See me doing my happy dance as my second book, Branching Out: Adventures & Roots, is now in the printing queue and copies should be in my hands by the third week of September. There are three editions: hard cover, paperback, and e-book. I wanted the hard cover and paperback books printed in Canada and had to pay a bit extra on each book to have that done. Based on my experience with my first book, the books printed in Canada had sharper photos and higher quality paper. Also, I like the idea of keeping jobs in Canada although the online orders will be printed in the U.S.A. I guess the people in Tennessee where the U.S.A. versions for Amazon etc. were done last time need the jobs too!
Once again, I will be doing presentations where the book will be available—please see the Events page on this website for the sessions booked so far. I also mail the book to anyone who is interested in purchasing although I have to charge for the postage. I have kind people who have agreed to help distribute the book for me. I will post that information under the Bookstore tab on my website as soon as Friesen sends me those links, probably by mid-September.
If you are an online shopper--or if you have heard enough of me talking at one of my presentations but still want the book and don't live close or want it mailed--it will be available in early September on the Friesen website, Amazon, and through other distributors. I’ll put that information on my website as soon as I have the links.
The most common appraisal of my first book, Roots & Adventures: A Prairie Childhood, was that the book at about 250 pages was too short. “I just got into the book, and it was over,” I heard repeatedly.
Well, folks, I changed that all right: the sequel is over 500 pages long. I don’t think anyone will say this second book is too short! The redeeming feature is that the book is organized as short stories so you can read it in bits and pieces.
I’ve learned again that I’m probably not patient enough to go through the laborious procedure of having a book designed and revised. I can’t believe that I was still finding people’s names spelled wrong after reading those pages so many times. During the second revision, I read every page out loud and pointed at each word. Still, in the third revision, I found 14 errors. How could I not remember, for example, what years I worked for Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) in the summers?
I’m sure there are a few errors that I didn’t pick up even after all that. And, I know a few of you out there will let me know about those errors, which you should do please! I can’t blame my editor either—she didn’t know me when I worked for AGT. She certainly wouldn’t know that Doug has relatives on one side of his family whose last name was Davie, and, on the other side, has relatives named Davies. I couldn’t seem to get those two names straight! Hopefully, I caught them all on that fourth revision.
And, how many times did I spell Honda—as in Honda motorcycles—Hondo? My finger just wanted to type o instead of a.
The good part of the entire process was that I got to reconnect with many friends and acquaintances. I also talked with several extended relatives that I either didn’t know well, or that I didn’t know even existed. Four relatives “found me” through my website. I became acquainted with people who knew some of the characters that I was writing stories about, and their information and excerpts added greatly to the content of the book.
I have always preferred working independently, but the experiences in writing this second book taught me the value of working collaboratively—of incorporating the voices of others in my stories. Collaborative writing often adds rich detail to stories; it also takes much longer as ideas are checked with others, rewritten, and then checked again.
As a result of those experiences writing collaboratively, I will be doing several presentations over the next few months. For a list of presentations booked so far, please see the Events page of this website. I hope to see you at one of those sessions.
Thanks to everyone reading this Musing—I can’t believe how many “hits” my website gets in a week. A special thank you to everyone who was involved in helping me get this book completed.
I hope to see, or hear, from you in September.
Once again, I will be doing presentations where the book will be available—please see the Events page on this website for the sessions booked so far. I also mail the book to anyone who is interested in purchasing although I have to charge for the postage. I have kind people who have agreed to help distribute the book for me. I will post that information under the Bookstore tab on my website as soon as Friesen sends me those links, probably by mid-September.
If you are an online shopper--or if you have heard enough of me talking at one of my presentations but still want the book and don't live close or want it mailed--it will be available in early September on the Friesen website, Amazon, and through other distributors. I’ll put that information on my website as soon as I have the links.
The most common appraisal of my first book, Roots & Adventures: A Prairie Childhood, was that the book at about 250 pages was too short. “I just got into the book, and it was over,” I heard repeatedly.
Well, folks, I changed that all right: the sequel is over 500 pages long. I don’t think anyone will say this second book is too short! The redeeming feature is that the book is organized as short stories so you can read it in bits and pieces.
I’ve learned again that I’m probably not patient enough to go through the laborious procedure of having a book designed and revised. I can’t believe that I was still finding people’s names spelled wrong after reading those pages so many times. During the second revision, I read every page out loud and pointed at each word. Still, in the third revision, I found 14 errors. How could I not remember, for example, what years I worked for Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) in the summers?
I’m sure there are a few errors that I didn’t pick up even after all that. And, I know a few of you out there will let me know about those errors, which you should do please! I can’t blame my editor either—she didn’t know me when I worked for AGT. She certainly wouldn’t know that Doug has relatives on one side of his family whose last name was Davie, and, on the other side, has relatives named Davies. I couldn’t seem to get those two names straight! Hopefully, I caught them all on that fourth revision.
And, how many times did I spell Honda—as in Honda motorcycles—Hondo? My finger just wanted to type o instead of a.
The good part of the entire process was that I got to reconnect with many friends and acquaintances. I also talked with several extended relatives that I either didn’t know well, or that I didn’t know even existed. Four relatives “found me” through my website. I became acquainted with people who knew some of the characters that I was writing stories about, and their information and excerpts added greatly to the content of the book.
I have always preferred working independently, but the experiences in writing this second book taught me the value of working collaboratively—of incorporating the voices of others in my stories. Collaborative writing often adds rich detail to stories; it also takes much longer as ideas are checked with others, rewritten, and then checked again.
As a result of those experiences writing collaboratively, I will be doing several presentations over the next few months. For a list of presentations booked so far, please see the Events page of this website. I hope to see you at one of those sessions.
Thanks to everyone reading this Musing—I can’t believe how many “hits” my website gets in a week. A special thank you to everyone who was involved in helping me get this book completed.
I hope to see, or hear, from you in September.
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