The results are in… and I didn’t win for the novel I wrote over the Labour Day weekend in 2008. But the thing to note here is that I did finish a novel, and it’s a story I enjoyed writing. So, really, I came out a winner from the whole exercise, because I can now edit this novel and work with it further, maybe enter it into other contests, or eventually submit it to publishers. Or not. That’s now up to me and my editor to decide, whenever we feel that the novel is ready. But I have another finished novel. Will I enter this contest again next Labour Day? I doubt it. In another eight months, though, I will likely have forgotten what I went through during those last three days of writing. And, if I have a realized story in mind, well… what the heck? Might as well!

I will not mourn you, Mariann. It’s something you would never have wanted anyone to do. I know that, because when you came to read to my literacy class at the Bequia High School, it was from a favourite childhood story about children dealing with grief, and how death is a part of the natural cycle, that we should accept, not mourning the passing of anyone in our lives, but rather celebrating that we knew them. And I am very glad indeed to have known you, Mariann Palmborg. You were possibly the most self-assured, strongest-willed, independent, incredibly brave, and kindest woman I have even known. And the strength, encouragement and support you offered other women was palpable, and gratefully received by those of us who appreciated, and enjoyed, your friendship. Everyone on Bequia will speak of your never-ending crusade to rescue, feed, and protect the stray dogs on the island, but I will remember you for the enthusiasm and enjoyment with which you read every enstallment of my writing sent to you, for our long talks about books and music, and for your unwavering friendship. I’ll miss the phone calls on my birthday; from wherever you happened to be in the world, it didn’t matter, you were always the one person who remembered. And you encouraged me to follow my writing dreams, and my attempts to become truly who I am, and not the someone else others saw me as. I admire you, Mariann; I am grateful that I knew you; I’m sorry to not have had the opportunity to see you one last time, and to have the opportunity to tell you all of this while you were still alive. But I’m sure you knew, in any case, because you were that kind of woman. I will always remember you, and admire you, but I will never mourn you. These are not tears of sadness falling on the keyboard, but tears of joy that I had the privledge of knowing you, Mariann.

If my second novel is ever published, you will live on as Solfrid. Thanks for the inspiration.

As I write this, there’s a beautiful full moon setting in the Calgary sky, shining in through my apartment window. Unfortunately, I’ll miss the full moon party tonight in Bequia that’s being held as a memorial, and celebration of life, for Mr. Full-Moon-Party himself, Jean Poisson. Jean passed away last spring, and tonight will be feted, and remembered, by his family and friends in traditional full moon party style, with people gathering after sunset, bringing plenty of food and drink to share, and enjoying the view of the gorgeous full moon rising over Jean’s house, Roundhouse, in Moonhole at the far end of Bequia. I’ll be there in spirit, and I know many others who can’t be there, particularly Mariann Whyknot, will be there in their thoughts as well.

Thanks, Jean, for some great memories. We may not have always seen eye-to-eye, but, Damn!, you sure knew had to throw a good party, and you built the best venue on earth for viewing the full moon every month! Thanks for sharing that experience!

… about being back in Calgary – easy access to so many events, groups, and like-minded people. Last night I attended a meeting of Mystery Ink, the writing group I’ve belonged to for a couple of years, even remotely online when I still lived on Bequia. Nothing like being part of a group of supportive people all interested in accomplishing the same thing – in this case, writing mysteries – to get those creative juices flowing! Garry Ryan, author of several novels published by Newest Pr. of Alberta, spoke to us about how he puts together his own novels, and of his own experience being published. Instead of doing the usual lecture and Q&A, Garry jumped right into taking questions because he said he worked better that way. Lots of interest from the group (which was surprisingly large for a cold, snowy evening, as well as a Flames hockey night…) and Garry answered many thoughtful questions. I came home fired up again about my own writing.

Time to start thinking about entering some more contests!

Unfortunately, the promised chinook didn’t materialize for the city, but for everywhere surrounding it instead. So I returned to continuing sub-zero temperatures, snow, and ice fog. That fog certainly made all of the trees look lovely! Must take some pictures. And at least the roads have been cleared of most of the ice that had built up before I left for Bequia in Dec., so driving isn’t as trecherous as it was. And there were 32 boxes of publishers’ catalogues and samples waiting for me to unpack and sort. “Grins like Scaredy Squirrel”

I did manage to read a good number of books while I was away, and not all of them were for work, either. Now I’m preparing for the beginning of the short story writing course I’ll be studying online for the next few months – the same one I took in 2007, with Ann Ireland as the instructor. But this time I convinced four of my email writing group to join me, so it should be a lively discussion on the board! I have ideas for a number of stories to work on during that course, and must look through the new listings of competitions to see what I can prepare to send out. Plus I have the germs of ideas for two other novels that require long gestation periods before I can begin writing. They might actually be good outlines to prepare for the 3-Day Novel Contest and NaNoWriMo, if I choose to enter both again in 2009. My editor-extrordinaire is completing her magic on my 2007 NaNo novel. Can’t wait to see what she’s suggested for that; I know it will be great! So am feeling pretty chuffed about my writing at the moment. Just wish there were more hours in the day to devote to it, not to mention all the other things I have going on in my life at the moment.

I need a personal assistant who can focus my attention and organize each day for me so that I can fit it all in!

Probably the most significant difference in spending Christmas on Bequia is the nearly 60-degree difference in temps. from what I left behind in Calgary. That alone made the trip worthwhile! But it’s also nice to be back with Dennis, the cats, and my house for a couple of weeks, and catch up with old friends here. First thing last night, we went to Portofino, the new Italian restaurant owned and operated by our pals, Pammy and Tommy Cantina, and it was terrific! Lobster Ravioli – ya gotta love that!

I have PDFs of new books for the upcoming season loaded on to my computer, a couple of other traditional-form books to read, some writing to work on, and a lot of cooking to do, especially in that new pizza oven Dennis built. Am really looking forward to this break as a chance to be renewed and reinvigorated, so I go back to Calgary in 2009 with an even more positive outlook than I had during 2008 – my year of big changes, big decisions, and, ultimately, my very best year yet. If things get any better, I’ll be downright delerious!

I managed to write 34,000 words this month – not the 50,000 necessary to be able to claim victory in National Novel Writing Month, but still not bad at all. I’m happy with what I wrote and it just requires a bit more writing and a whole lot of editing for it to be considered an actual novel. A good month’s work, all in all.

I attended the all-night write-in at a restaurant with a large number (surprisingly about 30 people showed up during that night!) of other WriMotaurs – as we’re known in Calgary, because a minotaur looks like a cow and we’ve got of lot of ‘em in old Albertie - and I managed to eke out another 8,000 words on the novel. I also planned out a whole lot more action in the two chapters between the “lead up” and “when all hell breaks loose” parts of the story, so that felt very good.

But the interesting part of the whole night, and I was there from 6 p.m. on Friday until 4 a.m. Saturday morning (just couldn’t sit for those last two hours and have been trying to catch up on lost sleep ever since) was there were times when all 10-15 of us were totally silent and concentrating, the only noise being the tapping of fingers on keyboards, and the drunks who came in at 2:30 for something to eat. We were jam-packed into booths and at tables, side-by-each, but eveyone was busy, working towards the same goal of finishing their 50,000 words. The energy that spun off all this creativity was palpable – I think we were all plugged into each other’s creativity as well as to the several power/surge protector bars scattered around the floor.

It was a group of varied ages, too, from one girl of nine who had been allowed to stay for two hours, and a couple of teenage girls who received signed permission from their parents to stay the entire night (and I hate all of them because they’ve already completed their 50,000 words, with the nine-year-old well into her second novel since the 10th of November…) right up to the eldest… well, me! Let’s just say I was the only one attending that evening who qualified for the restaurant’s 55-plus senior’s discount.

Okay, so I’m limping along this year with writing for NaNoWriMo.It’s already the halfway point and I’m only at 11,319 words – pathetic! But, then, I didn’t have a fulltime job last year. In fact, come to think of it, I had nothing better to do with my time last year than to write. So this probably isn’t that bad a showing so far at all. But I still have a visit to Toronto to get through this weekend, and one week of sales conference in Vancouver before the end of the month, not to mention my job to work at. Fortunately, I managed to eke out 2000 words on the plane last night, silencing the plane noise by listening to the Moody Blues. If I can just keep up the 1000 words per hour I completed during that session, then I should be able to make it to 50,000 words before the end of the month. Piece of cake! I hope…

One day into NaNoWriMo and I managed to post 3428 to my word total. That’s a good start, and necessary, because I must front-end-load on the writing – I’m so busy this month with work, travel, and my first public reading of my writing in Toronto on Nov. 18th. This isn’t like last year when I had nothing to do but write throughout the whole month of November. But I do have an entire novel planned out, I know the beginning, middle, and end, I knew what the opening line would be, and even the last sentence, before I sat down to write yesterday morning, and I have a list of characters organized and know pretty much who they are. I can do it!