If you're reading this on the day it came out, I should be in Rome today, that is, unless the vessel on which I'm traveling is captained by the same guy that was driving this one. I like to think I've also been writing up a storm and I'll be able to report a great deal of success on my return. In the interim, here is the first couple of chapters, as promised, of the political thriller I began writing during my first trip to Italy ten years ago.

It's set both in Italy and in Canada and involves a terrorist plot against the Canadian prime minister. 

I'm anxious to hear your comments.

********

The sun, as it always was, was nearly unbearable.  To those who visited from the west, the lack of shade and modern air conditioning was a constant complaint.  Having grown up on the outskirts of Karachi, Farraz was accustomed to the heat but had never grown to like it.  His father had hardly seemed to notice, nothing more than the occasional wipe of his brow with that same, formerly white, finally faded brown handkerchief.  And always chastising his two sons for their constant grumblings of discomfort.  "You have a house with your own room," he would frequently remind them.  "That's far more than I ever had as a boy."  Farraz never knew how much to believe his father's descriptions of childhood hardship.  He supposed he would someday tell his own sons of the hardships he endured as a boy.

            If he lived that long.

            Farraz said a silent prayer as he crossed the busy street, seeking forgiveness for his cowardice and asking for courage to replace it.  He did not know this meeting would call for his own death.  Surely the planners would take into account his father's untimely arrest and execution and his only brother already giving his life in a previous operation.  He was the only one left to care for his mother.  There must be some rule about allowing both sons to die, like in that movie about the Second World War a few years ago.  Farraz smiled at the memory, not so much of the movie but of his father. When he had found out Farraz and his brother had long been viewers of bootlegged American movies he moped for days before his lecture to his sons of the evil ways the entertainment of the infidels would rot their minds, and that by watching those movies the boys were supporting the Americans in their quest to rid Palestine, indeed the world, of the Muslim people.  Farraz smiled because in the days leading up to their big lecture both he and his brother had sneaked out of their room to a coffee house in town, where in the back room they had enjoyed two more American movies.  Such hellians they were.  And now both his brother and father were gone.  Farraz knew that if he were asked he would sacrifice his life in the service of Allah and his people.  He knew that if he were asked his mother would be well taken care of, the wife and mother of three martyrs.  Only he hoped still he would not be asked.

            Farraz sighed as he approached the cafe and began to look for his contact.  He was a man now and Farraz knew that meant he no longer had the luxury of childish whimsy.  He had a job to do and he would see it through and make his father and his brother proud.  A man at the very front table of the cafe adjoining what passed for a sidewalk nodded his head once in Farraz's direction.  At first Farraz found it strange his contact would sit so brazenly out in the open.  Then he smiled inwardly.  The two hunkered down in the back corner would raise far more suspicion.  Here they could be two gentlemen, an uncle and nephew perhaps, passing time in the late afternoon.  So much to learn, he thought to himself.  He sat down in the empty chair across from the man who had nodded.  Neither man said anything until the cafe host placed a cup and pot in front of Farraz.  Tea.  Hot tea.  Another custom Farraz would surely never grow to enjoy.  Why could they not have a Coke?  Would Allah really mind us having a cold drink on a hot day?

            "You are early," the man said.  Farraz did not know if that was meant to be criticism, praise or a question so he said nothing.  That seemed to Farraz to be the correct response.  The man had yet to turn and face Farraz so Farraz stared straight ahead until he was given any indication he was meant to do otherwise.  How did one conduct oneself without looking suspicious, he found himself wondering.  The man took a sip of his tea before continuing.  "Do not be afraid," he finally counseled his young protegé.  "You have been selected with good reason."  Farraz could not begin to imagine what that reason could be so again he remained silent.  When Farraz finally glanced in the man's direction, a small envelope lay on the table where none had lay before.  He was about to reach for the envelope when his contact gave one barely susceptible nod.  "Later," he told Farraz.  "When I am gone."

            Farraz could contain himself no longer and finally spoke for the first time.  "What if I have questions?"

            "You will not," was the reply.  "You will be sent detailed information and resources later.  For now, these will be all you will need."

            Farraz nodded somberly and stared back out at the congested street.  He knew enough that he was being trusted to remain calm and temper his uneasiness.  He said another quick, silent prayer before responding.  "Yes," he said, "I will await further instructions."  He turned to meet the eyes of his superior and was stunned to see the man was already gone.  Looking up he saw only the back of the man's long tunic as he walked away from the cafe and blended into the throngs of people as if disappearing altogether. 

            Farraz looked around him as subtly as he could.  When he felt certain he could wait no longer he reached onto the table and delicately slid the envelope into his lap.  It was heavier than he expected, containing more than simply paper.  Farraz slid his finger beneath the seal and as surreptitiously as his still youthful inquisitiveness would permit, tore open the envelope.  To his surprise the envelope contained no message, no instructions, only two small booklets.

            Passports.

2

            Sitting up on the bed Tim ran his hand through his own dark hair.  His head hurt.  "Fuck," he thought, just this side of aloud, "what was her name?"  He glanced over his shoulder at the woman lying in bed - his bed - and the fog induced by - what were they drinking? - would not clear sufficiently to positively identify his companion, even after a deliberate shake of his head.

            He stood up unsteadily yet quietly so as not to wake his conjugal visitor until he could sort out at least some of the minutiae of the previous evening.  Already once before in his relatively brief adult life Tim had had the unpleasant experience of attempting breakfast small talk with a stranger for whom he had little recollection.  Though she hadn't called him on it, neither had she ever called him again, which was a shame: the sex, at least he remembered, had been phenomenal.

            Tim stealthily made his way out to the living room of his ridiculously opulent apartment in search of the pants he was certain he had been wearing at least until he had gotten home.  He spotted his suit pants - trés chic and expensive Armani - tossed haphazardly across the leather recliner, the one true taste of home he insisted on keeping.  At about the same time he saw her dress lying on the floor in front of the sofa and chunks of the evening began to chip away from his memory block.  Thank God, he smiled to himself.  He didn't want to have to risk rifling through her purse for i.d., which so many women nowadays seemed notoriously reticent to carry anyway.  Slipping on his pants - he'd find his underwear later - Tim padded softly into the kitchen to start coffee.  Hopefully that would rouse his temporary roommate now that he remembered the circumstances under which they had come together.  He glanced at the clock on the console of the stainless steel gas stove he almost never used.  If she awoke on her own in the next half hour or so he would have plenty of time for the requisite chit-chat and half genuine assurances of later phone calls before he got on with his day.  It's always better when he doesn't have to wake them, he remembered.  The waking and rushing always seemed way less sincere than if they got up on their own accord and had time for coffee.  Tim selected a large china mug - a gift from someone important was about as much as he could place its origin - and placed it under the still brewing drip of the coffee maker, then clumsily replaced the pot back on the burner to collect the rest.  Spillage was minimal, better than normal, and he shrugged as he returned to the living room.  Cleaning staff would be in if not today then tomorrow, a slight reduction in Tim's domestic operations budget having required a scaling back of the house cleaning to every other day.  No matter.  He lived alone and ate out most days.  How much mess could he make?  Tim sat down on the marble ledge of the deep, tall, stone window-way to sip his coffee and wait.  The window and shutters were still closed but already he could make out the early din of the insanity that was the traffic flow in his adopted city. 

            Rome.

            Considering his Italian family heritage, the city did little to inspire passion in him.  To Tim it was just big, noisy and always busy.  Not that he had some yearning for small town roots; born and raised in the York area of the now amalgamated Toronto metropolis, traffic, crime and pollution were part of Tim's upbringing.  Just here everything seemed magnified.  He sipped his coffee as it approached the lukewarm temperature at which he preferred to drink it.  He should stop feeling sorry for himself, he decided, as he did most mornings.  He lived in one of the most vibrant cities in the world, made a good salary he could keep most of since a great deal of his expenses were paid for by the good people of Canada, his own car and driver.  And sex with a lot of immensely hot women.  He smiled.  Mustn't forget that.

            "Bongiorno," came a soft voice behind him, interrupting his genuflection.

            "Good morning," Tim replied, hoping to thwart further conversation in Italian.  Hell, she was Rumanian anyway.

            Krista, clad in the shirt he had worn last night - how had it ended up in the bedroom when his pants had been out here, he wondered briefly - stepped across the cold living room floor and draped her arms around Tim's bare shoulders.  "E stato stupendo," she spoke softly into his ear.

            "Hmm," he replied, feigning interest.  He just was not a morning romantic.  "Sei la donna picé bella del mondo."  At least he was willing to try.  Krista gave him a little hug and stood up straight.  "Coffee?"

            "Don't get up," she told him, smiling and making her way to the kitchen.  He hadn't been planning to but she need not know that.  Taking yet another symbolically relevant gift mug from his cupboard, Krista poured herself coffee and returned softly to the sofa, smiling wordlessly at her host. 

            Tim couldn't help but smile back, which began to break down the walls of the funk in which he had inexplicably found himself this morning.  Last night had begun as another dull, uninspired dinner hosted by his boss, the Canadian Ambassador to Italy, for the newly appointed Romanian ambassador.  He remembered his own arrival two years earlier with his then newly appointed superior.  Half the countries of the United Nations, or so it seemed, had thrown celebratory or welcoming galas.  Any excuse for a party in diplomatic circles.  Romania's new assistant for diplomatic affairs, after numerous phone calls with Tim to sort our various protocols - mostly what everybody liked to eat and drink - now sat staring playfully at her Canadian counterpart.  If only international relations could be so easy.  Tim brushed that thought aside.  Imagining his Prime Minister engaged in the type of relations that had transpired in his apartment made him queasy.  At least he still had an empty stomach.

            "What were you thinking about?"

            "It wouldn't be decent for me to say," Tim replied.  Letting her know he had just now imagined the aging Prime Minister naked seemed counterproductive.  Krista returned his coy smile.  For a disinterested party Tim felt he was doing a bang-up job of morning after flirting.  The clock on the mantle - a welcoming present from his counterpart from Japan - chimed the hour.

            "I really should be going," Krista told him.

            "I really wish we could blow off our jobs and just stay here today," he lied.  She walked over to him and kissed him gently.  Their coffee breaths merged - hers with sugar, his with cream - as their lips joined.  It wasn't tasty. 

            "Don't tempt me," she teased then turned towards the bedroom.  She stopped long enough to recover her black dress from the floor, which she flung with cavalier grace over her shoulder as Tim watched her depart.  "But be a good boy and maybe we'll do this again."  Tim returned to staring out the window to the still unopened shutters.  If he tilted his head slightly he could just see the street below.  He kept his head straight; he would see it soon enough.

            He took the last gulp of coffee and got up towards the bedroom, leaving the drained gift mug on the windowsill.  He had a long day ahead.  It was always tedious but very involved work whenever the home government came to town.  And this time it wasn't alone: the other members of the G8 would be coming too.  And that meant hours of discussion with the G8's most powerful member.

            The Americans.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 July 2013 4:18 PM PDT

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If you’ve been following along, I’ve been documenting the process by which Deadly Lessons made it from draft to bookshelf.

When we left off last week my soon to be publishers at the now, sadly, defunct Napoleon and Company/Rendezvous Press indicated a willingness to publish the book save for reservations they had with some of the subject matter, specifically the hostile Serbian-Croatian relationships in the story. Further, they wanted to be able to have a better understanding of the motivation of one of the principal culprits in the story: how could someone do something so heinous? How could we understand that?

And waited.

And waited some more.

In fact, I waited so long that eventually, several months later, my wife, who generally tries not to intrude on what often could only charitably be referred to as my artistic process, asked me in the car one day how my rewrite was coming. In a gush of writer’s angst, I unloaded the difficulty I was having: how could I explain what’s happened? How can I let the reader know the underlying torture this character has had that could contribute to her actions?

In her matter of fact manner, my wife suggested, “Why don’t you write a prologue?” And there it was – the answer to my months of torment so casually tossed out (these English teachers have a literary answer for everything!). But it made sense for this story and gave me a means to delve deeper into the character. In essence, rather than having to undertake a major rewrite, by front loading the novel I hoped to achieve a better understanding of what would drive the character later on.

Thankfully, the publisher agreed.

It has had a curious impact on the story, particularly when I hear from readers who have not yet completed reading the book. Frequently, at book events, I would give a description of the novel’s plot, followed by a reading. But I never read from the prologue because it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to the description I’ve just given, or to a reading from early on in the novel. Thus, I’ve had people ask me what the hell was going on when they’ve read the prologue and told me that it doesn’t appear to have anything whatsoever to do with the book I had described and read from.

“Read on,” is all I can tell them. “Hopefully it will make sense by the end of the book.” And for the most part, it appears to because I get very little feedback from people who have completed the book still wondering where it fits in.

Or at the very least they’ve forgotten about it by then.

You might be thinking it’s a very quick path from there to the printing press. But in Canada, anyway, a two-year journey from acceptance to publication has been the norm and three years is not uncommon.

In fact, at one point, I misunderstood one of the drafts I was sent, doing nothing with it, thinking it was the final copy they were going with. The publisher eventually contacted me to say my slow reviewing was delaying publication into the following year.

Thus, from acceptance to book launch, Deadly Lessons was nearly four years in the making.

*********

This week we’re off to Europe again, starting in Spain and then sailing the Mediterranean on the vessel you see above. I’m hoping the European venture is going to inspire me to write my ass off, principally on making a sizable dent in W3.doc. While our Barcelona apartment and ship certainly have Internet access, I’m not confident how reliable it will be for posting weekly columns. Thus, while I’m gone, I’m going to post the first few chapters of that political thriller I began ten years ago in Italy.

Some of it is dated (I noticed that one of my main characters is just acquiring the ability to use email) but I think the story might still have some merit and it's one to which I hope to return when W3.doc is completed.

Let me know what you think and I’ll let you know how well the ‘travel-as-motivator’ program works.

Hey, Hemingway wrote in a bar….

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Wednesday, 17 July 2013 9:12 AM PDT

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Last week I shared the story of the first part of the road to publication (one of these days I'll actually write about Last Dance again). Looking back, I reiterate how fortunate I was: from the completion of the first draft to Napoleon and Company offering me a publishing agreement was really just under a year.

Though there had been just a few rejections, including one from Dundurn, the publisher of Last Dance that now actually owns Napoleon and Company (confused yet?), I had steeled myself for further rejection when my wife called me in the car to tell me a letter from a publisher had arrived. “Go ahead and open it,” I said.

“We would like to keep your manuscript on a shortlist for 2004,” the letter dated January 2, 2003 stated. It wasn’t for sure, yet, though: they told me I should continue submitting my book proposal to other publishers as they would not be able to make a firm decision for a couple of months, though they assured me they considered the book “a quality submission.”

Five days later, another letter came, describing their affection for the novel, saying “your protagonist is likeable, your use of humour is excellent, and the distinctive Vancouver setting is right in line with the manifesto of our imprint in presenting distinctly Canadian settings and characters.”

Really? You got that from what I wrote? So much for a cigar being just a cigar – apparently they were interpreting way more in the story than I had ever intended.

They assured me they didn’t want me to remove those elements of the story, only that I would do more to provide not only a more balanced perspective but also a deeper understanding of the motivation for the principal crime. If I were willing to do that, they would be willing to publish the book.

Oh, is that all?

Some writers, I’ve heard it said, are incredibly sensitive about requests for story edits. I was not one of them. I’d had a few freelance pieces published but this was my first and only book and they were willing to publish it. Who was I to argue?

All I had to do was find a way to make the murder of a teenaged girl seem not only plausible but also understandable in the circumstances. And if possible, try to make some sense out the hatred that lingers between Serbians and Croatians to this day, without it being a critical element of a story predicated on an affair between teacher and student.

Piece of cake.

Next week: the long stretch of road to the bookshelves.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Thursday, 11 July 2013 6:45 AM PDT

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The first ‘the end’ of any prominence for me was the completion of my Masters thesis. I had taken a leave of absence from work to complete the writing and in the final stages of writing the conclusion – written at the beginning of my leave, oddly – I was finding any and all manner of distractions at home, so much so I had taken to writing at the library of Douglas College, just down the mountain from where I live. After typing those final two words – not terribly academic language, certainly but psychologically necessary in the first draft – I jumped to my feet and let out a little yell of victory and could find no one – friend or stranger – whom I could hug.

With Deadly Lessons, my first novel, the moment remains etched in my memory. It was towards the end of a semester and my senior history students were busy writing an in-class exam. Had I been more dedicated – or cared more – I suppose I would have been carefully pacing the front of the room or skulking up and down the rows, peering ominously over the shoulders of students as they pontificated on the long term influence of the Treaty of Versailles. Instead, I was digitally penning the final few words of the manuscript that would become my first published book. I was using my own personal laptop – I’m not that much of an abuser of my employer’s resources.

Again, I let out a small whoop, drawing the annoyed attention of my students, at least those more academically inclined, and again, could find no one in the room I thought it would be appropriate to hug.

And then it sat in the proverbial drawer, albeit the electronic version.

Eventually, several months after the fact, my wife asked me if I actually planned to do anything with the completed draft of my manuscript, like send it to publishers, or something.

Many publishers had websites indicating submission guidelines but just as many did not. At the time, the annual hard copy of The Writer’s Market was the essential and more or less only other tool available for determining what publishers were accepting queries from new writers. Typically, most publishers of the day that were accepting queries wanted anywhere from a two to seven page synopsis of the story that was being pitched, along with two or three sample chapters from the book itself. I maintain 2, 3, 4 and 7 page variations of synopses of both books. Rarely did anyone accept full manuscripts as part of the first query. Oh, and no one accepted anything electronically: if you live where there are lots of writers buying stock in Staples was no doubt a sound investment.

It sounded like a scolding to me but I heeded their advice and went with Napoleon – and I’m very glad I did.

Next week: the long journey from acceptance to print.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

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If at least part of the reason for writing the blog (still hate that word) is to keep you, dear reader, informed on the progress of my latest novel, I have been remiss. I have been, in the past few weeks, sharing old war stories about Deadly Lessons' origin, getting published (though not getting Deadly Lessons published – that’s still to come), and the like.

So here, is the report of theProgress I have made.

The sad fact of the matter is that the writing block about which I've written (how grandly ironic) hasn't entirely lifted, at least as it relates to W3.doc. In toto, I have added no more than a few sentences to the book in the past couple of months. I have a feeling I'm not going to make my self-imposed June 30th deadline.

The day job has made me busier than I have ever been in this profession. Seriously. I know I'm making excuses but there it is. To be sure, I'm not in my office eighteen hours a day, seven days a week (though I did spend Saturday in my empty office trying to get caught up on work) but the reality is I'm so exhausted by the end of the day that doing any real meaningful writing in the evening kind of seems out of the question. They really need to make a writer's equivalent of Viagara: I need to keep my pen...ahem...erect....longer than I'm generally able at the end of the day.

It's also true that I've largely fallen out of the habit of getting up early in the morning to write. There was a period of time in which I would routinely arise at 5:00 to squeeze in an hour or so of writing before I was heading out to work in the morning. The exhaustion I've felt has made me biologically reluctant to get up any earlier than necessary, though I'm certainly not sleeping a great deal. Like my protagonist, Winston Patrick, sleep, for the past decade or so, has not been a skill at which I've excelled. I know that part of non-productivity stems from the fact that in this past year in particular, my sleeping has gotten worse (it went through a leveling off period in which I was sleeping better and therefore more easily able to get up in the morning to write).

But I don't think exhaustion is all that's at play here. As I've described before, the longer I stay away from the story, the more confidence in it wanes. Each time I think about approaching the book again, my anxiety level goes up: what if the story isn’t sound? What if I can’t make it work? Have I reached that point of no return in that abandoning it now is a mistake? It’s like that feeling when you’re hiking: is it further to keep going and finish the hike than it is to turn around and go back?

At least I imagine it’s the same: I really don’t hike. I’ll climb the Chief when I can get a decent latte at the top.

The other challenge with time is the amount I need. Some writers – those diligent ones who probably aren’t vice principals in urban, high needs high schools by day – believe it’s important to write each and every day, and they’re probably right. For me, though, I’m finding that having just a few minutes of writing time is almost more challenging than having no minutes of writing time: like coming in to work on the weekends to get work done, I sometimes feel like I need a solid block of hours in a row in order to be productive. And that almost never happens.

On the plus side – and if I had a therapist I’m sure she would tell me I have to look at the plus side, at least occasionally – if this blog column has demonstrated one thing it’s that I can commit to writing. This column you’re reading marks the thirtieth consecutive week I’ve published the column. Hard to argue it hasn’t improved the volume of my output. It may not be in the novel but it’s twenty-five thousand words or so I might not have written at all.

Of course, if I had written those twenty-five thousand words in W3.doc, I’d be a darned sight closer to my self-imposed June 30^th deadline.

Sigh.

Next week: Deadly Lessons – the saga continues. Getting the book published.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Thursday, 27 June 2013 8:37 AM PDT

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Last week I talked about my freelance life - or at least the life I hoped to lead as a freelancer. One of my earliest publications was also the one that caused me the most amount of trouble.

At the time, I was in about my fourth year as a high school teacher. I had 'retired' from the talk show the previous fall but my...uhm...willingness... to share my opinions had not faded with the passing of the final credit roll. I inherited the fiery Scottish temper gene from my dad and rarely shied from expressing my displeasure at a perceived injustice or bureaucratic incompetence. It's possible I hit the cynicism stage of working in the public sector more quickly than others but I wore that too somewhat as a badge of honour.

Ahhh....youth.

I like to think I'd be more politically astute nowadays but there's no guarantee, especially if there was an overabundance of blood in my caffeine stream.

As perhaps these things go, the offending article was one of the tamest pieces I'd written before or since. It centered, understandably, on the day job. In that particular September, my class had 52 students in it. Not the sum total of the three classes I was teaching in that semester. The one class. Social Studies 9. The first ever grade nine students in the school (it was converting from a senior high school that year) and the first experience these fourteen year olds have of high school is fifty-two of them crammed into a portable in the hot September sun.

To be fair - and I was in the op-ed piece, I assure you - the collective agreement under which we were bound at the time had class size provisions. That is, under the terms of our contract, we could only have thirty-two students but here's the catch: that same collective agreement provided a two week period at the start of a semester, after which the classes must be balanced, meeting the thirty-two student limit. Typically, we might find ourselves with a sprinkling of extra kids for a few days while timetables were sorted out but as each of my then vast four year career progressed, the 'overage' at the beginning of a semester seemed to grow - and the length of time it took to balance the classes had stretched right to the very reaches of that two week period allowed under the contract.

My point in the piece - and this column is about the piece, not about the labour or class size issues - plenty of other bloggers cover those topics - was that maybe sticking fifty kids together for two weeks wasn't a terribly effective way to start a school year. And even if one is able to get things balanced in two weeks, when a semester is only about eighteen weeks long, burning off two of those weeks essentially in a holding pattern just doesn't seem like a good idea.

And then I more or less absolved everyone of direct responsibility.

That's right, maybe there was a tiny bit of political astuteness in me after all. Looking back now I'm almost surprised at how the column listed all the people I wasn't blaming for the situation: the principal, the school district, God, Celine Dion. I ended with one of those bland, Vancouver Sun-type kickers along the lines of "I don't know the answers but maybe we ought to try to do it better." Does it get much gentler than that?

And then it hit the fan.

Had you been harbouring under the notion a publicly funded organization run by a democratically elected board would be open to comments and critique from the public you’d be mistaken, particularly if that commentary comes from an employee. And here’s where the law can appear a bit murky: as a writer (and by then I was using the term) were my rights to comment on what is, in essence, public policy, limited by my being employed by that particular branch of government?

That particular branch of government seemed to think so.

Of course, in the piece I hadn’t identified myself as a teacher. The newspaper, however, had. When papers print submissions from non-staff writers, they often run a little byline credit explaining who the writer is, as if justifying why they provided column inches. And I guess to up my credibility – or because they thought it might be fun to see what would happen – the editors opted to identify me as a teacher in the very district my op-ed was criticizing.

A side event: some poor schmo of a substitute teacher (teacher-on-call in the politically correct parlance) happened to share my name and he was the original target of the school district’s wrath. Eventually, it was recalled I was that David Russell, the dogs were called off the unlucky name doppelganger and I was hauled before a disciplinary hearing.

Suffice to say, lines were drawn pretty quickly in the sand. Fellow teachers threatened a wildcat strike, union, management and employee sat across the table from one another and the posturing began. I would like to report that I behaved maturely, responsibly and in a manner that sought not to further provoke.

I would, however, be lying to you.

The bluster flew back and forth across the table, reaching a climax when, in response to what I deemed a condescending question asking me to describe my understanding of fiduciary duty, I concluded my response with a question of my own, along the lines of “Are you aware of Section 2 (b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees the right to a free press?” I was part way through cautioning my adversary about further bad publicity should discipline continue (I may have used terms like “Front Page – Above the Fold!” – I watched a lot of TV) when cooler parties on both sides in the room suggested we take a break.

Calmer heads prevailed and somehow got the temperature dialed down because by the time we returned to the conference room, all seemed to be more or less forgiven and an uneasy truce had been brokered. It is important to note, at least to my ego-inflated sense of principle, that the truce did not contain an agreement from me I would not again comment on public education policy, though such a commitment was sought.

Would I do it again? It was my first real experience with seeing the impact published work can have and from a writer's point of view, it was incredibly invigorating. It certainly caused conversation and, I like to believe, a review of practice that may have had some lasting benefit. Isn’t that at least part of why we do that kind of writing?

In fact, I have written on educational policy numerous times since, always being fair but honest in the topics I’ve covered. Indeed, some of the pieces I've since written were far more critical than I’d been on the first go round, yet interestingly, they were not met with the same kind of angry chest thumping as the first piece.

Still, until such a time as I don’t make at least part of my living in the education realm, my pen at least pauses before I publicly offer critiques of public education. The pen may be mightier than the sword but the paycheque still trumps both.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Wednesday, 19 June 2013 8:49 AM PDT

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Okay, the title of this column seems a little extreme but in the midst of the process, it often feels like that's the case.

In younger years, as I documented earlier in addition to my desires to be a scriptwriter, I fancied myself something of an editorialist. To those who know me this likely comes as little surprise. I was, uhm, how do I say this politely, one of many opinions of which I was willing to share with pretty much anyone who would listen and many more who might not. I was a talk show host for six and a half years, for goodness' sake.

Clever was a characteristic I actively sought as opposed to being observed by the few readers who actually saw the work. I once wrote a very clever little piece about the art of rejection, how I could claim success compared to other writers I had met perversely because I had been rejected by bigger names and organizations than had they.

Clever, huh?

I won't inflict those clever works upon you (except by request - I'm sure I could find one or two of them if there was a groundswell of demand*), though if or when I ever get to building my new and improved website – one that hosts Word or pdf documents – I may just post them for the sake of having them out there in Etherland.

In those early days of wannabe freelancing, the commitment to the work at hand was pretty significant. To begin with, if you can believe it, I began making freelance submissions by mail – mail! For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, this meant I wrote the entire piece, edited, polished and printed it, stuck it in an envelope and dropped it in the mail to the publication of choice.

Seriously!

And then I waited. And waited. And when I was done waiting, I waited some more.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this type of unsolicited freelance work actually encouraged the type of personal reflection writing newspapers were loathe to print. How could one write an op-ed piece on a news item when after completing the piece it took three to five days for the paper to receive it, review it, determine they had column inches to spare and then run it? Most newspapers didn’t even bother to respond, particularly to much of the ‘non-newsy’ kind of material I was producing. The lovely Max Wyman, then the editor of The Vancouver Sun’s now defunct Saturday Review, magazine-style weekend insert focused on arts, culture and yes, occasionally essay-style writing, was one of the few editors to not only respond to an early freelance submission but to telephone me personally and give me feedback on my submission.

Which he rejected.

The fax machine certainly helped with the speed of submissions and permitted me to at least focus my writing more on the Op-Ed page responses to news items and issues and this was where I first began to find some publishing successes. Of course even that modern technology innovation was occasionally fraught with peril: not initially owning one myself I oft resorted to submitting via my day job’s equipment. When once I submitted and had published a piece critical of the public education system – which was my day job at the time – the fact that my initial submission had come from the school’s fax machine added additional fuel to the employer's ire [that experience is worthy of its own post – stay tuned].

What strikes me to this day about one of the first pieces I had published was following advice I had received from a journalist to whom I had been speaking. After looking at one of my pieces he said: it’s good. It’s a decent piece. I want you to go through it and change every third sentence into a new paragraph. This, grammatically and, well, intelligence-wise, made absolutely no sense to me. When I protested that it interrupted the argument and broke up the flow he said ‘it doesn’t matter. It’s a newspaper. No one wants a paragraph more than three sentences long – four tops. Try it is an exercise. Don’t even think about where the paragraphs ought to be – just make a new one every three sentences.’ I did as was recommended and submitted it to another publication.

It was the first daily newspaper piece I had published.

Next week – more adventures in the print trade.

*groundswell may require only a single 'hey man, I've got nothing going on in my life right now - I'd be willing to give it a read"

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Saturday, 15 June 2013 10:41 PM PDT

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Over a couple of columns I've talked about the origins of Deadly Lessons, its protagonist Winston Patrick, and its story of a teacher accused of killing one of his students to cover up an illicit affair. That is the principle plot line of the book.

But as the story progresses, Winston determines that the motive for the murders may go beyond just the inappropriate alleged relationship between teacher and student. My motivation for the motivation comes from real life (this is also the case in Last Dance - we'll cover that in another column).

I went to McPherson Park Junior Secondary in Burnaby. When I arrived as a scared adolescent in grade eight, I knew almost no one since McPherson was not the junior high the vast majority of my elementary colleagues went to. I think I knew four people.

One of the people I remember meeting early in my junior high career was Sandra Ignatovic. She was in grade ten - the top of the school - and while we weren't exactly friends she was nice to me. For a grade eight boy new to the school, having a grade ten girl be nice to you is, well, kinda good. And if she's a pretty grade ten girl, well, that's kinda great. Heck, this one even went on to win the "Miss Burnaby" pageant.

We didn't get to know each other well - it was more of a smile as we passed in the hallway kind of relationship - and by the end of my first year, Sandra 'graduated' to senior high school and we parted ways. There were no emotional goodbyes, no tears, there may not even have been much more than a wave. But she did sign my yearbook. And she was in grade ten. To be sure, we hadn't kept in touch. In fact, I'm sure it's quite likely I never actually saw her again after she left McPherson Park.

In 1992 she was murdered.

Her death stuck with me. How many people does one know who get murdered? Sadly, I know more than one. But the circumstances around Sandra's death were particularly unusual: her murder was paid for by her mother-in-law (notice I'm not being particularly cautious here and using the term 'alleged'; her mother-in-law was tried and convicted for her crime. The case was apparently at least in part the inspiration for a television movie starring Tyne Daly in 1997.

Sandra, or Alexandra Pesic, as she was known by then, had been in what had been described as an acrimonious marriage and subsequent divorce from Joe Pesic, whose mother was reported to have been domineering and a very controlling influence in Alexandra's life. After the divorce, as the couple fought over custody of their then three year-old son, Jelka Pesic hired a hit man who gunned down Alexandra as she left her job in a dental office in Coquitlam.

Mother-in-law jokes aside, it was difficult for me to conceive of a mother killing her son's wife. Not being close to any of Alexandra's friends, I didn't know the details and rumours were plenty. One of the storylines had as a principal motive for the murder the fact that one family was Serbian and the other was Croatian. This turned out to be untrue. But it was another element about which I always wondered: could feuds dating back hundreds of years in the Balkan region still carry that kind of weight today?

Of course, I don't seek to mine stories directly from the suffering of others but to make Deadly Lessons' story more than a simple forbidden love story, and having known someone killed by family - even the family into which she married - had me wanting to explore darker, harsher motivations for violence that occur. Though far from the story I eventually wrote, Sandra's tragic marriage and murder were the original inspiration for the story.

Jelka Pesic, applied for early parole in 2008 under Canada's notorious "faint hope clause." I have not been able to determine if she was successful or if she remains in prison today, where she'd be eligible for parole from her first-degree murder conviction in 2018.

Next week: getting published.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Friday, 7 June 2013 1:42 PM PDT

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A couple of weeks ago I began the story of Deadly Lessons' origin.

When my agent friend Laura gave me a clear rationale for being a published author - in essence, that it would help me to become a produced television scriptwriter - I set off.

Truth be told, like many stories, the seeds of the origin came from real life experience. And there's kind of two parts to that.

But first - pretty major spoiler alerts. In my enthusiasm to share the roots of the story I may give away key plot points. So, I implore you; please do not let this column dissuade you from reading the book.

Let's deal first with the creation of Winston Patrick.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that at the time I was writing the book I was a practicing classroom teacher, then at Dr. Charles Best Secondary School in Coquitlam, B.C. If one really is supposed to 'write what you know,' it made sense to me that Winston Patrick would be a teacher. It wasn't always thus.

Though Laura was the immediate impetus for writing the book, it was certainly an idea that had crossed my mind. A long time reader of the crime genre, I initially conceived of a series about a private detective who wasn't particularly good at this job. And along the lines of Howard Engel's Benny Cooperman series, I wanted my detective, Mickey Jones was his name, to be wholly Canadian - read unarmed. I enjoy the hard-boiled, tough as nails detective but I’m also intrigued by the hero who kind of stumbles his way through the mystery, solving crime essentially by accident because he’s really not that great at his job.

Read into that what you may.

In my head, Mickey would be routinely bested by his adversaries and only his stubbornness and tenacity would help him to reach his aims. Somewhere along the lines, Mickey the private investigator became Winston the lawyer turned high school teacher; and his origins also came from experience.

As a new teacher, I encountered three colleagues who had previously been lawyers, some longer than others. I found myself wondering if there was some kind of connection between the two vocations (full disclosure: law school was a path I crossed but did not take, though I stood at that juncture for some time considering its merits). I have heard it said (it’s possible I said it) that teachers are frustrated lawyers, lawyers are frustrated teachers and they’re both just frustrated actors. I thought I would combine all three of my experiences in these realms (I studied some criminology in college and clerked for in-house counsel for an oil company – not exactly legally stimulating but I could lay claim to at least a modicum of background legal knowledge).

Finding legal issues in the classroom was far easier than I would have imagined. Teaching an elective senior Law course, teenagers not only concocted some of the most intriguing legal scenarios, many students had experience with them.

I arrived at the central premise of Deadly Lessons actually quite easily. What are the worst things a teacher could do to a student: sleep with her or kill her? What if it was both or at least it was suspected that was the case?

This premise gave me the opportunity to merge Winston’s two worlds, the legal and educational, and, like Mickey, fumble his way through an investigation he is woefully ill-prepared for. But what intrigued me even more than that was taking the story beyond just the sordid teacher-student romance angle and imbuing it with an even darker undercurrent.

That dark undercurrent was also inspired by what I saw as a shocking true experience – and I’ll share that next week.

Next week: Deadly Lessons Origin Part III – Hey, I wrote a whole book on the story you don’t think I can detail my process on it in just two columns?

Also – if you read last week’s column you’ll recall I’m earnestly hoping people will spread the word – it’s a revolution! Please visit, like, share or whatever else we do on my Last Dance Facebook page. And don’t forget to pester your local library like I’m pestering you.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Monday, 3 June 2013 7:29 AM PDT

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I'm taking a break from the Deadly Lessons origin story this week to engage in a call for help. But first, a little backgrounder.

Okay, clearly, I'm not in this for the money. If there is a Canadian author beyond Margaret Atwood or Michael Ondaatje who could even make the claim to be in it for the dough - and I'm sure they're not, oh legions of Atwood-lovers and Ondanjate worshipers so put down the pen; I'm just drawing an analogy - they probably have probably set the economic bar pretty low for themselves. Does rolling on the bed in a pile of dimes and quarters make one feel rich?

That said, last week I received a statement from the publisher and, well, let's just say, it wasn't exactly inspiring, at least in the financial sense. Sure, I know I have the day job that pays the bills but would it be so much to ask for, say, enough book sales to buy a weekend cottage? How about a new SUV? A high end vacation?

Maybe a latte?

I know, I know, artistic success isn't measured in numbers (thank God). Last Dance has been very well reviewed, not only by people I know who have read it (and I like to think they're not simply being nice to me because they're friends, or, you know, my mother) but also by book critics and reviewers as diverse as The Globe and Mail(Xanadu!), the National Post and Publisher's Weekly. Heck, when PW said good things about the book the publisher was so pleased they made sure a pull quotation from their review was put on the cover. If people saw the endorsement of Publisher's Weekly surely they would buy the book.

I haven't seen PW sitting on too many people's coffee tables, even pretentious people's.

Thus, I’ve given up on untold riches rolling in from book sales. I’m happy in my house; I don’t need one the size of J.K. Rowling’s. Really, all I hope for is that enough copies of my books move that when W3.doc is actually finished, the publisher is still interested in publishing it and, of course, any others that follow.

To be sure, the largest numbers of books move during the first month or so of sales, and last year I was surprised to see that I actually did receive a royalty cheque even though the fiscal sales year ended just four weeks after the release of the book. It wasn’t a big cheque and I hadn’t been expecting one at all. I was, after the positive reviews, expecting more books to have sold over the course of the past year than it appears did.

Weird, huh?

To that end, I’m seeking the help of readers of the blog (come on, there’s gotta be a dozen of you). I want to start a revolution in sales. I’m talking big here. I’m thinking about one of those ‘get a hundred thousand likes and my wife will let me buy a Harley’ kind of campaigns. Hell, if people help me get enough sales, I’ll buy a Harley and take you all for rides on it. I’ve even started a Facebook page, because what I’ve learned is that any problem you want solved can be by creating a Facebook page. So you can help by going to the page and ‘liking’ it. If they install a ‘really like’ it button, all’s the better.

I know, I know, Facebook alone won’t sell the book (if it was that powerful, Facebook would be trading above, not below, its IPO price of $38.00.

But here’s what you can do and it won’t cost you anything (okay, maybe a few minutes of your time but beyond that – free). Probably I’m not supposed to encourage the borrowing of my books but if they’re being borrowed from libraries, that’s a great thing. Thus, if you don’t already own a copy, and have no plans to (remember – I deliver!), you can help by checking with your public library branch to see if they have a copy. And if they don’t – request it.

It’s an amazing thing about our public libraries. Unlike so many government services, they listen to the requests of their citizens. If they don’t have a copy of the book for which you’re looking, most often they’ll get it. And whether it’s purchased by a library or an individual – the publisher still sees it as a demand for the book.

And here’s where you can really help: if you’re not local to the Vancouver area – or you know people across Canada who aren’t – please spread the word, either through liking and sharing the Facebook page (seriously – I just figured out how to make the page – I’m pretty excited) or sharing this post.

Let’s start this library revolution and make it big. There are over three thousand public libraries in Canada, more branches than McDonald’s restaurants – definitely something to celebrate. If every branch had at least two copies of Last Dance and Deadly Lessons, both books would be easily propelled into ‘bestseller’ category – a bestseller in Canada being 5,000 copies.

Too ambitious? How about one copy? What if a thousand library branches each had a copy? How about five hundred? I’m willing to modify my revolution.

But I need your help and the help of hundreds of readers like you. Haven’t you always wanted to be part of something big? This could be your chance.

I’ll even buy the lattes.

Next week: Deadly Lessons – the origin story – Part II.

Posted by davidrussellbc at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Friday, 24 May 2013 10:46 PM PDT

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