Changing Direction

Historical fiction, paranormal/young adult/women’s fiction, call it what you will, my current in-progress novel could be labeled all of these.

When a woman time-travels to the past, meets intriguing characters, learns about herself and life, and brings that new knowledge back with her to the  present and future, you have the gist of the novel I’m working on.

Imagine my joy when I met Veronica Knox, an editor who also writes paranormal books that include time travel. Then imagine my excitement when she liked my plot and encouraged me to develop it. Then think of my gratitude when she said I could call and talk with her about it and even recommended books to read to help me with the plotting.

So, if you don’t see frequent posts here, be assured I’m busy writing my book.

Cheers.

Where Should Magda Go Next?

Where should Magda go next?
I’d like to take her to another island. Perhaps she can go by ferry to another Gulf Island, or perhaps she’ll go to Haida Gwai and solve a mystery there.Then again, she could travel across Canada and visit Prince Edward Island and learn about Anne of Green Gables. What about the Greek Islands? That’s a journey I’d love to share with her. There are so many choices among the hundreds of thousands of large and tiny islands on our amazing planet. Where do you think I should take her? Please let me know what you think.

Getting a Kick out of Reading

It’s so much fun reading from my latest Magda book at the Mayne Island LIbrary. I ended up saying a lot more to my audience than I’d planned to about why I write and what inspires me. Without their questions I might not have opened up as much. For me it’s all about the joy of being able to tell a story, invent characters, and bring themes I care about out into the open. The adults and children present, with their smiles, laughter and general warmth, gave me the feeling of security a shy person like me needed to speak from my heart.

Another bonus on this occasion, (Festival Active Pass on Mayne Island, )was having my husband, son, a granddaughter and a grandson in the library audience. So much of the time as I write my books I think about how these and other very special people will enjoy it. I guess I’ll always write for an audience I keep in my mind. Guess that’s why I get such a kick out of reading to them!

Mounties on Mayne

Mounties on Mayne.

Definitely Not Pysanka

Each year I used Ukrainian egg dyes and traditional patterns to make lovely dyed eggs to share with my friends and family. I was proud of the way they looked. I even taught other people to dye eggs. But this year I thought I’d try something new. I wanted to try dying eggs using natural dyes.

This morning I went shopping for ingredients. I bought two kinds of onions, beets, purple cabbage, cranberries, carrots with tops, and turmeric. I had already cooked four little eggs last night, one for each grandchild.

I boiled up the ingredients, each dye lot in its own pot, then transferred the dye to a stainless steel bowl when enough time had passed for them to have a good colour.

I drew the first initial of each grandchild’s name on the eggs, then, when the dye was dry, I covered the letter with wax from a birthday candle. (This was something my older sister and I had done as kids – written our names in invisible wax before we dyed our eggs). So after that I dipped the eggs in the appropriate dye bath and presto! Easter eggs.

The biggest surprise was the red cabbage, which gave me a lovely blue colour (T) but turned sort of violet (J) when I added vinegar. The pink egg (S) was made with two dyes, cranberries and beets. And the one I thought worked best (B) is yellow from turmeric. The onion skins and carrot tops dye didn’t look festive to me so I didn’t use it. I shone the eggs up with olive oil and here they are.

They certainly aren’t Pysanky eggs. They aren’t even anything special, really. But they are made with love and it was fun trying something new.

Mystery Book to Tantalize You

The owner of our local bookstore is after me to finish writing my book! She said that people have been asking her if it’s out yet. I told her it’s nearly finished. She said, “Then why are you reading from it at the Active Pass Festival? Are you just tantalizing us?”

Festival Active Pass will a big event on Mayne Island and the other islands bordering on Active Pass. This April the 17th, 18th and 19th many of the local clubs and enterprises of one kind and another will be welcoming visitors to three days of activities. On Sunday, April 19th, the library has lined up local writers to read mostly from their books for young people. I’m so excited to be reading from Magda’s Mysterious Stranger, the fourth Magda book set on Mayne Island. It is a work in progress that is almost ready to go!

Bearing the Unbearable Truth

Bearing the Unbearable Truth.

Bearing the Unbearable Truth

 http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/02/28/abducted-boys-from-south-sudan-number-in-the-hundreds.html#

The novel I’m working on, Magda’s Mysterious Stranger, addresses this horrendous issue of child soldiers. My heart aches for these kids.

Magda and her friends, Brent, Jo, Shauna, and Rowan, encounter a man that has a lot of anger and behaves suspiciously. Their suspicions and their actions create a major problem for the man but also for the residents of Mayne  Island.

Life has more horrors than they knew about, though. They are confronted by the nearly unbearable reality of child  soldiers!

Art is often a strategy people use to cope with incomprehensible situations. These five friends use their music to do something constructive to help deal with what they’ve learned.

Christine Lowther on Mayne Island

A determined group of Mayne Islanders turned out on this rainy night to meet Christine Lowther and hear her read from her book, Born Out of This. She focused on her childhood love of our island, comparing it to Narnia, then gave us a brief trip through years as a foster child, the world of punk, her activism, and her return to Mayne Island. She now lives at Clayoquot Sound in a float-house.

The Play-writing Bug has Bitten Me.

It’s over. Saturday was the best night of all, sold-out. The three-night run of five short plays on Mayne Island has ended.

The call of, “Author, author,” brought me and the other three playwrights to the stage. Standing up there with the cast of my plays was unexpected, a little terrifying, and very gratifying.

Many people from the audience took the time to approach me to say they found Car Stops very funny. The audience laughed a lot, so I guess it’s true. I enjoyed it, too, and laughed along with everyone else.

Other people came up and told me that my historical play, Thin Ice, was wonderful. It was called “moving”, “thoughtful,” “well-written” and “something that needed to be written” among other positive expressions. I actually cried a little while watching the interaction between the grandmother and her grandson, so tenderly played.

I feel encouraged by all these remarks.But even if the plays had not been well received, the play-writing bug has bitten me. I will write more. Wait and see.