness, we never saw the whales but, for twenty minutes or more, the only sounds we heard were the ticking of the light house as it turned, the sudden whoosh of a whale's breath and the rolling sound of its return to the depths. Absolute heaven.

Tags: Bay of Fundy, Grand Manan, Swallow Tail Light House, whales, mammals