The Cole Blackwater Blog

First Proofs

2010-01-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

It’s a strange term, because first proofs are the final chance I have to review the manuscript for the Darkening Archipelago before it goes to the printer on January 25^th.

I’ve been holed up in Banff, Alberta this week, staying at a friend’s condo while she is away over the New Year. Jenn and I have been skiing every day, and I’ve been rising early to work on a new book called The End of the Line, and to review the D.A. It’s a little nerve wracking; of course I’m finding mistakes, and there are sections of the book that I might change a few words in if I had the opportunity to write them over, but otherwise, I’m reasonably happy with the manuscript as it stands.

It’s hard to believe that the story that I laid out on a 20 foot long roll of butcher paper in the tiny library at Hollyhock almost four years ago is finally going to see the light of day in less than two months.

Book Signing in Canmore, New Year's Eve

2009-12-30T09:41:00.000-08:00

I'll be at Cafe Book's on Canmore's Main Street from 3-5pm on December 31st. I'm there to support my favorite local bookseller, connect with old friends and maybe sell a few books to folks who didn't get everything they wanted for Christmas this year. If you're in the Bow Valley for New Year's come by and share some holiday cheer and say hello.

Have a Killer Christmas

2009-12-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

Looking for the perfect Christmas gift for the activist on your list? Know somebody who cares about wildlands and wildlife but doesn't want to be hit over the head with an environmental message every time they pick up a book? Or maybe, like me, you are a closet crime fiction junkie and want a mystery with a message!

Consider giving The Cardinal Divide: A Cole Blackwater Mystery this Christmas. In The Cardinal Divide Cole Blackwater reluctantly finds himself solving the mystery that surrounds the murder of the manager of a coal mine on the boundary of Jasper National Park, Alberta. Cole must exonerate his friend who has been charged with the killing, and find the real killer, to save the the Cardinal Divide and the wildlands and wildlife that the mine will destroy.

"You are good! This book deserves a large audience," says Robert Bateman, wildlife artist and educator.

Order The Cardinal Divide by emailing me right now and I'll sign a copy to who-ever you are giving the gift to (give me the correct spelling of their name, please) and send it to you in the next week. Total cost to you will be $25 including postage. I'll donate $5 of that to the Sierra Club BC to boot!

Christmas doesn't get much better than that.

Times Colonist "Eco-Activism Goes Undercover"

2009-12-02T08:15:00.001-08:00

My thanks to Steve Carey, the environment reporter at the Victoria Times Colonist" for this great story on The Cardinal Divide, and employing fiction to tell an environmental tale. Steve's story takes a look at the mystery genre and how other writers are using it to convey important messages about making the world a better place.

Shortlisted: Banff Mountain Book Awards

2009-10-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Cardinal Divide: A Cole Blackwater Mystery has been shortlisted for The Canadian Rockies Award in the 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival. The award is presented annually to the best book about the Canadian Rockies entered in the Mountain Book Festival. The Mountain Book Festival is held at the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture November 5^th and 6^th.

To be nominated for this award, at the Banff Mountain Book Festival means a lot to me.

I went to the very first Mountain Book Festival, when it was still the poor cousin of the Banff Mountain Film Festival. That was 16 years ago: I was living in Lake Louise at the time, penning columns on mountain life and the mountain environment for the local newspapers, and dreaming that someday I might have a book to display at the nominations table.

I met Chic Scott at that Book Festival that first year, and we began what was a short-lived tradition of a cup of tea or coffee together to talk about climbing, skiing and writing. It’s been ten years since I sat down with Chic to talk shop; he’s nominated for the same award this year – as are friends John Marriott and Graeme Pole – so I hope maybe we can all meet to share stories about writing, photography and the mountains we love.

The landscape is the protagonist in The Cardinal Divide. The craggy ridge of the Divide itself is always there, as the soon to be deceased mine manager notes in the prologue of the book: “He craned his neck and looked south into the darkness, beyond the existing mine, toward the Cardinal Divide’s jagged back. In his minds’ eye he saw the reef of stone rising abruptly from the rolling foothills that broke against the implacable wall of the Rocky Mountains. Though the Divide was beyond his life of sight, Mike Barnes knew it was there. Could not forget it was there. So much angst over a hill.”

(A very real place: The Cardinal Divide)

And while the book is a murder mystery, it’s about very real issues and a very real place; issues that for more than a decade as an activist in Alberta I struggled with, and that for 30 years have been vexing many people across North America: How do we protect a place that we love from the overwhelming forces of single-minded progress? How do we bridge such a cardinal divide within our communities, when one group of people look back to short term exploitation to prosper while others look forward to sustainable solutions, back lack the means to implement them?

The Cardinal Divide doesn’t answer these questions, but set among the murder mystery is the story of a community’s connection to a powerful place. In asking the question we’re one step closer to an answer.

It’s a great honor to be nominated for this award.

Final Cover

2009-10-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

First, a hearty thank-you to all of those who voted for a cover for the forthcoming Cole Blackwater mystery The Darkening Archipelago. It was clear that the first option resonated with reviewers, so we opted to use this image of troubled waters and misty, foreboding islets. I also received a lot of feedback that the vertical orientation of the text simply didn’t work. Too hard to look at on the shelf, you said. I appreciated this advice, and passed it on to the talented team at NeWest Press, and they redesigned the cover with your comments in mind.

My thanks also to Alexandra Morton, friend and wild salmon advocate, who provided a few dozen amazing images of the setting for this book, the troubled Broughton Archipelago along British Columbia’s wild and convoluted coast.

The Darkening Archipelago is a murder mystery with a serious theme: the story is a race to keep both human souls and wild ecosystems from falling into unending darkness. I believe that the cover represents this well.

So here is the cover of The Darkening Archipelago. I’m very pleased with it, and I’m excited that in the next couple of days I’ll take a final look at the books edited text before returning it to NeWest for design, layout and printing. The book will be available early in the New Year! Of course, feedback is always welcome.

Stay tuned for more updates. You can read a synopsis of this the second book in the Cole Blackwater environmental mystery series by clicking here.

Pick a cover for the Darkening Archipelago

2009-09-16T12:08:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago I submitted the final draft of the Darkening Archipelago’s manuscript to NeWest Press for publication. The Darkening Archipelago is the second book in the Cole Blackwater Mystery series and is set in BC’s rugged Broughton Archipelago. Cole Blackwater and Nancy Webber are back, and are attempting to unravel the mystery of a first nation’s activist gone missing while investigating a virulent strain of sea lice that threatens to devastate wild salmon stocks in BC. A full synopsis can be read here.

NeWest has provided me with some possible cover options. The design for The Darkening Archipelago is similar to that of The Cardinal Divide (see below); but instead of a stylized image we’re going to use one of a few beautiful photographs provided by my friend and colleague Alex Morton. I’d like your feedback on the cover, and to know which cover option you think best suits the book.

Recall that the general tone of this second book is very dark, both for the protagonist Cole Blackwater, and for the entire ecosystem along BC’s coast, where salmon are the life blood and are threatened by salmon farming with a precipitous demise. Please use the poll on the right hand side of the page to mark your preference, and the comments section at the bottom of the page to elaborate or make further suggestions on the cover of the book.

The Darkening Archipelago is scheduled for release in early 2010.

(Cover One)

(Cover Two)

(Cover Three)

(The Cardinal Divide cover, for comparative sake)

Synopsis of the Darkening Archipelago

2009-09-16T11:08:00.001-07:00

The Darkening Archipelago is the second book in the Cole Blackwater Mystery Series. Set amid the convoluted knot of islands known as the Broughton Archipelago, on British Columbia’s jagged mid-coast, the novel joins the often heated debate over salmon farming and the demise of wild salmon stocks.

Eight months after a harrowing brush with death in Oracle, Alberta in series’ first book The Cardinal Divide, Cole returns to his dark and sometimes violent life in Vancouver. While Cole and newspaper reporter Nancy Webber were able to unravel the primary mystery surrounding the brutal murder of Mike Barnes, the manger of the coal mine destined to destroy the fabulous Cardinal Divide, greater mysteries remain. For Cole, the dark secret that surrounds his father’s untimely death in the family barn while Cole was visiting for the first time in twenty years drives him further and further into his seething rage. For Nancy Webber, who unwillingly finds that long forgotten feelings for Cole rise to the surface again, getting to the bottom of Cole’s family history becomes both a professional and personal obsession.

Now Cole has learned that his good friend and former client Archie Ravenwing has gone missing and is presumed drowned in a storm in the Broughton Archipelago, where he was a salmon fisherman and elder in the tiny First Nations community of Port Lostcoast. Cole flies to Port Lostcoast for a traditional potlatch to celebrate Archie’s life, and soon learns that his friend was unraveling a troubling mystery surrounding an outbreak of a particularly virulent strain of sea lice. These tiny parasites are a direct result of massive salmon farming operations in the Broughton Archipelago, and the strain that Archie had discovered could spell the end of wild salmon along this wild stretch of BC coastline.

Cole and others in the community of Port Lostcoast begin to wonder if Archie really was swept overboard in a spring storm, or if his death may in fact be linked to his troubling discovery. In a community rife with suspects who wanted Archie out of the way of “progress” Cole must face his own dark demons while confronting the mystery of his friend’s untimely demise.

In the end it’s a race against time: to save an innocent whose own knowledge of the mystery of the Broughton Archipelago puts her in mortal danger; to unravel the secrets that Cole holds locked in his heart about the night of this father’s violent death; and to save the wild salmon who are like an electric current bringing life to an entire ecosystem. The Darkening Archipelago is a race to keep both human souls and wild ecosystems from falling into unending darkness.

2009-09-16T11:04:00.001-07:00

Writing the End of the Book

I had lunch with a friend in Toronto recently. He’s a literary agent. He’s one of the best in the business, and represents more than 350 of Canada’s brightest lights in literature, theatre, art and culture. I was there on other business, but we did have a few minutes to chat about my own writing career, and the news he delivered brought no cheer to my bookish heart.

According to my friend, book sales are down about 40% across Canada. This is part of a trend that pre-dates our current economic slump, and therefore will likely not respond when the economy starts its languid recovery.

It seems that I’m writing at the end of the age of books.

For those on tenterhooks for me to cut-to-the-chase (a rarity) here it is: I love writing books, and want to keep doing it. So how, in the age of Twitter and Facebook and Kindle and E-Readers, can an upstart like myself make money crafting stories more than 140 characters in length? Jump to the end of this posting to add your comments.

For the rest of you:

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that my Dharma – my purpose in life – is to write. I’ve been scribbling most of my life. When I was a teenager I used to slip out the back door in the middle of the night and perch under a street lamp and write the most ghastly, angst ridden poetry. I’ve penned stories for my collage newspaper and for The Globe and Mail; sold more than one hundred and fifty stories to dozens magazines and papers and had two books published; all the while trying to hold down other meaningful work to afford luxuries such as a mortgage, child support and premium beer.

So this news sucks. At least, it seems to.

And I’m trying to figure out what to do. I think a lot of writers are.

I’ve always said that the writing part of being a writer is easy. I’ve never had much trouble getting the words out. I’ve never experienced writers block. I have often suffered from a scarcity of time to write, and more often from a lack of focus or discipline, but my challenge hasn’t been writing: my challenge has been to make a living writing. The last time I tried was in the mid nineteen nineties and it was slim pickings’ around the Legault household, let me tell you (domestic beer….).

Making a portion of my living as a writer is important to me. It’s a symbol that my writing has value to others; it’s a symbol that people are reading my writing and that they are willing to support my writing with their hard earned pay. Earning at least part of my income as a writer will allow me to keep writing for some time to come.

There’s a lot to be said for the notion that I should just keep writing regardless of who wants to pay for it. If it’s my purpose to write, then I should let nothing stop me. There’s also something to be said that the need to be read has a good deal to do with my ego. While both arguments are true, I’m exercising my basic human right to ignore them.

I’m not a big trend spotter. I still have a pair of “dad-jeans” in my closet. But here are the trends that I see in writing and publishing: first, books are being replaced by digital media. E-books are a part of that, but blogs, citizen journalism, and all manner of social networking sites are providing content where professional writers, journalists and novelists once plied their trade.

Secondly: online, content still seems to be king, but it seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

I recently signed up for Twitter, which until a couple of weeks ago I thought would make me look like a complete twit. I have a hard time taking anything on which one tweets very seriously. But there it is. I have three followers, and I’m pretty sure they are just a “pity” group; you know, the people who choose to follow me because I picked them as the people I wanted to follow.

One friend suggested that Twitter was like Facebook, but with less crap, and shorter postings. To me, Twitter seems like a microcosm of what is happening to content, and I’m trying to figure out how I can compress what I’m trying to say with my life into 140 character Tweets. (For example, last week I sent the manuscript for my next novel – The Darkening Archipelago – to my publisher. At 610, 654 characters (110,000 words) I would have to post 4,362 tweets to convey this books content to the Twitosphere. My three followers might protest. At least their dissent would be brief.)

Digital media contains much promise, and some considerable peril, for writers. I feel like a messenger without a medium.

The digital book market today is where the digital music market was five or ten years ago, but without the promise of Napter to force a solution, though Google might provide the necessary incentive for more publishers to recognize the trend. E-Readers like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader could be to books what the iPod was to music, but they have yet to catch the imagination and wallet of the general public. The promise is great: who didn’t want one of those crazy reading tablets that Captain Jean Luc Picard had on Star Trek the Next Generation? But Captain Picard didn’t have to tot his around in rainy Vancouver, or worry about running out of power in the middle of a plot twist. He didn’t read in the bathtub much, though that’s unsubstantiated.

And what will happen to Libraries and book stores if books vanish? Will the great books stores of my life go the way of Sam the Record Man?

Then there is the story of the Cushing Academy, a prep-school near Boston, Massachusetts, that is replacing its collection of 20,000 books with 18 Kindles, three giant flat screen computer monitors, and a coffee shop. The headmaster explains that he’s replacing the schools meager collection of books with millions becoming available online.

I just don’t know what to make of that.

My literary agent friend explained that I’m a writer between mediums. Books are dying and digital media has yet to catch hold. We’re struggling how to monetize this new format.

But monetize it we must. As a lifelong environmentalist, I know we can’t keep printing books on paper, even if it is ancient forest friendly. I can’t write environmental murder mysteries on an environment that has been murdered.

And monetize it we must: if anybody but the biggest names in literature are going to keep writing books, then we have to find a way to pay them. If we don’t, we’ll all just be blogging about what we did on the weekend with our kids.

I’ve always imagined myself to be a pretty modern person. A little stogy, but also on the cutting edge. Ok, maybe not. But I want to be. And it looks as if I will have to be, if I’m going to write books for a living. I just don’t know what my books will look like when I finally trick a big publisher into accepting my stories for print.

So I turn to you: tell me what you see as part of the trend in digital publishing: how are writers going to make a living? What is the future of books? What can we do to actually get out in front of this transformation of the written word?

2009-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Ups and Downs

I had hoped to be writing a note about the forthcoming publication of the next Cole Blackwater mystery at this time, but it seems that book publishing in Canada has not been exempt from the vagrancies of the global economic flu. My publisher wrote recently to inform me that they are putting off publishing The Darkening Archipelago, the next book in the Cole Blackwater series, until the spring of 2010.

This is a disappointment, and I’ll admit not just because I wanted to see the DA in print. What I want is to see the next book after the DA in print, and soon. I have more ideas than I know what to do with, and waiting for books already written to be published feels somehow constricting.

The simple fact is that writing just about anything creative, from my short essay-like entries on my blog Running Towards Stillness, to penning the Cole Blackwater books and other bits of fiction, is what brings me the most professional happiness and satisfaction. To be able to do this more regularly, without having to shift my attention to so many other professional matters such as fund raising and consulting, I need to actually earn a living at it.

It’s a dilemma that many aspiring writers face.

And so publishing The Cardinal Divide has had its share of ups and downs. People who have read it seem to really enjoy the book. Some of them write me to tell me so, which blows my mind. Connecting with a reader who has enjoyed the book brings tremendous satisfaction.

Doing readings for the book hasn’t. I flew to Saskatoon in the dead of winter to read for four people! There were five in Calgary. Mind you, I enjoyed talking with the people who were in the room, bless their hearts. I would have liked a bigger audience, buying more books is all.

All that said, penning Cole Blackwater stories is very satisfying. And I can promise you three books, though who will publish the third book is yet unknown. I know that takes a little suspense out of the process for you as a reader. Spoiler Alert: Cole doesn’t die at the end of book one or two. But I make no promises after that. The first three books are really written as a trilogy where Cole must not only confront the external challenges of mining, fish farming and urban development, but also the internal battle of fear and anger that threatens to consume him. How that turns out for Cole is part of the mystery.

Enjoy the Cardinal Divide, and know that the Darkening Archipelago is on its way, if delayed a few months. Hopefully the adage is true that good things come to those who wait.

2009-03-23T11:49:00.001-07:00

CBC All Points West Interview

Recently I had the chance to do an interview on CBC British Columbia's afternoon drive-time show, All Points West. This was a kick off to Mystery Month. You can hear the interview here (if you have REAL Player) by scrolling down until you see the Cardinal Divide's cover.

2009-01-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

Talking about Writing

Since the Cardinal Divide was released I’ve had the opportunity to do two readings, one in Canmore, Alberta on November 13^th, and the second in Calgary on December 17^th. It hardly qualifies as a break-neck pace for a book tour: my style is more opportunistic. Until someone comes along with a publicist and event organizer in tow, I’m going to pick the low hanging fruit.

Neither reading was to a sell-out crowd (Cole hates sell-outs….), but both were fun! I want to thank Joy and her staff at Café Books in Canmore, and Chris and the gang at the Alberta Wilderness Association (who went way beyond the call of duty with the masking tape outline – see below) for hosting the events.

The reading was fun, but as Edward Abbey liked to muse, writers like talking about writing as much (or more) than they like writing itself, and so gabbing with friends and book lovers about the books, the writing process, and what’s next for Cole Blackwater was a great.

In January I’m off to Saskatoon to do a reading, and at some point before the tulips come up I’m going to have to pull something together in Victoria.

(an intimate group at the AWA office in Calgary)

(Chris at the AWA office took the theme of the evening to the limit)

2008-11-08T07:57:00.001-08:00

The First Review

My former editor, from the time when I wrote a column for the Canmore Leader, penned a review of the Cardinal Divide for the Rocky Mountain Outlook. Its well worth a read!

Also, please note that the book launch has been moved from Wednesday the 12th to Thursday the 13th of November. Apparently Fortis is shutting down the power on Main Street in Canmore that night to do some work...So we're on for Thursday at 7pm at Cafe Books.

2008-10-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

Two Boxes of Books

Walk through a book store as an author and you become humbled. Each shelf is stacked with hundreds of books, each having been crafted over many years – some a lifetime – and finally published and put there for the public to hopefully buy. Walk through a bookstore as an aspiring author and you become humbled, and something more: frustrated? If all of these folks can do it, why not I? Meek? All of these books – hundreds of thousands, if not millions: what difference does one more make?

About ten days ago I received two boxes of books from NeWest. My allotment of ten offered by the publisher, and a score more that I bought with my second advance cheque. I eagerly opened the first box and lifted out a fresh copy of the Cardinal Divide. It was a wonderful experience. The book looks great, feels great, reads great. I couldn’t be happier with the job NeWest has done.

What difference does one more book make? Maybe none. Maybe some. Maybe a whole lot. But to me it matters because all of my adult life I’ve been writing and now for the second time I can take pride in the act of creation of something unique. Of all the things I've done in life to make a living, this beyond all else feels as if its what I am here to do.

2008-10-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Substantive form, The Back Story Part 2

While The Cardinal Divide had taken shape in a few days late in 2003, it was several years before it found any substantive form. During the winter of 2004 I managed to pen the first six chapters of the book, but I lost my momentum and the book languished for a while. I didn’t stop writing, I just stopped typing. I do a lot of “writing” in my head, playing with the characters and mapping out story ideas while I’m running or walking in the mountains.

An injury in the summer of 2004 was a boon for the book. I pinched my sciatic nerve (playing with Lego with my nephew) and had to bail halfway through a 250-kilometre backpacking trip. I swallowed a fist full of Advil, found a bottle of gin in the freezer, and drove to the Columbia Valley to hide out at my friend Mark Holmes’ place. I used the remaining six days of my down time to write an outline of the entire book.

Which then sat untouched for more than a year and a half.

In April 2006 my first book, Carry Tiger to Mountain: the Tao of Activism and Leadership, was published by Arsenal Pulp Press. The year previous was consumed with the writing, editing, and marketing of that work, so Cole Blackwater was again put on the backburner. When Carry Tiger was set loose on the unsuspecting public, I found new energy for Cole Blackwater. In just over a month I penned 17 chapters, 75,000 words, and 278 pages. My one-day record was over the May long weekend, when on Sunday I wrote 31 pages and almost 8,000 words. Many, many tea bags were sacrificed to accomplish this feat.

I like writing first drafts, but to me this is a mechanical process. The detailed chapter outline written at Mark Holmes’ place two years before made the first draft easy to compose. With a detailed outline, the first draft is just a process of adding the filler to the plot. Much good narrative emerges and the general gist of the story forms, and from time to time I experience the pure bliss of creativity. But it’s the second draft where I find the real magic of writing. Here I can concentrate on the subtleties of character development and add prose to landscape descriptions. The second draft is my favourite part of the writing process. It’s the next seven or eight drafts I could do without….

2008-09-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

The Back Story to Cole Blackwater, Part 1

The Cardinal Divide was born of too much beer and not enough sun during a two-week vacation in Costa Rica in 2003. It was November and it rained nearly every day I was there. The lawn surrounding my tiny cabina became a shin-deep lake and red ants by the thousands invaded the airy hut, giving me something to do with my vacation time. Between bouts of fruitless struggle to prevent the formicidae invasion and mopping up after storm surges, I sat on the deck, drank cervaza Imperial, and read half a dozen damp and worn paperback mystery novels bought or traded from local vendors.

It wasn’t my first foray into the mystery genre. Tony Hillerman’s Skinwalkers was a gift from my colleagues at Grand Canyon National Park in 1994, and I read it on the inhumanly long journey home from the southwest that spring. For years I associated long cross-continental plane trips with Tony Hillerman books: stories just long enough to get me from Calgary to Toronto or back. My friend Paul Novitski gave me a Nevada Barr mystery in 2001, and I read a bunch of her excellent Anna Pigeon mysteries that year as well. I love James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series. But on the Costa Rica trip, I read The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Saunders and became hooked on the genre.

I started to think about what I might have to contribute to the mass of murder mysteries crowding the shelves of used bookstores. I’ve been writing since 1988, seriously trying to get published since 1993 or so. I always imagined myself as a composer of literary essays on the relationship between people and nature, or the writer of a desperately sad, tragic work of fiction in which the protagonist reveals something core to the nature of the human condition before succumbing to a broken heart.

While I didn’t see myself penning a mystery about a mine, I have been trying to stop mines from being dug in beautiful wilderness areas for the last twenty years. In 2003 the effort to stop the Cheviot Coal Mine from being dug on the northern side of the Cardinal Divide, just east of Jasper National Park, was one of the most important environmental challenges in Alberta. I had first become involved in this fight in 1995 when, as a freshman member of the Board of Directors of the Alberta Wilderness Association, I heard Ben Gadd and Dianne Pachal talk about the new plans for the mine. The Cardinal Divide had been much on my mind since I had first walked along its gently sloping, sinuous summit some years back.

Sitting on the porch of my cabina in Costa Rica in 2003, knocking back Imperials, I started to piece some thoughts together: Could I find a way to tell a story about a cherished, beautiful place in a way that might appeal to someone other than an armchair activist or closet environmentalist? Could I do it so that the novel didn’t simply rant against coal mining, but actually told a good story?

I remember something my friend and fellow writer Greer Chesher once told me when I worked for her at Grand Canyon National Park: “You have to have a plot.” Fiction can’t simply be a new, shiny vessel in which to carry around my polemic. As an activist, I’m always searching for new ways to interest the public in an important issue. As a writer, I’m always looking for a new story to tell while delivering a poignant message.

As I sat there, watching the Caribbean Sea, I let the issue, the landscape, and the story slowly congeal in my head.

The flight back was long and, late at night on the silent plane, I sat with a tiny notebook and jotted down the names of the characters: Cole Blackwater, Nancy Webber, Dale van Stempvort, Mike Barnes…. I wrote down the events of the fictional opening crime, and then I crafted the story around the truth that would make the book a mystery. By the time I had defrosted my aging Toyota pickup at the Calgary airport at 2 am, The Cardinal Divide filled two dozen pages in my little notebook. It would occupy my mind, and keep my fingers moving, for the next five years.

Next: Cole takes substantive form

2008-09-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

Your ideas wanted

Got creative juice? I’m looking for new ideas on how to get books into the hands of readers. I want The Cardinal Divide to be a commercial success, but know that the odds are stacked against it. It’s Canada, after-all. That being said, there are so many new ways to put literature, and social change motivated literature, in the hands of the masses, that I’m brimming with optimism. I’d like your ideas, please, gentle reader. What thoughts do you have on how to publicize The Cardinal Divide? New ideas? Old ideas with a new twist? Please fire them my way. I’m going to send a few free copies of the book to those who provide the best ideas, so make sure you include your email address.

2008-08-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

Four Days Early

I got word this morning that The Cardinal Divide will go to press today (Tuesday, August 26), a full four days ahead of schedule! A testament to the diligence of small but feisty NeWest Press, and the fine staff they employ. It’s pretty exciting to know that the book is now out of my hands. It’s also a little terrifying. There are no take-backs once the book is printed. You live with the mistakes. So in a month or so and Cole Blackwater will be lurking around book store shelves, and I'll get to live with the consequences. No matter: as Edward Abbey and the British Foreign Service both said: Never apologize, never explain....

2008-08-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

Character Flaws

On Sunday afternoon I had tea with Don and Mildred Kerr. Don is the nice man who as a volunteer board member and editor for NeWest Press called me back in November and left word that The Cardinal Divide would be published. We had never met face to face, so I was thrilled to make tea and serve Jenn’s mom’s famous peanut butter cookies.

We talked about stories. Don is a lover of plays and theatre, history and poetry and the author of some fifteen books. He’s also a founder of NeWest Press. Mildred is a retired social worker who has collected stories one person at a time over her forty years working with people in need of assistance.

No surprise, our conversation circled around to The Cardinal Divide and the second book in the series, The Darkening Archipelago, which Mildred had just read in manuscript form. I mentioned to Don that I’m working on a historical mystery series where the protagonist, a North West Mounted Police officer, suffers from a gun-shot inflicted disability. Don said, “of course he’s disabled. Just like Cole Blackwater.”

Cole is of reasonably able body, but Don quickly pointed out his predilection for fighting and of course, I instantly took his meaning. Cole is injured. We just can’t see it as readily as we might in Durrant Wallace, the one-legged Mounted Policeman.

It’s the flaws in these characters that make them interesting. John Cardinal, in Giles Blunt’s excellent four-book series stole mob money from the lock-up to pay for his daughter’s collage education. Dave Robicheaux in James Lee Burke’s books is a recovering alcoholic who makes a habit of mashing in people’s faces as he bulldozes through New Iberia, Louisiana. Edward X. Delaney in Lawrence Saunder’s The First Deadly Sin finds himself torn between tracking down a serial killer and watching his wife slowly die in the hospital. These challenges, these flaws, these all-too-human challenges make the protagonists interesting. And so long as we as writers don’t trip over the fine line between fascinating and offensive, readers of mystery series tend to pick up the book as much for the characters as the plot.

The reason I recently read Ian Rankin’s Exit Music had nothing to do with the mystery that DI John Rubus had to puzzle out, and everything to do with my curiosity about how Rubus would actually exit the series.

Cole has his flaws. Some are predicable. He drinks. A boxer, he’d rather punch his way out of a corner than get backed into one. He’s a passionate, but somewhat incompetent father. His business is going south, fast. And he’s got dark secrets. Why did he have to leave Ottawa after having such a promising career? And what happened on the family ranch in the Porcupine Hills when he stopped there to visit his parents on his way west?

It was fascinating to sit and talk with Don and Mildred about Cole as if he was a somewhat annoying acquaintance that we can’t quite figure out, but who we always aggravate too at a party. As if he were actually human.

My hope is that the plot of The Cardinal Divide will carry the book, but that Cole will lodge in reader’s imaginations. My hope is that readers will find Cole Blackwater interesting enough that they would want to hoist a jar with him at the Cambie Hotel. My hope is they’ll like him just enough to buy the book, and read the second instalment in the series to find more about what makes Cole human.

2008-08-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

Lost: The real Cardinal Divide

Pulling together some back of the book material for the publication of The Cardinal Divide, I was recollecting that when I was introduced to that landscape in 1995 by Ben Gadd and Dianne Pachal, various factions were conspiring to dig a twenty-two kilometre long open-pit mine along the north side of the Divide, back toward Jasper National Park. I went there on an Alberta Wilderness Association field trip and fell in love with the sensuous curve or the earth, and for many years afterwards, lobbied for its protection. I even recall sitting with then Minister of Fisheries and Oceans David Anderson, pleading the Cardinal Divide’s case, but to no avail. When powerful forces are bent on the destruction of a place for profit, citizens groups and the wild creatures that inhabit our wildlands are easily overlooked.

So it has been with the real Cardinal Divide. While the Divide itself is protected from development in the Whitehorse Wildland Provincial Park, the area immediately to the north and west of that hight of land is not. In the novel, Cole sits on the crest of the Divide and looks north and west to where the real world ghost town of Mountain Park is located at muses about its uncertain future. In the real world, news from the folks monitoring the mining operations is that this region has recently been destroyed by road building and open pit mining for the real Cheviot mining operations. Five open pits are planned by Elk River Coal for the region, with two already complete. Massive road building operations have been underway for several years.

This view, from the crest of the Cardinal Divide, is just a memory now.

What ever purpose the novel The Cardinal Divide serves, it won’t stop Elk River Coal from mining in the Mountain Park region, and defiling the supurb view from this rare and precious landmark.

2008-07-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Dating

Word came down last week regarding publication dates for The Cardinal Divide. The book will go to the printer on September 1^st, and should be available at bookstores shortly after October 1^st.

NeWest is toying with an official launch around the middle of October. Release events in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary and Canmore are in the works. Check back in a few weeks for details!

I won’t say that this is overwhelming. It’s not. I passed overwhelming on the road to publication of this book a long way back. But it does feel extraordinary. This book has been five years in the making. As the date of release draws closer, it’s all beginning to feel less ephemeral. It’s starting to feel real.

2008-05-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Cover Stories

The Cardinal Divide now has a cover.

The cover has a story.

Someone who doesn’t know anything about selling books once said that “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Tell that to the millions of people who buy books every year. Stroll through a book store and let your eye wander over your favorite sections. What attracts your eye? What makes you want to pick a book up off the shelf? The title? The name of a favorite author? A name you recognize from a radio or TV interview? But as likely as not, the cover design will attract your eye.

The cover of a book says a lot about what’s inside. The cover reflects the mood of the book. It reflects the genre. It reflects the tone of the book.

The first cover design for the Cardinal Divide left me feeling disappointed. The title and my name were both in the current vertical arrangement, but the size and font left them nearly impossible to read. The colour was pretty drab, and there was no blood red image. I feared that possible readers would not be able to discern what the book’s title was, let alone pick it up off the shelf to read the back cover.

I love working with the book’s publisher NeWest Press, and didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, but I also really want the Cardinal Divide to sell well, and want to be proudly able to promote the book myself, something I just couldn’t do if I didn't like the cover. I asked Julian Hall and Jason Meyers for help, and got some great ideas.

But this really became clear when Jenn and I were on the ferry last week, sailing back from being in Alberta to Victoria. We sat in the bookshop and just let our eyes range over the books. Jenn asked, "what attracts you?" We made a list. I provided some feedback to NeWest based on this.

Because they are a great little press, NeWest took this feedback seriously, and sat down to redesign the cover. The end result is much more striking. Still vertical, too reflect the idea of a “cardinal divide”, the new colour and starkness of the blood red landscape really speaks to the tone of the story.

I’m going to be very proud to promote this book.

2008-02-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

The Cardinal Divide

A quick update on the publication of The Cardinal Divide. We've settled on this as a title, first. And second, the publicaiton date is November of 2008, which is great, great news! NeWest has been great to work with, speeding along the publication process. Its likely that future posts will be about early marketing and readings!

2007-11-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Rumours of Publication

News came this weekend that Blackwater, now under the working title "The Cardinal Divide Deception" will finally and at long last be published.

Over a year ago (November 6th, 2006 to be precise) I sent a previous version of the manuscript to NeWest Press. I got a call from one of their editors on Friday, maybe Saturday (he left a message) saying they wanted to publish it.

It took a long time. A long time. The book was conceived in Costa Rica in November of 2004. I remember sketching the characters out in a note book on the flight back between Houston, TX and Calgary, AB. I wrote a few chapters that winter, and then the complete outline the following summer while laid up with a pinched sciatic nerve. I finally got down to writing the whole damned thing after moving to Victoria in 2005. The current version is number 6 - six nearly complete front to back edits or re-writes. And there will be at least one, or maybe two, more before we're through.

After so long, its almost hard to believe this is happening.

When I write these mysteries I feel that I am truly in my element. They are easy to write. They flow. I write the first draft of them in a matter of months. Though there are many things I love to do, writing these books about the scruffy Cole Blackwater is certainly part of my Dharma - what I am meant to do. I don't judge it. Sure, they are mysteries. And yes, each has an important message. What is important is that when I am writing them, it feels more they I am simply the portal through which the stories emerge into this world.

Pushing aside tears, telling the people who are most important in my life that this was happening was a real gift.

If there is a downside, its that its going to take two more years for this book to hit the shelves. That feels impossibly long. But I'll bite my tongue for now and see where this goes, and be grateful that this dream is finally coming to fruition.

2007-10-17T18:53:00.001-07:00

The Cardinal Divide Deception

So Blackwater has a new name: the Cardinal Divide Deception. Just too much negative conotation with blackwater - what being murderous thugs who do the US military's dirty work in Iraq and all.

And it has been fully edited and sent off to Cormorant Press for review. Check back in say, 6 or 8 months to see what they have said.

2007-05-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

And now there are three

It took much, much longer to pen The Lucky Strike Manifesto than I had expected. Back in January I had set as a goal to use two quiet months from my consulting practice to churn out the next two novels – in very rough draft form – in the Blackwater Mystery series. Darkening Archipelago came together quickly. But then my phone started ringing off the hook, and I took on three new clients, and my writing time shrank to the early morning hours. I started getting up at 4 a.m. as often as I could to make up for the lost time. Then I moved at the beginning of March, and that physical and emotional change also took its toll on my writing time.

All that being said, I finished a very rough draft of The Lucky Strike Manifesto yesterday. It’s a much meatier book than the first two. At 470 pages, and 122,000 words its longer, and the plot is much more complex. As with the first two books, I love the characters, and am excited about the opportunity to talk about some of the important issues of our day without having to beat people over the head with the message. The book deals with poverty and homelessness in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and with mental illness as a strong, important sub-theme.

Now I’m going to do edits on all three books, and continue my effort to connect with a publisher.

2007-02-23T05:42:00.000-08:00

Darkening Archipelago takes shape

In a flurry of spastic tapping that surprised even me, I finished the first draft of the Darkening Archipelago on Tuesday morning (February 20, 2007). In 28 days I wrote 310 pages and 90,000 words.

Inspired while revising Blackwater, the first in what I believe will be a series of environmental and social justice murder mysteries, for the Arthur Ellis Best Unpublished Mystery Award, I set a goal of writing first drafts of books two and three in the series by the end of March.

Revising Blackwater involved moving the important chapter where Cole learns of the murder of a leading proponent for the mine he has been hired to stop from a place 1/3 of the way into the novel to the very front. It also involved moving a scene from the prologue to a climatic scene further on the book. Doing this got me really jazzed about the characters and the story, and excited about the next two novels. I strengthened some characters, worked on dialog, and touched up some personalities that were a little rough around the edges. It was great fun!

There was some other forces at play. My other work as a consultant was quiet. There was money enough in the bank to pay the mortgage for a couple of months. And with the turning of the seasons back towards the light (Candlemass occurred half way through the writing of the Darkening Archipelago) I was able to resume my early morning writing. As an author, its important to recognize the conditions that allow for creativity to flow. Seizing those opportunities - even paving the way for them - is critical to the art form.

For the next week I'll be doing a preliminary edit of the Darkening Archipelago, then it will be onto book three, The Lucky Strike Manifesto.

2007-01-02T16:59:00.000-08:00

Two steps forward…

And now, revise again. Over the holidays I decided to revise Blackwater. My intent is to rewrite the first six or eight chapters to match the faster pace of the later half of the novel, and move the murder to the front of the novel, so that readers get into the meat of the plot right from the start. My goal is to have it complete by the end of January so I can enter the book in the Canadian Mystery Writer’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Unpublished Mystery. I'll post an update towards the end of the month.

2006-10-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

Start Again

Since 1994 I have been trying to publish books. Many different books. Any book? No. A good book. A book that explains what I feel to be true in the world. A good read. A compelling story. Something that will make people laugh, think, cry, stay up really late at night eating something fattening.

When Arsenal Pulp Press, in a moment of delusional weakness, said yes to Carry Tiger to Mountain a year and a half ago, it was a dream come true. I thought, this is it! Easy street, here I come! Don’t mistake me, I didn’t think I’d actually make money. I’m not so naive as to believe that a writer of the application of ancient Taoist proverbs to modern business and activism would actually pocket much of a pay-check. But I had hoped it might be a foot in the door in the publishing industry. I do, after-all, have a dozen or more book ideas on paper and in my head.

As William Faulkner once said (we have similar troubles), he could paper his walls with rejection letters. Me too. If you could use emails to do the deed. I long ago stopped saving the PFO letters. Now I'm amassing a pretty impressive file of no-thank-you's for Blackwater.

What is the moral of this sad tale? Keep on. Start again. Back on the horse, etc.

So today I start the next round with Blackwater. Unsuspecting literary agents, publishers, be warned.

2006-10-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

Sigh. They said no. As a small publisher, they had a two year backlog of titles. They promised to send some notes about the book, which would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

So back to square one. I think I'm going to focus on finding an agent now.

I suppose I thought that once I had one book under my belt, the second one would be easier, but not so. I really shouldn't have been surprised. Publishing in Canada is a really tough business, and I'm a really unknown writer. But letting this get me down won't get me any closer to publishing Blackwater, so I'm just going to cowboy up and get busy.

2006-10-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Nothing yet. Friday comes and goes and, not unexpectedly, I don't hear from the publisher. It's a small press I'm courting (the publisher answers the phone himself) so my guess is that they are pretty busy. Monday, maybe? I'm practicing patience, and non-attachment.

2006-10-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

Waiting. In late August I submitted the manuscript for Blackwater to a small, Canadian press with a mystery/crime imprint. I asked that they get back to me by the end of September one way or another. After that, I said, I would start shopping the book around to other agents and publishers.

I followed up with them yesterday, and was told that they were giving it serious consideration, and would have an answer by Friday!

I’m trying not to get too invested in the answer. If they say no, there is always another. It took me three years to find a publisher for Carry Tiger to Mountain. More than a dozen if you count back to when I first started pitching book ideas (like a major league hurler warming up, just throwing everything I could get my hands on).

So Friday. Waiting.

2006-07-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

Blackwater finished at Hollyhock

A few days ago I finished Blackwater, sitting in the Library at Hollyhock, on Cortes Island. During my six days there I managed to edit from cover to cover the entire manuscript, input all the changes, and give it a once over for formatting and layout. Not the most glamorous part of the writing process, but necessary none the less.

Today I shipped the manuscript off to an agent for a look see. I likely won’t here back until the end of August or September.

While at the Hock, I managed to get to work on the next project.

I had intended on picking up Becoming Sand, a novella that I wrote in 1997 about Pacific Rim, lost love, transitions, and the inter-tidal zone, with the intent of adding another 150 pages to its existing 100. But two things kept me from starting on it: 1) I read what I had written on the plane going to Toronto a couple of weeks ago, and it really, really sucked. Well, most of it really sucked; and 2) what didn’t suck was so hopelessly sad, that I couldn’t face it right now. My intent in writing Becoming Sand was to pen something that felt like Blue Rodeo’s super-sad songs, complete with a lot of pedal-steel guitar. What I got was some really awful writing, with a really sad story buried beneath it.

Well, I just can’t deal with that right now.

So instead, I’m going to continue to focus on Cole Blackwater. He’s a sad dude too, so that makes me happy, and the second book in the Blackwater globally-syndicated series will be a pivotal one in terms of the development of the defining moments of Cole’s life. It’s called the Darkening Archipelago, and is set in the Brighton Archipelago, where clashes between salmon farming, wild salmon fishermen, first nations and activists are creating real world drama that Cole will find himself wading neck deep into. While on retreat at Hollyhock I was able to get 18 chapters outlined, and did a lot of the work to develop the plots and subplots. I’ve got another ten, maybe twelve chapters left to sketch out, and then I can start writing again.

Once again, Hollyhock provided the ideal location for thoughtful reflection on a creative endeavour, and I am forever in their dept for the amazing work that they do. For those who are looking for a place to spend time writing, painting, drawing, or just working through some ideas that need a peaceful backdrop to come to life, consider Hollyhock for your inspiration.

2006-07-04T06:28:00.000-07:00

Back to the beach

Life is hard, but I will suffer its indignities in the pursuit of my art.

Yesterday afternoon I bussed it down to Cardboro Bay to sit on the beach at Gyro Park to begin the third (and hopefully final) edit of Blackwater. I arrived around 4:30 pm, the sun still high in its arc across the painfully blue sky. A gentle onshore breeze kept things just cool enough for comfort. I read for a couple of hours, before hoofing it home.

I started this habit when editing Carry Tiger to Mountain last August. Every afternoon for a week or so I sat on the beach for a few hours, reading the manuscript straight through. Reading it in paper form is really the only way to get a feel for the writing in it’s entirely. It has to feel like a book to read like one, I argue.

Now with Blackwater I’ll try to continue that tradition. I’m going to head up to Hollyhock for a few days over the weekend to sit and read, edit, to think about, and sketch out the sequel to Blackwater.

Life is good.

2006-07-03T04:28:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, Cole Blackwater emerged more fully into the light.

Cole is the reluctant protagonist of a work in progress, simply titled Blackwater. This book, in the works for a couple of years, but really the subject of my writing since Carry Tiger to Mountain was released at the end of April, is a environmental murder mystery.

Cole took one more step closer to publication as Kathleen – my partner and editor – completed her first full review of the manuscript. I’ve now incorporated all of her feedback into my draft of the book, and will give it a final review before presenting it to a literary agent in the coming weeks.

The book now stands at 409 pages in length, with 119,000 words.

I feel really good about it. I like the pacing, and the characters are developing nicely. Some, as Kat has pointed out, are a little one-dimensional, so some work remains there. And I need to dress up some of the writing in places where it remains flat. But in general I feel strongly that Blackwater is a solid book. I only hope those in the publishing industry feel the same.

But beyond anything else, I feel like this book has deepened my passion for writing. It has been so much fun to pen this mystery, and to weave in the work that I have done for the last 18 years.

So now what? Well, print the novel, and read it cover to cover.

And then, start on the second Blackwater mystery, tentatively called The Darkening Archipelago. I have five or six more ideas for stories in my head, which adds up to months and months and months of more delicious writing.

2006-06-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

Mock Orange

My writing shed is under the spreading branches of a Mock Orange tree. It stands a solid dozen feet tall, and its branches spread as wide. When our home was purchased in March of last year, we had no idea what this dense, just then leafing shrub was. In early June the first flowers began to appear, in ones and twos, and by mid month, the tree was festooned with flowers beyond counting. They perfumed the air, not ostentatiously, but with grace. Subtly. Delicately.

On late spring evenings that aroma wafts into our bedroom window, dousing my sleeping family with its fine scent. It is mildly intoxicating. It sends me reeling. I am very sensitive to fragrance.
The place where I write and work is an eight by twelve foot shed. The previous owners of our home used it for storage. It was rough. A plywood floor, battered drywall and gaudy florescent overhead lights. There were business cards for ammo and gun shops thumb tacked to the walls. But at least it was wired, and it was structurally sound. In February I gutted it. It took the better part of a week to find space for all of the stuff that was stored in it. Then I pulled down the ceiling, tore out all but two of the ceiling spanners, and patched or replaced the drywall. My friend Martin put in a new window. The old one was three feet long and a foot or so high. Really just a portal. The new one is five feet across and four feet high and offers a picture perfect view at the Gary Oaks and poorly kept lawn in the front yard.

A new pine ceiling, new wiring, heat, new lighting, telephone and internet lines (which involved Martin spending more time than he would have liked under my house), paint (Tibet blue and a light/blue grey contrast wall and trim) and carpet. By April I was able to move in.

The Mock Orange reaches out over the roof. The walkway from the house to Tumblehome – my name for my little space, taken from canoeing lore – is littered with mock orange petals. With the approach of July, the blossoms are fading. Another year slips from my grasp. It’s like trying to catch the falling petals. By August the petals will have vanished, and the Mock Orange will have no fragrance at all.

But tonight, as I work my way through another round of edits on Blackwater, a delicious, cool breeze assuring a fine sleep later, my writing space is scented with the Mock Orange blossom. It’s very fine to be alive in this trees embrace.

2006-06-16T16:03:00.000-07:00

Blackwater passed another milestone today. I finished the first round of edits on the manuscript! This included filling in a couple of gaps – chapters that I had skipped over while writing the original text – as well as making sure things were reasonably consistent throughout. You know, character names, places, time lines. Turns out I had three different names for the dude who gets killed, and that just wouldn’t do.

This was as enjoyable as I expected it would be, and I feel really good about this book. I like the characters and think the plot is good. But most of all, I’ve really enjoyed the process! It’s been a joy to write. While Carry Tiger to Mountain was a necessary book, it was hard. It was a good sort of hard, the kind of hard that makes you a better person, blaa blaa blaa. But the writing was intellectual and emotional and at times, gut wrenching.

Blackwater, on the contrary, as been easy. The characters took on lives of their own. Their dialog with each other came easily. Additions that I made to the plot suggested themselves.

The book stands at a solid 425 pages, and 125,000 words long. During this editing process I added almost 15,000 words, which included writing the better part of chapters six and seven from scratch. It’s in these chapters that Cole Blackwater meets the man who eventually gets killed. In the first go round – which predated this recent spasm of writing – I had a hard time figuring out who this character was. I mean, he gets his head mashed in, so what did it matter? But of course, it mattered a lot, because every suspect had to have a motive based on his personality and actions. But last week while working on this on the ferry, coming back from doing a reading of CTTM, this character just let himself out of my head, and onto the page. Nice. The way it should be.

I got to add a lot of prose in this round, some of it pretty darn purple. Cole of course is motivated by nature, and so I had to have him pondering the fate of the ill-fated Cardinal Divide in order to give his motivation some depth.

And unexpectedly, I found a layer of mystery about Cole’s past that I hadn’t really developed in the first round of writing that I think makes the book so much more tense.

I short, I loved writing this book.

So now what? Well, I’m incorporating a round of revisions from my editor extraordinaire, and then I need to find Blackwater a home. Stay tuned.

2006-05-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

This morning I finished the first draft of Blackwater.

Since launching Carry Tiger to Mountain on April 27th, I’ve found new energy and enthusiasm for writing. I might also be the season, the dark days of winter have passed and spring is in full bloom. Whatever the case, I’ve been up almost every morning at 5am to write for two or three hours before starting my “day job” consulting. The result has been amazing. Since April 27th (about one month) I’ve written 17 chapters, 75,000 words and 278 pages. My one day record was over the May 24th long weekend, when on Sunday I wrote 31 pages and almost 8,000 words. Previously I had written the first 6 chapters. Only the prologue and first chapter are anywhere near polished. I’ve really been just writing as quickly as possible (because I'm a romantic, I call this puking the words onto the page) and not worrying about how good the writing is, or if things are even spelt correctly.

Blackwater has a long history. The protagonist, Cole Blackwater, emerged from a name some friends of mine in Utah gave to me a long time ago – Glint Longshadow. This was the name that my friends from Tex’s Riverways gave me after fetching my friends and I at the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers post a 21 day canoe trip on the Green River. I guess I had the thousand mile stare going or something.

Cole emerged during a trip Kathleen and my older son Rio took to Costa Rica two and a half years ago. During our time on the Caribbean Coast, I sat and read five mystery novels in a short order, drank a lot of beer, and started kicking around the idea of Blackwater. I sketched the characters in my head first, and then, on the long flight back to Canada, I wrote biographical sketches of each character, and the premise of the mystery.

A few months later I pinched my sciatic nerve, and this forced me to abandon a ten day backpacking trip on day four. Kat and Rio were in Winnipeg, so I drove to the Columbia Valley and hung out with my friend Mark Holmes (who illustrated Carry Tiger to Mountain) and wrote the outline for this novel. It took about four or five days of writing 6 or 7 hours a day to get the 35 page outline done, but doing this has made this current burst of writing possible. Without this outline I’d be always wondering if I was getting the plot right. With it, all I’ve had to do is refer to it once or twice a day, and just write.

Now, the real fun begins! Starting tomorrow I’m going to dive into the second draft, polishing the writing (checking the spelling…sigh) and adjusting times, dates, names, plot lines to ensure they are consistent. My goal is to have this phase done by the end of June so that I can print a draft for review by my editor extortionate (Kat) in early July.

Follow more updates here.