Survival by Lists

With my departure date just a week away, it seems my days are governed by lists. Not only my own lists, but also those sent to me via email by my good friend Jane, who will be driving one or the other of the two vehicles down in Nevada. Jane's lists seem so much more interesting than mine - they include items like a "Swiss Army knife with the full array of dental and surgical tools. That rib-spreader may save our lives." Yikes.

I should talk. "Investigate snake-bite kit" is one of the items on my list. Though it is somewhat reassuring to know that only a very small percentage of snakebites in North America are actually fatal, there are a couple of times when we will be waaaaaay out in the middle of nowhere. Survival, it seems, depends on getting to a hospital with anti-venom within two or three hours... If our vehicles break down, or one of our drivers is bitten while I'm somewhere out on the trail, or I am bitten after falling off the horse onto a pile of snake-sheltering sagebrush and have to ride two hours to find the drivers... Well, "Investigate snake-bite kit" remains on the list. Here on Vancouver Island, we have little need for such items in our first aid kits, so this particular task will remain on my To Do list until we hit the Nevada state line.

Ok - I haven't forgotten about the old blog... really. But, wow - another action-packed month- working on the first round of rewrites for The Battle for Carnillo, working like mad on organizing the Great Pony Express Adventure in Nevada this September (including setting up a cool literacy/fund-raising initiative where sponsors can purchase books that I'll give out to students in Nevada and British Columbia), and, of all things, helping my extremely talented father (E.Colin Williams) re-touch a mural he painted in Chemainus fifteen years ago. Now that was a cool project - visual artists see the world quite differently to anyone else... And, yes, it really is hard to keep your perspective when you are working a few inches away from a wall that is fifty feet long.

The Young Authors Conference in Kamloops was the next stop. This is the 25th year the conference has been held in Kamloops and the turnout was terrific. After that it was on to Vancouver to sign a few books at Vancouver KidsBooks - a wonderful bookstore nominated for this year's Specialty Bookstore of the Year by the Canadian Booksellers Association. Lots of local events took me through the end of May and then Julie Lawson and I tried to drive to Maple Ridge to the first ever Maple Ridge Young Authors Conference hosted by Meadow Ridge School. I say 'tried' because Julie and I drove over more bridges than I thought existed in Vancouver after we found ourselves hopelessly lost... We did eventually arrive and were most impressed with Don Philpot's organizational efforts. The day was quite marvelous (long, and busy!!) and all the attending authors, both young and not-so-young, left greatly inspired.

Sorry, btw, about the somewhat backwards order of things... my blog keeps exploding when I try to type in too long a chunk of text at one time so the events are slightly out of order... Ack. technology.

Unbelievable - it's the end of June! What the heck happened there? As it turns out, lots. The biggest accomplishment was getting through the first draft of The Battle for Carnillo,accidentally referred to as The Dark Tower of Carnillo in an earlier post. This probably happened because I would have been writing one of the scenes that takes place in the nasty prison tower. If you'd like to see the real city on which Carnillo is based, visit Aigues Mortes in the south of France. The Tour de Constance is now a museum, but the interior of this great, hulking building is still sufficiently depressing to inspire a scene or two of misery in the new book. And, speaking of scenes of misery - tomorrow morning I meet with Freda, my editor, to go over changes to the manuscript. I speak in jest - really, rewrites are lots of fun. Really.

Since I last posted I've put a few more miles on this old body - to Parksville to watch Dani play in a soccer tournament, to Nanaimo to talk to kids who attend the North Island Distance Education School, Courtenay to visit with kids and pick up Pony Express letters (photos of the inside of the whale at Miracle Beach Elementary School over on the stablemates.net website), all around Victoria's lovely James Bay for the Times Colonist 10K (a group of children's writers from the area formed a group called Write on Track - again, check the stablemates website for a few pix), Vancouver a couple of times (including to attend the CWILL-BC group launch at the Greater Vancouver Public Library - what an event - it's a great chance to meet all your favourite BC authors! Don't miss it next year if you are anywhere near Vancouver...) And, let's see - oh, yes - an amazing visit to Strathcona School in Chilliwack. Every inch of the school walls was decorated with posters and drawings. One of the teachers had brought in all sorts of horse gear and the kids had made a huge map of Kenwood - very handy as I was able to show how my real life neighbourhood compares to the fictional Kenwood in the StableMates books.

Well, the last several weeks have been a bit of a blur. Keeping Secrets at Dark Creek was the first of the two spring books to come out just after I'd returned from the Salt Spring Island Family Arts Festival (held over Spring Break). Dani and I had a great time even though it SNOWED!!!! I was kept busy all day - teaching a workshop to some very talented kids in the morning, doing a signing/reading at Fables Cottage bookstore in the afternoon, and then doing a performance of one of the King Arthur stories in the evening. It kept snowing for several days, in fact, which made attending provincial soccer team tryouts in Vancouver rather exciting. All the fields were closed so poor Dani had to be at the indoor pitch at 5:30am for her first session. Yikes! Not a happy place to be for a bunch of 15 year-old girls!

While waiting for Jo's Triumph to arrive, compiled packages for four hundred school kids in BC and Nevada (the original Pony Express Pen Pals Project grew in leaps and bounds from my original modest idea!), prepared press releases, and designed a whole new section over at the stablemates.net website.

In the middle of all that (imagine several weeks with piles of envelopes, carefully counted stacks of onionskin paper topped by the official Pony Express 2002 logo, publicity photographs, bookmarks, posters, etc., etc. spread all over my living room and dining room) kept working on The Dark Tower of Carnillo. Perhaps optimistically, I'm hoping to get the first draft done by the end of May. Hmmmm.... Also wrote articles for the new edition of The Canadian Writer's Handbook (about writing series fiction for young readers), the Island Parent Magazine Family Summer Guide, and my regular column... Travelled up to Nanaimo to speak with a couple of groups of kids who complete their studies by correspondence, as well as a really fun trip up to Campbell River to speak with students at several schools.

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Courtenay to visit with students (and to pick up the first batch of student letters bound for Nevada in September!).

After a number of delays, Jo's Triumph arrived this week - great excitement to see the new book! It was here just in time for the signing on the weekend at Cadboro Bay Books on Saturday. As usual, Burdina did a wonderful job of providing snacks, coffee, and even some customers - all required ingredients for a good signing.

The third StableMates book from Sweden arrived - it looks pretty cool. The covers are very different from the Canadian edition - the Swedish publisher has used photos instead of artwork. I have no idea which characters are supposed to be represented by the models they've used - one of them looks far too old for the stories...

That's it for now -
Cheers,
Nikki

Sigh. The down side to making all those long lists is that sooner or later you have to start checking things off! That's basically what I've been doing over the past month - non-stop list-attacking. One of the projects was to redo my website to better organize what was there and to add things like online versions of teacher guides. Check out the new web look here.

Also in the works, final peeks at both Jo's Triumph and Keeping Secrets at Dark Creek. Both books should be out next month - pretty exciting. The biggest excitement of all, though, has to be the progress being made on the Nevada launch of Jo's Triumph.

In September, 2002, I'll be off to Nevada to ride ten sections of the Pony Express Trail between Schell Creek and Carson City. We're hoping to launch the book in the US in conjunction with the Great Basin Book Far in Reno on September 21 (details yet to be finalized). After that, there are plans in the works to have me visit bookstores and talk with school kids in various communities between Sacramento and Los Angeles. We are also matching five BC grade five classes with five Nevada fifth grade classes for the Pony Express Pen Pals Project. I'll pick up the letters from the kids here and then drop them off (on horseback) to the kids in Nevada. I'll post more details on my website as they become available.

Last week had a fantastic trip to Vancouver to visit with students at Mulgrave School in West Vancouver. I've put a couple of photos up over at the MSN site.

Quick update before I head into town for a bookstore shift (at the end of the month I'll be dropping back to just one evening a week which should make scheduling the rest of my life just a wee bit easier).

This morning, lots of work on the student activity packages. I've finished those for Cave of Departure and the StableMates novel. All that remains is to type up the activity suggestions for No Cafes in Narnia and print them all (with matching crossword puzzles) on decent quality paper (note to self: need to pick up a new laser printer cartridge - I'm fading). At some point I'll also upload web versions so people can just log onto the websites and download the files. Speaking of web versions, the North Island Distance Education folks have created a wonderful on-line Novel Study to go along with Tarragon Island (I've had a sneak preview!). As soon as the website is posted live, I will post the link so teachers have access to this material. Thanks to Nancy Bowmer for her excellent work on this project!

Also in progress today - a massive file transfer from California. All those holiday pix are trickling over the Internet - estimated time remaining a mere 8 hours, 57 minutes, and 12 seconds. 11 seconds...

When I get too durned busy, I make lists to cope. Spent a bit of time this morning doing just that - creating a series of lists relating to getting the Pony Express trip organized. Yoiks. Sometimes I wonder what on earth I was thinking when I dreamed up that idea!

Oh, and one more thing. If you are interested in signing up for a Fiction Writing course online, check out the course information here. The course is scheduled to run during the month of April, 2002. Come join us - this should be lots of fun.
TTFN!

Happy (belated) New Year!
Going on holidays is terribly disruptive when it comes to keeping up with such tasks as journal-keeping. First of all, in the two weeks leading up to my departure I had about eight million things to do - yet another revision of Jo's Triumph (we now have a release date of March!), writing various columns and newsletters for both the December and January deadlines, confirming several school presentations for Jan, Feb, and March, and then mundane things like Christmas shopping and packing.

After all that, Dani and I had a quite fabulous three weeks away in California and then Orlando! Boy, that sunshine is sure nice after way too much rain here on soggy Vancouver Island!

Of course, since arriving home on Sunday I've been working flat out trying to catch up with all sorts of projects and deadlines that stacked up while I was away (including, yes, yet another revision of Jo's Triumph - will that book ever go away?) One of the more enjoyable tasks was chatting with the tourism folks in Nevada as I start plotting how I might ride sections of the Pony Express route to celebrate the US launch this fall. Also lots of fun has been putting together some new student/teacher packages to go along with various novels - have a look at the new crossword puzzles posted here if you enjoy word games. Though I have a Java-script version working beautifully on my machine (where you can enter answers right on the screen), I can only seem to get a printable version going on-line. Hmph. Time doesn't permit additional fiddling, alas, so for now would-be puzzlers will have to print and use pencils - just like the olden days.

Let's see now - in other news - working hard to get my online writing courses through Malaspina College going (Freelance Writing in May and Writing Fiction in April), preparing for a trip to Vancouver to meet with Nevada tourism folks to make a formal pitch about why it would be so cool for me to ride horses across the high mountain valleys in the area once known as Utah Territory, and polishing several picture book manuscripts.

High on my list of priorities is getting some serious work done on The Battle for Carnillo - the second of the Estorian Chronicles.

Alas, all my holiday pix are still on a hard drive in California but as soon as my brother sends them to me I'll post a few so you can see what I was up to down in the sunny south!
By for now -
Cheers,
Nikki

Despite several efforts at retyping yesterday, I was unable to complete the entry due to some BLOGGER glitch and now, of course, have forgotten whatever it was I wanted to say. Eventually I gave up on the computer and completed revisions to Keeping Secrets at Dark Creek (on the hard copy). I then typed all the changes into the electronic draft and e-mailed to Sono Nis.

I must say this has been a very good week for good news. The Norwegian publisher that has brought out the first two StableMates titles in Swedish has signed a contract for StableMates #3 and #4. We are also supposed to hear early in the new year whether or not the German rights have actually sold for the series. I've received word that I can write the next Estorian Chronicles book (The Battle for Carnillo) next. I'll start that in January. Sono Nis also tells me they will be reprinting StableMates #2 right away and #3 and #4 as well as Tarragon Island quite quickly thereafter. Sales continue to be strong during the pre-Christmas period, which is wonderful.

The cover art is in for Jo's Triumph and it looks very cool. Jo's Triumph is a little different to my other novels as the illustrator (Stephen McCallum) will also be doing some interior drawings for the book.

Well, how did this happen? I've been back nearly two weeks and haven't posted once! That's pretty pathetic, actually. However, I have many excuses, most of them writing-related...

The minute I landed here I whipped out the Pony Express manuscript (now officially known as Jo's Triumph). For five straight days I wrote and rewrote and rewrote, working in all the new material I've gathered about Sarah Winnemucca, slashing a couple of chapters to make room for it all. Once I'd rewritten the story, I was about two thousand words over my 22,000 absolute outside word limit so I started trimming... Only managed to whittle it down by about 800 words and decided to let Maggie have a look at it. I was a bit worried that the manuscript would read as if two different stories had been patched together: that of Jo's with that of Winnemucca's. On Thursday of last week received the notes back on StableMates #7 from Sono Nis Press and on Friday, e-mailed the Jo's Triumph manuscript back to Orca Books.

Meanwhile, began another round of e-mails to try and sort out the dates for a short tour in March of 2002. At this point the schedule looks like this:
March 4: Courtney - 2 schools
Marrch 5, 6: Campell River - 4 schools
March 7 - North Vancouver - 1 school
March 8 - Nanaimo - 2 sessions with North Island Distance Education students

Also in the works, preliminary planning for a promotional horseback ride through Nevada next September to promote the US launch of Jo's Triumph. More on this as plans progress.

Began work on the StableMates #7 rewrite on Monday and attended the grand opening of the renovated and expanded Bolen Books here in Victoria.

Oh, rats... just clicked the wrong button and deleted about another page of notes instead of saving it! Argh. Now I have to try and remember all that stuff again!

Also on Monday, Dani (14) and I did a presentation to Grade 7 students at Glenlyon-Norfolk School. Last year Dani wrote her first novel (Love Always, Ophelia C.) and we talked about the differences and similiarities between our two writing processes. Dani was also one of the student readers at Thursday Night Live, a reading series hosted by the Glenlyon-Norfolk Senior School. Featured readers were Patricia and Terrence Young and their daughter.

Checking in from Guelph!
I do like these public Internet terminals... they make it so much easier to keep in touch while on the road. And, I must say that this week I have certainly been on the road - on the trains - on the busses - in cabs- in vehicles owned by various kind librarians and teachers... I have been zipping back and forth across southern Ontario visiting with some terrific groups of kids... Today spent the whole day at Kortright Hills School and spoke to about 300 kids in two sessions (grades 3-7 plus a handful of particularly brilliant grade 8 students who are interested in writing). Fantastic questions and really enthusiastic students and teachers made my job lots of fun. I was even presented with a poster featuring photographs of my morning talk before we left the school to have lunch! How amazing is that? Not only that, those same photos will be emailed to me so I can put them up on the website! How efficient is that???? (check the MSN site in the next few days - I'll try to get photos, etc. uploaded ASAP).

The place where I'm writing is called the Bookshelf in Guelph... This is one of my favourite bookstores in the whole country (I lived in Guelph many years ago and I used to come here all the time). The store is bigger and better than ever with a wonderful cafe, a cinema, and, of course, a couple of Internet terminals. How great to see an independent bookstore doing well, expanding... This is a very good thing!

Well, though Guelph is just as cute as I remember it to be, it is pouring with rain here. I have stored my luggage in the hotel lobby and must scoot off now to retrieve it, grab a bite to eat, and then catch a bus back to Union Station in Toronto. Hope to post a few more details of what I've been up to all week when I have a little more time.

Logging in from Toronto!
Spent a rather hectic day today at the Royal Winter Fair (check out the photos I've posted over on the MSN site). The folks at the Country Quill Bookstore graciously hosted a signing and I enjoyed having a chance to meet some readers from this part of the country.

After I was finished at the bookstore, off I went to explore. There were plenty of interesting critters to be seen- both human and animal. I was able to get a bit of good spying done as I watched the 4-H kids (from clubs across the country) primping and preening their animals in readiness for the show ring. They even put hoof polish on the cows! I've never seen such a glorious herd of bovines in my life. They looked absolutely gorgeous.

The kids who do vaulting (gymnastics on horseback) were extremely cool. At times there were two kids on the horse at once - one doing a headstand while the other rode backwards. The horse was quite amazing - steady, steady, steady - despite the fact six different kids kept leaping on and off his back, hanging upsidedown off his side, sliding off his rump... Did he care? Nope. I wonder... would Jessa like to take up vaulting? Maybe that would be more of a Cheryl thing.

Also interesting was a display of sidesaddle technique - complete with a rider in a long, flowing dress.

Last week Dani and I heard terrible news that Karen Brain (an excellent Canadian event rider, our former riding coach, and the person to whom Jessa Be Nimble is dedicated) had a bad accident last month during a training ride. She is in a hospital in London, Ontario recovering from her back injury. As instructed by Dani, I picked up a soft, cuddly stuffed horse (who looks a bit like Merlin, a horse Karen used to ride) at the RWF. I'll be in London tomorrow and Tuesday and I hope to be able to have a quick visit with Karen to say hi and see how she is doing.

Working on the road
Despite the fact I'm travelling, my deadlines don't go away. I am nearly finished one of my library books about the Pyramid Lake War of 1860 and have been making all sorts of notes about how I might incorporate the Winnemucca storyline into the existing book about Jo and the Pony Express.

That's all for now! Will try to post again providing I can get access to a computer!

Okay - I am quite used to being busy - but this is getting a bit silly! Since I last posted (and though it is only a few days ago, I have to say it feels like years and years have passed since I last made a few notes here...) I have completed a full set of revisions on the StableMates 7 manuscript. In this book, a new boy (Andrew) comes to Kenwood Middle School (Jessa, too, is now in Grade 7), Jessa continues to have problems adjusting to riding Jasmine, and she and Cheryl discover an antique pocket watch under an old shed near the Dark Creek Railway Trail.

As I did with the revisions to the Pony Express manuscript, I'll note a couple of examples of changes made to the StableMates book...

Editor Freda said: Jessa's reaction to hearing about Andrew's secret isn't strong enough (I just typed out his secret and then had to delete all that just in case you might someday like to read the book - Andrew's secret is, after all, one of the main storylines in the book). Suffice it to say that Andrew's secret is a bit shocking and Jessa (in the first draft) didn't get quite excited enough about what she hears.

Nikki's Solution: Added about half a page of dialogue which, I hope, will make Jessa sound more horrified than before. Also added a bit more of a physical reaction to support her words.

Editor Freda said: Molly needs to be more fully developed. Currently wimpy.

Nikki's Solution: I added a big confrontation between Molly and Jessa (in case you haven't read Book 6, Molly is the young rider who has been riding Rebel. Jessa can't stand her, especially since Jessa has been having such a tough time on Jasmine). The new scene is about three or four pages long and... Hmmm, I guess I shouldn't say what happens there, either, as it is sort of central to the plot, too - I can say that Jessa got so upset while I was writing this scene that I started crying as I wrote it! That girl is really getting to be quite troublesome!

Editor Freda had a couple of pages of notes and comments. I hope I have addressed them all to her satisfaction. I dropped off the revised draft last night. The timing was excellent because today I was able to pick up the Sarah Winnemucca biography (as well as another book about the Paiute War of 1859-60) from the library AND the book I ordered from the USA arrived in the mail today. Amazingly, Sarah Winnemucca was in Carson City at exactly the same time that my character, Jo was locked up in the Carson City Home for Unfortunate Children. Not only that, but when I thought they might meet again the following October, Sarah Winnemucca is in the hills not far at all from where Jo gets lost! So, I should be able to find a way to have them meet not once, but twice!!!! It feels like Sarah just wants to be in this book.

An aside: In case you are wondering, I do all of my revisions in longhand on the most recent draft. All new scenes I write out by hand. Then, I go back through the manuscript and type in all the changes, print off the new draft, read through it to check for errors, and then correct those (first on paper and then on the computer). This process is very hard on trees but I can't seem to work very well directly onto a computer screen. I blame this process for any awkward sentences or incoherent paragraphs I might post on this BLOG.

Other projects I've been busy with over the past few days: E-mailing teachers in Campbell River, Nanaimo, Comox, and North Vancouver to finalize dates for a week of school presentations in early March, 2002; corresponding with Malaspina College in Duncan to figure out how we might organize two on-line writing courses in the spring term (it looks like I'll be teaching two, five- week courses - the first called : Fiction Writing Workshop, and the second: Introduction to Freelance Writing; running errands and preparing my materials for air travel (I leave at the crack of dawn on Saturday for my Ontario trip); continuing to put a dent in my dreadful accumulation of emails; and, finally, doing my duty as a soccer mom - watched Dani's game and ferried her between practices, a field hockey tournament, and her team photo shoot on the weekend. Did I mention grocery shopping, laundry, and cleaning out the summer house?

One final note before I sign off - Wonderful news yesterday- Here is a copy of the BC Bestseller List for children's books for last week:

BC BESTSELLER LIST
Week of October 22, 2001

Children's Titles

1 A Pacific Alphabet (Whitecap Books)
2 Tarragon Island (Sono Nis Press)
3 No Cafes in Narnia (Sono Nis Press)
4 Rebel of Dark Creek (Sono Nis Press)
5 Cat's Eye Corner (Raincoast Books)

This is very cool! Thank you so much all you readers out there! You all made my day! My week! My month!

Since finding my feet back here in Victoria, have been hard at work revising the Pony Express novel for Orca. We are contemplating a title change as 'Jo's Triumph at Ruby Lake' was only ever meant to be a working title. Alas, Jo doesn't actually triumph anywhere near Ruby Lake, so this must change. Some ideas include:
Rider Last
Orphans Preferred
Jo's Triumph
Horse Before Rider
... and, with any luck, some brilliant suggestions by my editor, Maggie.

Most of the revisions to the manuscript posed few problems. Here are a couple of examples...

Maggie suggested Jo (a girl who, in 1860, disguises herself as a boy in order to be able to get a job as a Pony Express rider....) seems a bit blase about riding (she has spent some time in an orphanage and the riding is supposed to be a pretty exciting experience for her...)
Nikki fixed this by adding some more bonding moments between horse and rider on the ground and more communication between rider and mount during the riding scenes when Jo is thundering across the barren landscape of Utah Territory...

Maggie noted that the motivation of the bad guy, James, is a little unclear during the final scene (can't tell you what happens or it will spoil the ending).

Nikki fixed this by adding a bit more dialogue between James and Jo and changing the way James barges into the cabin where she and the militia are waiting for him.

Maggie does not like the use of italics throughout the text to indicate Jo's innermost thoughts.
An easy fix for Nikki who just changed everything back to regular old Times Roman.

...and so on...

A more difficult problem to address was Maggie's concern that the Paiute Indians are portrayed negatively in the story. This is true. Jo (and just about everyone else) are either terrified of or quite hateful to the Indians of the area. This may be historically accurate (there were some pretty horrendous battles fought in 1860 resulting in casualties on both sides) but is not politically correct today. So, off I went to search for some plausible (more positive) encounter Jo might actually have enjoyed with some member of the Paiute nation. Lo and behold I discovered a wonderful character, Sarah Winnemucca, a terrific advocate for her people who might have been active during the period when Jo is riding around in the wilds of Utah Territory.
I've ordered her authobiography (from a rare book dealer in Idaho...) and tracked down a biography here in our public library system. Maggie (somewhat alarmed at this development) has given me an extra three weeks to revise the manuscript. My hope is that I'll be able to orchestrate a believable encounter between Jo and Sarah. Failing this.... well, I'll come up with a plan B if I have to.

Meanwhile, the length of the book is getting to be a problem. The Orca Young Readers Series includes books from 12,500 - 15,000 words. Though some are a bit longer (up to about 22,000 words), Jo's Triumph is already at 21,000 and is likely to grow with the addition of this new sub-plot. On this point, Maggie was adamant I was not to stretch the book much longer. Therefore, for each word I add about Sarah Winnemucca, I'll have to delete something from elsewhere in the manuscript. This should be lots of fun!

While I wait for my reference books to arrive, I am working on the revisions to StableMates 7 (more on this another time). Apparently Pat Cupples has started work on the cover design.

In other news.... did an hour-long interview on CFUV last night with three other children's authors: Margaret Thompson (EYEWITNESS, and a story in the anthology, BEGINNINGS: STORIES OF CANADA'S PAST, Sylvia Olsen (NO TIME TO SAY GOOD-BYE, and Maggi de Vries (CHANCE AND THE BUTTERFLY. And, yes, by coincidence, this is the same Maggie who is my editor at Orca). Airing today on Richardson's Roundup - a segment taped last week at the Vancouver International Writers Festival with Loris Lesynski. Also visited grade six and seven students at Hampton School yesterday. Thanks to Ann Warren for organizing things! Made posters to send to the Country Quill store in Ontario. They are hosting a book signing at the Royal Winter Fair on November 4th....

Ok - I'd better stop now - those StableMates 7 revisions are not doing themselves!

Though I was back in Victoria for a couple of days, my computer was kaput and my relatives from California were in town. Not only that, but I had to finish up all those articles I've been groaning about (did get them finished, finally!). Started work on the revisions for the Pony Express book, ran about a thousand errands, and hopped on an early ferry to Vancouver on Wednesday the 17th, headed for the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival.

I had soooooo much fun - though I was pretty worn out by the time I had survived three days of intense literary activity! I'll post more on this in the next few days - As you can imagine, I'm behind on nearly everything - e-mail, snail mail, revisions (oh, yes - received an e-mail from Freda, my editor on StableMates 7, with her list of comments about the first draft.... More on that, too, as I begin to work on that again...), and, ummm... laundry.

Oh, how annoying is it when the computer crashes???????? And burns???? And dies????? I have been terribly grumpy for nearly two weeks - struggling along without my virtual right arm. And, of course, it just figures that the past couple of weeks have been reeeeeeaaaaaalllly busy so now I'm waaaaaaaay behind with my posting here. Grumble, grumble, grumble...

On October 10 I scooted up to Campbell River so I could visit with students at Penfield Elementary School. What a wonderful reception! I've posted a few photos over at the MSN site, if you're curious about a what one might see in Campbell River... (scroll down until you get to the Campbell River album...) Penfield Elementary is one of those fantastic schools where everyone seems to love books and reading. The teacher-librarian there (John Woolley) was extremely welcoming, well-organized, and helpful and the kids were well-prepared with great questions.

Wow - a very busy week. Frantically trying to finish all those Island Parent review books (reading, reading, reading) and write all those Island Parent articles (writing, writing, writing)... The absolute final, my-kneecaps-will-be-broken-if-I-don't-deliver-deadline is on Tuesday. So, just the small problem of a turkey dinner and a soccer tournament to deal with between now and then and all should be well.

On Thursday morning chatted with grade 3's and 4's at Cloverdale Elementary School. We had a great visit - I'm looking forward to going back again next year! Thanks to Peter Crawford for organizing things with such an excellent sense of fun (note, Mr. Crawford, that I did drink every last drop of my water this year...)

Today, scooted up to Duncan for a signing at the Volume One Book Store. The event was, I suspect, somewhat underpromoted - However, I had an excellent visit with a small but very enthusiastic group of kids who had some great questions. Hanna presented me with a copy of a marvelous school report she wrote about me as well as a lovely card with a photo of a mare and foal on the front (... like the one one Jessa's poster, I wonder?). Lovina provided me with the inspiration for another very, very cool character name... Information has been filed.

Thursday and Friday nights were both Bolen shifts... great to be back in the best bookstore on the planet, now even bigger post-expansion.

Yesterday morning visited Greenglade Elementary School in Sidney where I talked to a group of grade 4 and 5 students. Yesterday was the first time I was able to read from the new book (CAVE OF DEPARTURE)... One boy asked if I ever received fan mail that told me how much my books sucked. Hmmm.... I should have asked what his name was just in case he writes me a letter! Generally, the group was very enthusiastic and kept me busy right until the end of our 90 minute session with lots of great questions. Great fun!

In the evening (after picking Dani up from soccer practice) I photographed a group of women who were taking the Beginners Course at Scrapbook Parade (one of the Island Parent articles will be about scrapbooking for families).

The manuscript, Jo's Triumph, arrived this morning in the mail along with comments from Maggie (the editor at Orca who is working on this project). I've barely had a chance to glance at her notes never mind do anything about them as I've been busily working on all the Island Parent articles that are due... well, the minute I can get them finished!

Found a few minutes today to update the MSN Nikki Tate News site with a few pics from Whistler and Pemberton. The Blackcombe Lodge in Whistler wins the prize for having the cutest fake fireplace in a hotel room.

Hmmmm... My Dad was one of the first people on the planet to get a copy of the Cave of Departure (the big shipment still hasn't arrived, just the handful of samples...). Dad is the kind of person who loves to read books with maps - in fact, he was the one who drew the map that you'll find inside the front cover of Cave. The way he reads books like this is he'll stop each time he gets to a geographical reference and then locate the spot on the map. Well, it turns out, in the first 11 pages of the book he found a place where the text and map do not match exactly. A river is mentioned in the text that is not on the map (you can draw one in... it should run through the Sumbalon Valley west to the sea near Barenta.)... Ooops!

I arrived home last night after a quick trip to Pemberton and back. On Wednesday morning I popped into Sono Nis to see if the handful of new books had arrived yet from the printers. It hadn't. I decided to wait for a few minutes and, lo and behold, the courier arrived with a box of books! "Cave of Departure" looks lovely! I was able to take a few with me on my trip to Whistler and Pemberton. I left that afternoon and drove up Vancouver Island to Nanaimo, took a ferry over to Horseshoe Bay (just north of Vancouver), and the drove up the Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler. I stayed at the Blackcomb Lodge, located right in the heart of Whistler Village. The custest part of the room was the fake electric fireplace. Armchair Books was still open and I dropped in to sign the books they had in stock and to deliver a few copies of "Cave of Departure." That means Armchair Books was the first bookstore in the world to have copies of "Cave of Departure" in stock!

First thing the next morning (Thursday) I scouted out a good breakfast place (Forks Restaurant) and then headed up to Pemberton (about a half-hour drive past Whistler).

At Pemberton Secondary I chatted with a grade 11 English class about writing and then told the story of Sir Lancelot and his troublesome underpants to the grade 8 students. After the storytelling presentation I jumped in my car and raced for the coast. Alas, highway construction and tourists who drove very, very slowly as they admired the lovely view meant I just missed the 5pm ferry back to Vancouver Island. That made for a late arrival back home last night.

Now, back to work on the articles for the Island Parent Magazine books section. Also on the agenda for today, catching up with all my email!