because I say so

Relaxing. Or chillin'. Or whatever it's called.

Wed, 4 Aug 2010 19:34:00 -0800

I'm not very good at relaxing.

In that total, unadulterated, undisturbed, complete and total sense of the concept, I confess to being somewhat of a failure.

I don't say that as a martyr or as one critical of others able to just completely let go and unwind. I admire those people. You don't need to be Bikram to know and appreciate the benefits of unplugging, recharging and re-energizing. And not just the laptop batteries. Whole publications are devoted not only to convincing people of the merits of downtime but also teaching them how to do it. It's probably a said statement a publishing arm exists dedicated to and finding a sustainable market for teaching people how not to do anything.

But I'm a writer.

So what, one might be inclined to say. Writers aren't necessarily such hard workers (with apologies to those fellow scribes who are). I've heard writers described as actors who are too lazy to wait tables.

I'm the kind of writer, I suspect like many of my brethren and sistern, that makes the majority of my income from sources other than writing. Thus (writers like to say things like 'thus', even when we're speaking), the bulk of the writing occurs during the down time from generating other sources of income, which conflicts with the relaxation time.

Take right now.

I am sitting around a swimming pool at a resort, being served drinks, watching other people relax, and about all I can think is the writing I'm not doing while I'm sitting here reading Stieg Larsson's admittedly very good book in a genre in which I'm supposed to be writing.

There are others like me.

Looking around the pool deck I count three people pecking away at laptops. They may not be fellow writers (they may be, though - look how many people James Patterson has writing for him) but they're working. What's a guy to do?

Unable to take it any longer, the reminders all around me, (I think I even saw the guy next to me check his email on his Kindle when he was supposed to be relaxing) I started to write. On my Blackberry, on which this entire posting was composed.

At poolside. Drink beside me. Relaxing.

Comfortably Numb - and near broke

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:15:00 -0800

I'm not one to complain but...

Recently. I was interested to hear Van Morrison was coming to town. It's worth noting I was 'interested' he was coming to town, not 'excited' or in frothing at the concert-going mouth.

Still, it's summertime, and would continue to be so whence the aging rocker performed. What a pleasant way to spend a summer evening: kicking back, maybe a cold one in hand (okay, I don't drink beer but it fits the imagery - I might even grasp a bottle to have something other than a lighter with which to sway to the classic tunes), tapping my sandals and dancing in that awkward public way a forty year-old white guy can pull off at a classic rock concert?

So I ventured to both Ticketmaster and Live Nation, entities both selling tickets to the show and thought, "Okay. I work hard. I'll treat us to a nice summer evening of nostalgic music and even celebrate that we'd likely be among the youngest concert-goers in the crowd. And what the hell? We could splurge. We don't go to a lot of concerts. Let's avoid the nose-bleeds and see the show up close. How much could good seats to a nearly geriatric rocker be?

Two hundred and seventy-six dollars. Each. Five hundred and...hell, I can't even readily do the math for the pair.

This is not a diatribe against outrageous fees. For the record, I paid $2.75 per ticket as a facility charge, which one would have thought would simply be based into the cost of hosting the concert, and $15.00 per ticket as a convenience charge, though for what convenience I'm paying other than providing a convenient means for Ticketmaster to conveniently move money from my wallet to its coffers, is not clear. But plenty has been written about that near monopoly organization and the fees it is able to pay by virtue of a general lack of competition.

My shock comes from the base ticket price itself. Van Morrison was not the top grossing concert touring act in the past year - he wasn't even in the top ten. Yes, I know supply and demand is at play. Obviously, Morrison believes a senior citizen rocker can attract the kind of client willing to part with that kind of cash to see him or he wouldn't charge that kind of money.

But it's just another highlight of how live music, at least of big name acts, is increasingly becoming a pastime for the wealthy.

See you in the nosebleeds.

O Integrity, where art thou?

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:42:59 -0800

I'm not one to complain, but...

Similarly, I'm not one to write political commentary, at least not for awhile, but every now and again, one must speak up.

No, I'm not going to rant about the G8 and G20 stupidity. Enough venomous ink has spilled on both sides of that debate, if it can be called that, with neither side, if there really are sides, able to clearly articulate their issues, if they've defined even for themselves what those issues are.

But I can't help but comment on BC provincial finance minister Colin Hansen's press conference on Friday about the costs of hosting the Winter Olympics. You remember the Olympics, right? People were plenty angry heading into them, asserting, rightfully, that there might be about a million better ways to spend the millions of dollars it would cost to invite the world to participate in one big winter track meet. The usual parties made the usual arguments, some in more sophisticated, convincing manners than others, but regardless, the show went on.

And once they did, there was more or less agreement that the games were successful in any large number of ways: number of medals won, opening and closing ceremonies - the temporarily non-erectile phallic symbol notwithstanding, the cultural and entertainment events, a new, if temporary, increase in national spirit and pride, the parties in the streets and venues. Even many of the opponents confessed to being impressed and even enjoying the games themselves once they finally got underway.

Why then, did Colin Hansen insist on such ludicrous, outrageous, political spin in his efforts to not rationalize the games being over budget, but to deny altogether the government had suggested the games would only cost the provincial taxpayers $600 million in direct costs. Putting aside the arguments about what is and isn't an Olympics-related cost (the Skytrain extension to Richmond, the Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion, the new trade and convention centre - two out of three of which came in over budget), Hansen's attempts to deny the provincial government ever claimed to budget $600 million for the games takes political spin doctoring to a new high - or low, depending on your perspective.

For anyone who lived in British Columbia during the build-up to the games, I don't need to provide examples of government representatives using the $600 million figure. We heard it time and again from the premier, from the finance minister, from the minister responsible for the games. Veteran political commentator Vaughn Palmer provides but a small sample in his excellent column on the topic in the Vancouver Sun. News outlets will provide plenty of others over the coming days.

Now that we are now well past the point of questioning the validity of the games, that the majority of Vancouver residents look back on the games with fondness, enjoying the memories of whatever small or large manner in which they participated in the events, is there really any need for Hansen to try to fake his way out what any competent chequebook balancer could only describe as cost overruns? The games cost more than what we really anticipated, or at least more than what we told you they were going to cost. Here's why. Here's why we think it was still worth the investment. Take it or leave it. The games and the money's gone now.anyway.

I know, I know. This kind of political 'truthiness' is nothing new. And maybe I'm just sensitive as we head into summer time and our own incomes take their two month annual beating. But to me, Hansen's performance yesterday, and by extension that of his government, sunk to new depths yesterday. For the love of all that's good and holy, just once - once - I'd love to hear a politician speak with unwavering, unfiltered, unfabricated clarity, treat the public with the respect it so richly deserves and just speak the whole truth, the plain truth and nothing but.

Not the kind of truth that Hansen can tell himself he is speaking by rationalizing and twisting and tweaking. Just the whole, unadulterated truth of the matter.

It could have gone something like this: "The original $600 million we projected turned out to be not enough to really successfully do what we thought we should do with the games. It turns out the state of the economy, the cost overruns, the revenue generated were worse than we anticipated and we had to spend more. We still believe the games will be worth the cost and the province will be better off economically and in spirit in the long run."

Sure they would have taken some heat for less than accurate forecasting. Opponents, media and yes, bloggers, may well have taken them to task on their abilities to handle the public's purse. But on the one issue that nowadays really does matter more than that, they would have been untouchable:

Integrity.

Change, change, change

Fri, 9 Jul 2010 09:18:00 -0800

So this isn't meant to be a total rant against change in general but last evening, a few minutes on hand, I found myself perusing the magazine selections at Price Smart Foods.

Let's start with that.

Now I'd heard of Price Smart, caught their little spots on the radio and had actually wondered: who are these upstarts? Starting a new grocery chain and going up against the big boys can be no easy feat. They must bring some deep pockets on their blazers, which must mean back east dollars, which translates to Toronto funding, which pretty much at least loosely affiliates them to the Blue Jays, ergo, I was quite prepared to dislike them from the get go. Still, it was nearby a shoot on which I was working so I was also prepared, by necessity, really, to give them a try. Change can't be all bad, right?

Only they're not some grey smoke interlopers. I walked in and the first thing I noticed was the sign promising deals if I used my 'Save-on More' card. What the hell? They're Save-on Foods?

I've been shopping at Save-On for years - and notice I'm flexible enough to drop the formality of 'Foods' for the more colloquial 'Save-On' - and I'm comfortable with it. Sure, I've been occasionally thrown off my shopping game when I've stumbled into an Overwaitea: it looks the same, takes the same rewards card, offers the same products at more or less the same prices. This begs the question: why not just call it Save-On but I've learned to adapt. Urban Fare? Well that's just crazy. It may be the same company but the Yaletown hipness of it makes it un-doable.

So now they've got a fourth entry into a market they already dominate. And I fell right into their change trap.

I can live with that.

But I wanted to buy Atlantic Monthly. And I couldn't.

You see, the Atlantic Monthly, a storied institution in the magazine world, isn't the Atlantic Monthly anymore. It's just The Atlantic. Primarily, I suspect, this moniker makeover was the result of the ever changing nature of the publishing industry: The Atlantic, in its print edition, now only publishes ten times per year and the paper on which it's printed is noticeably smaller than that on which I used to enjoy it when I got the time to getting around to reading it.

So what, you might ask.

Before I got into this novel-writing game, I, for awhile, envisioned myself something of a freelance writer, who someday, God willing, might write for such a venerable institution as the Atlantic Monthly. Its diminutive size and reduced publishing schedule, seems to make that possibility, however remote ever it was, ever more thus.

Change is coming, and even as my writing priorities changed, so does the publishing world around me. It is both encouraging and discouraging that those very publications to which I inspired, the gold standards of writing excellence, themselves fall prey to the weaning purchasing desires of readers and the ever growing movement to the web for information and entertainment.

Of course, if you're reading this, maybe I have reason to be more encouraged than discouraged.

The second draft

Sun, 3 May 2009 18:57:16 -0800

Nearly four months since my last post and I have only this update to report: I finally completed a second draft of the book scheduled for release next year.

One of the key ingredients that helped was my publisher sending me a message asking for the draft. We had not yet specified a date for the updated manuscript but all of sudden they wanted it. By the end of April.

I have found that hard deadlines do prompt me into action.

It was a tremendous amount of work. I'm actually embarrassed by how bad the first draft was. In my desperation to have a completed manuscript to send to the publisher before they forgot all about me I basically ran a cursory spell check and send it away.

Dear God!

Typos galore, sloppy usuage, occasionally overwrought language. That was in Chapter 1. I also changed a couple of characters' names along the way inadvertently. Here's a good note: when submitting a novel be sure to read the damned thing before giving it to publishers.

I've had a couple of very thorough editors on it, Lou Allin, who I think I've mentioned before, and my Dad - who went to town on editing. The stuff others pick up for you is amazing - and I didn't have to pay editor's fees!

I'm going to be hard at another edit but I'm going to give it another couple of weeks to freshen my own perspective again.

Book three continues. December 31st is still the target completion.

Looks like it's a go: 2010!

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 18:40:00 -0800

Once again, it's been so long.

But, for those of you following along - the sequel to Deadly Lessons was finally finished, in draft form, about a month or so ago. Believe it or not, it is, I believe, six years in the making.

Of course, that makes it sound like it's some kind of epic follow-up to the first novel so I want to dispel the notion that I've been toiling away at it non-stop for six years. The truth of the matter is far from that.

In fact, my work on the sequel, tentatively titled Last Dance has been an incredible on and off - mostly off. The journey happened in stages.

I believe, though I'd have to check the original document on the other computer, that I began the book around November of 2002, shortly after I'd completed Deadly Lessons, though before it had been accepted for publication. I guess I was feeling cocky.

But in the summer of 2003, while vacationing in Italy, I began another book, temporarily shelving the first 80 pages or so of Last Dance I had begun. The Italian Story, as I've taken to calling it, was written in the third person, unlike both my Winston sagas, and was more political and espionage thriller than murder mystery. I wrote much of it by hand while sipping wine and overlooking the sunflower valley in the rented farmhouse we were occupying in Tuscany. I know - who wouldn't be inspired in that locale?

So I worked on that for awhile, then flipped back to Last Dance, then went back and forth awhile. Classic author's attention deficit disorder.

Eventually I determined that I had better finish Last Dance as I had kind of entered into the publishing process with the understanding that Deadly Lessons would be a series. Alas, the perils of working full time, having a child, trying to do publicity for the first book, trying to do a litany of other things slowed down the process enormously.

The editor at my publisher, Napoleon Press, sent me an email and has said I am on the shortlist for 2010, which means it's not an absolute certainty that it will go ahead that year but it is sounding positive. He also made some comments about some rather intense editing that needs to be done. Much of it I totally concur with: I tend to be wordy. I think it's the teacher in me that feels a need to explain too much.

Some of the things he mentioned I find quite intriguing: as in the first draft of Deadly Lessons, someone else's eye, particularly the trained eye of publishers, often pick up nuances of which I was completely unaware. For example, in Last Dance, the editor has noted that Winston's detective friend Andrea (fans out there remember about whom I'm speaking?!?) comes across as a less sympathetic character by some of her actions and wondered if that was my intent. It wasn't, which makes me really curious about how I've portrayed her.

Of course, taking six years to write the damned thing means I barely remember some of the situations into which I wrote her. Editing is going to be an interesting challenge. I'm seriously thinking about hiring a private editor so I can get this thing to be as slick as possible. If you know of any good ones (not so good that they're hugely expensive, mind you!) feel free to let me know. I want to make sure this book is absolutely as good as it can be.

My plan is to try to document the process as I go along so interested scribes can follow along and see what it's like. I'm also planning to have book three in the series written this year. And yes, this time I mean it.

Here I go. Stay tuned!

August 1st and all's well

Fri, 1 Aug 2008 20:11:33 -0800

Someone actually wrote to me and chastised me for not blogging for as long as I have. Sigh. At least it's nice to know that someone is reading.

Have you ever been in the middle of writing a climax and just can't seem to get finished? When I was working on Deadly Lessons, writing the climax was actually exciting. Now I'm finding it hard to get enough time in one sitting to actually get any writing done.

Maybe if I keep reminding myself to blog I might at least be writing regularly and keep people pestering me to get the book finished. I keep telling myself that I do not want to return to work in two weeks without having the book completed.

That's right: the first draft of the book tentatively called Last Dance is scheduled for completion within two weeks.

Stay tuned. And keep nagging.

Turning forty - or how I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Andrew Coyne

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:29:43 -0800

I confess to having recently turned forty, a milestone that often sends its conquerors into prolonged therapy but that I have survived more or less intact. I still have my own hair, teeth and bendable joints so who am I to complain?

I have wondered of late though if there exists a correlation between chronological age and the amount of times one agrees with Andrew Coyne.

Among my friends, political persuasion, if such tendencies even mean anything any more, tends to fall somewhere in the centre to centre-left category. Sure I have a few friends on either extreme, who I tend to keep apart from one another in social gatherings, but for the most part most friends and associates would find agreeing with Andrew Coyne akin to an Edmontonian cheering the Flames. It’s just not done in polite company.

Often I would read the National Post for sport; its layout remains one of the best in the land but its content is best suited for partisan jabbing and general mockery. Coyne, until his departure from that publication for the pages of Maclean’s - a magazine for which I have written, for Heaven’s sake! - was frequently the chief target of our disdain. Well written and articulate he seemed to kill his own arguments with extremism that made him fun to mock.

Now I’ve always had a fiscally conservative side to me so economically Coyne and I weren’t always so far apart. The simplicity of his economic theorems is sometimes comforting, easy to digest when too tired for careful and/or realistic analysis.

But lately I’ve found myself agreeing with him more often than not. Coyne’s not getting any hipper; this must surely be the aging process in action.

Of particular interest prompting this response is a recent column decrying the ever-increasing practice and expectation of tipping.

Sorry lefty friends; I could not possibly agree more with Mr. Coyne on this one. From the coffee shop to the hairdresser to the garbage collector, the number and variety of occupations for whom I am expected to provide extra has grown to ridiculous proportions.

And please don’t try to tell me that these employees rely on the generosity of their patrons as a significant portion of their livelihood. That ought not to be the way it is and it is perpetuated by our insistence on going along with it.

In the past several months I have had occasion to stay at the Delta Ocean Point Resort in Victoria and the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. At both these fine hostelries, parking is not included in the price of accommodation; to have one’s car parked guests fork out an additional $15 and $28 per night respectively. On top of this we’re expected to tip the young university student or ski lifty respectively to whom I’ve just nervously handed over my keys?

Truth is, were I not already paying outrageous prices for the service provided I would be less reluctant to “give a little something” to the service provider. At $28 a pop, buddy, your tip is included, even if I have you retrieve my vehicle several times while I go for drives and return to the hotel.

The same is true at Starbucks or other coffee houses (even the fair-trade ones, lefty friends): were the price of the product not already beyond what normal, sensible people ought to be paying for beverages, the thought of adding a tip to the bill might not seem so implausible, despite the fact all most coffee house employees due to earn such extras is pour the java into a cup, hardly an example of going the extra mile. In fact, it barely covers the mile.

Coyne’s anti-tipping crusade of one makes sense and I’m willingly on board.

I just worry about with whom I’ll agree by the time I turn fifty.

And in the distractions from writing department...

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:11:29 -0800

This morning, on the Nik and Val Show, a recent poll was discussed in which women surveyed in Britain indicated which male names were most associated with, ahem, large....err....members.

Not surprisingly, not to me anyway, the name that topped the list of the biggest packages was "Dave."

Guess it wasn't just my own sense of well endowed-ness. Science is on my side.

Eat your...uhm...hearts out "Rays" of the world. Evidently your name is associated with 'short' recollections of British females.

Back to the page.

Plugging away at the author's life

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:35:52 -0800

And so it goes.

It's been some time since I've contributed to the blog so for those of you following along in the author's career (hello? is anyone out there?) my apologies for my neglect

I would like to say it's because I've been so busy writing but that wouldn't be entirely true. In fact, the fall through the winter were very bleak times indeed for productivity on the next book. However, good news is not just on the horizon, it's here.

I finally have taken to getting myself up extra early in the morning (sorry morning radio employees, I know you get up earlier than me but hey - that's your deal). I started forcing myself to get up around 5:30 to write for forty-five minutes to an hour before work and I've found that I've written more in the past month than I have in the past year and a half.

If I can keep up this pace, I'm looking at some time in May having the first draft done. I know it was promised for last August, then December, then before turning 40 (which was March 11th) but there it is. Things are progessing better than they have in a long time, I'm pleased to say.

And of course I plug along at the marketing of my year-old book, which included traveling to Victoria to attend and speak on a panel at the "Pacific Festival of the Book," a bust in terms of book sales but may have gained me some exposure (to whom? I don't know). It was nice to see some of my fellow BC authors again I had met at the crime festival last June in Victoria and a couple of new ones, including Daniel Edward Craig, author of Murder at the Universe, which I just finished reading. It's a unique entry in the genre, quite different from the standard formula, being quite character driven rather than plot centred.

Next up is the Arthur Ellis Awards Nominations evening, April 30th. This year, the Crime Writers of Canada, West Coast branch, will host a celebratory event at the Vancouver Public Library, including a panel discussion with yours truly and a host of others, moderated by Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail. I'll provide more details forthwith, especially given that I'm the media/PR liaison.

I'll try to get back to this sooner rather than later. Please send your comments.