Ruth and Gwynn held their launch at Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge and kept us all entertained with readings, live music performed by singer and songwriter Kathy Himbeault, and even on-the-spot writing exercises. They did a great job of tailoring their launch to fit with the message of their book.

Tonight’s book launch is for another friend, Cheryl Rainfield. Cheryl is celebrating the launch of her new YA novel, Scars, at the 519 Church Street Community Centre in Toronto. The launch is a fundraiser for the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Woman Against Rape. Details on the book and on the launch can be found here. Scars is an important book and well worth reading, even if you can’t make it to the launch. Cheryl is a survivor of incest and ritual abuse, who used self-harm to cope. She will talk about ways people who self-harm and stop and things you can do to help your loved ones who self harm. The launch will also feature live music and a Wen-do demonstration.

And finally, on the topic of book launches, Orca Books published an article that I wrote for them as a four-part series on their blog. It’s a follow-up to my book-free book launch.

Introductory Post: How to Plan a Successful Book Launch

Part One: Find the Right Place

Part Two: Get the Word Out

Part Three: Know your Venue, Know your Crowd

Part Four: Be Flexible

Book Launch

My book launch, held on May 15 at Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge, was a huge success. There were more than 50 people there–far more than the 30-40 that I had guessed might come. I feel hugely grateful to everyone who came: my wonderful family and friends and writing buddies, and even some people from Uxbridge who read about the event in the local paper and came by to see what was going on.

Uxbridge Cosmos, May 13, 2010, first page (links to a PDF file of the first page of the May 13 Uxbridge Cosmos, featuring an article on Boarder Patrol written by Neil Coxworth)

Thank you so much, everyone who was there!

Special thank you’s to my incredible mother, who made not only the cake but also many of the door prizes, to Judy Diltz (“Aunt Judy”) for baked goodies, to Peggy Pflanzer (“Aunt Peggy”) for putting together a yummy cheese tray, to Susan Blakeney for delicious rhubarb tarts and for offering to drive my Toronto-based writer friends, to Marty Bays of MORTIS Photography for being thoughtful enough to capture the moments with his camera and for granting me permission to use the photos, and to Orca Books for donating several door prizes and helping with the launch expenses. And especially thank you to Shelley Macbeth, who let me use her beautiful bookstore for the event, who was helping for months ahead of time with the organization and details, and who managed to make a success of a tricky situation.

Here are some photos from the event.

Friends, family and readers at the Boarder Patrol book launch. Photo by MORTIS Photography, www.mortisphotography.com

My mom talking to my grade five teacher, Mr. Blackstock. Photo by MORTIS Photography, www.mortisphotography.com

Snowboarding consultant Travis Tedford with my dad at the book launch. Photo by MORTIS Photography, www.mortisphotography.com

Signing a copy of Boarder Patrol. Photo by MORTIS Photography, www.mortisphotography.com

You knew there had to be a picture of the cake. Cake by Susan Thomas, photo by MORTIS Photography, www.mortisphotography.com.

Apparently it’s traditional to have books at a book launch. We didn’t quite manage that part. The night before the book launch, Shelley Macbeth of Blue Heron Books phoned me with the bad news: the books hadn’t arrived! Between us, we managed to scrounge together 16 copies. For the rest, we worked out an advance order system. Everyone was very gracious and understanding, so even without the piles of books that Shelley and I had hoped to have on display, the launch was a success. I received the books last week, and I’m working my way through the pre-orders, autographing and delivering the books. So far, so good!

For more about the book launch, stay tuned for my blog post on planning a book launch, coming soon to the Orca Books Web site.

School Presentation

Three days after the book launch, I headed to Greensville School for an author presentation to the fifth grade classes. My friend Jennifer Vince, a teacher at the school, arranged for me to be there–for which I am extremely grateful! It was a lovely experience. Great kids, a beautiful library, and lots of opportunity to visit with some of the younger classes for informal Q&A sessions on writing. Lots of fun!

Sadly, I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask anyone to get pictures. Oh, well. Next time.

Deadline!

I’m very, very close to being ready to send a new draft of Wolves at the Gate to Paul Krop, the publisher at H.I.P. Books. So close, in fact, that I have set June 2 as the delivery date. I’m excited, because I think this is a much stronger version than what I had previously. I’ve received some useful and encouraging feedback from my writing group and from a couple of critique-based night classes where I’ve shared chapters. I’ve struggled a lot with this project, so it’s nice to see things finally coming together.

Now… gotta go write.

Things are well under way, though. Door prizes taken care of. Icing topper for the cake ordered. Crafts and decorations in hand.

Aaron and I even managed to put together a handy-dandy “Beginner’s Guide to Uxbridge”, for those of you coming from out of town and looking for things to do in the area.

Guide to Uxbridge

My authors’ copies of Boarder Patrol arrived in the mail last week. They look great. The cover is much shinier than on the ARC. Unfortunately, I don’t have any left, but I’ve ordered some more. I have bookmarks, too, thanks to the wonderful people at Orca Books.

Finally, here is the book launch poster. Hope to see you there!

Boarder Patrol Book Launch Poster

Boarder Patrol isn’t available yet, but here’s the link to the teacher’s guide. Enjoy!

New information:

Boarder Patrol Book Launch
Blue Heron Books
62 Brock Street West, Uxbridge, Ontario
Saturday, May 15, 2010, 2:00 p.m.

Stay tuned for a “beginners’ guide to Uxbridge”! I’m researching restaurants, parking, cool shops… all the best stuff to help you make a day of it. Because let’s face it, Uxbridge is a bit of a hike for most of us. But it’s worth the drive!

There will be lots of food and great door prizes. And one really cool guessing jar… but I’m saving the details on that one, because it’s a surprise.

Should be a fun time. Hope to see you there!

Erin Thomas Reading from “Boarder Patrol” from Erin Thomas on Vimeo.

The man who stands up at the end, when I’m walking back to my seat, is Mr. Blackstock. He was my teacher in fifth grade. My husband calls that sort of thing a “co-Whitby-dence”.

The reading is part of the second annual Coffee, Tea & Words 24-Hour Read-a-Thon, a fundraiser for the Literacy Council of Durham. I’m part of a group of readers from the Writers’ Circle of Durham Region; we’ll be reading for five minutes each. Other WCDR readers are Sue Reynolds, James Dewar, Carin Makuz, Dorothea Helms and Ruth Walker. I know these people and they’re all extremely talented writers–and good at reading in public, too! It promises to be a great show, with lots of interesting work shared.

Plus, it’s at a Chocolate Café. Yes, Chocolate. In case anyone is wondering about my willingness to read aloud. I will do many, many things for access to chocolate. I think the good cause is influencing people, too–Susanna Kearsley and Jill Edmondson will also be participating, at different points in the Read-a-Thon. This should be a great fundraiser for Durham Literacy.

(Incidentally, because the lovely Sue Reynolds fixed up my Boarder Patrol ARC picture, I’ll post it here rather than just linking to it. Just because I can. Thanks, Sue!)

Boarder Patrol Advance Reading Copy

Book Launch Date Set

On the topic of Boarder Patrol, I’ve finally set the date for the book launch. It will be held on Saturday, May 29, 2010, at Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge. I’m not sure of the exact time yet, but probably sometime during the early afternoon–starting at 1:00 or 2:00 or so. There will be cake. There will be door prizes. There will be nice people there, and an absolutely gorgeous bookshop to browse. It should be fun!

And look! Here’s the book on Orca’s web site. This makes it feel real!

Book Giveaway Contest!

Becky Levine (@Becky_Levine on Twitter) is hosting a book giveaway contest. All you have to do is leave a comment on her book review page, and you’ll be entered in a draw to win a copy of Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book… enough so that I probably shouldn’t tell anyone about this contest, because I’m hoping to win the draw. However, I can’t quite bring myself to be that mean. Here it is: Becky Levine’s review of Shiver.

Sometime last year, around the time my husband and I visited Stratford, I started thinking about acting. Not about me acting! No, no, never. I took Drama in grade ten because someone told me it was smart to have an easy course to bring up my average. Ha.

I started thinking about actors and what they have to do. A script is, more or less, just dialogue. Often really good dialogue (okay, absolutely brilliant dialogue), but dialogue nonetheless. Actors move beyond this and add all those tiny details and textures that make a character come alive. From what a character says, they’re able to reach down inside and build a whole person.

It’s not always the same whole person, either. Mel Gibson’s Hamlet is different from David Tennant’s Hamlet is different from Ben Carlson’s Hamlet. But the words are still the ones we studied in high school.

Granted, I know very little about acting (see comment above re: grade ten Drama). I do know what it feels like to watch when a character comes alive, though. It’s that moment when I forget that I’m watching an actor and just start watching the character. The actor becomes invisible.

So since I’m working my way into a line of business where it’s a good thing if characters come alive, it occurred to me that I might learn a thing or two from actors. I even toyed (briefly) with the idea of taking a class, but, well… grade ten Drama. I still have nightmares.

I thought I’d try reading about it instead. In a used bookstore, I found a lovely, red hardcover called “Modern Acting: A Manual.” That sounded like just the thing. It was published in 1936, but the basics couldn’t have changed that much, could they? It’s a dense little book. My bookmark is in chapter four, but I know I waded ahead to other bits as well. I enjoyed the glimpses into an actor’s life (“The actor’s body is his medium of expression”), but this wasn’t a book that was going to change the way I wrote. It drove home the importance of observation, but didn’t give me any new ways to think about it.

Then I came across “Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors,” by Brandilyn Collins. This made me very happy because, you see, someone had done the hard work for me. I love it when that happens.

This was the book I wanted. She draws on Method Acting (which I had heard of only in the sense that Viggo Mortensen is apparently a method actor and insisted on carrying his sword around New Zealand for four years) and applies it directly to writing. She uses examples from books, everything from David Copperfield to modern thrillers. And she gave me a new way to think about observation. Several new ways, actually.

She talks about Personalizing, a way to avoid stereotypes and make characters memorable. The chapter on Inner Rhythm was an eye-opener for me, as was the one on Action Objectives. Of everything in the book, I think it’s the action objectives (a driving power behind every action, every scene) that I’m going to keep foremost in my mind when I’m editing down my current project.

I can’t claim to have internalized everything in the book yet, or to be doing it right. I wish! I do know that I drafted a new novel shortly after reading this book and I did it differently because of what I had read. Better? Worse? It’s a new draft. Hard to tell. But I certainly have a better handle on this main character then on some I have written, and for me that’s rare in a first draft. My “bad guy” insisted on becoming more complex than planned, as well. I like him much better for it, although I’m not sure that my editor will.

I read a lot of writing books. This one stands out for me. I feel a bit guilty, actually, because I’ve told my writing group about it but not offered to lend out my copy yet. I’m not ready to let it go.

And the best part? Now I don’t have to take that drama course I was considering.

Public Reading–yikes!

One not-yet-outdated announcement: I’ll be reading from my new book, Boarder Patrol, at the Whitby Health & Wellness Fair. The Writers’ Circle of Durham Region has a booth there. Sue Reynolds and Ruth Walker will be “enthusing about the health benefits of following your heart and your muse” (according to Ruth), and various WCDR members will be reading throughout the day.

Ruth promises a captive audience, as we will be in the room with the snacks. Isn’t that kind of like live-band-in-bar syndrome? The band is fun if that’s what you wanted to hear, but if you’re at the bar to talk to the person beside you, it makes life difficult. I hope it won’t feel that way to the people at the fair. I’ll keep my reading short, just in case.

Also because the longer I’m up there, the more likely my sweaty palms will stain my lovely new ARC (Advance Reading Copy) of Boarder Patrol.

ARC Day

Which brings me to my second topic. My ARC came in the mail last Friday. It is beautiful. It is glorious. Picture available here.

After I spent most of the day jumping around the house and dancing with the book, I could not bear to be parted with it. I carried it, wrapped in its envelope for safe keeping, to my daughter’s piano and swimming lessons (Friday is a busy night). I have no shame; I showed it to the parents of the little girl in my daughter’s class, simply because they were sitting beside me. They were kind. New writers, like new parents, must beg the indulgence of others.

(Incidentally, the book will be available from Orca Sports in early May, and the book launch will be sometime in late May or early June at Blue Heron Books in Uxbridge, which is a beautiful bookstore and well worth visiting. But I’m sure I’ll post about that as it gets closer.)

Wolves at the Gate

I finally finished and submitted the rough draft of my new novel for HIP Books. The working title is Wolves at the Gate. (Actually, the working title here at home is “Foxy’s Big Adventure”, since the book was thus christened by my daughter, but “Wolves at the Gate” seems to be going over better with the over-six demographic.)

I’m about two thousand words over the target word count but in a first draft, I can forgive myself that. It needs to be tightened, but I’ll worry about that after I know I’ve got the story right. This is an unusual way to work; normally a book would be thoroughly critiqued and polished before I ever submitted it to an editor. Come to think of it, that may be why I so seldom submit anything… nothing’s ever quite “done” enough.

In this case the publisher (HIP Books) initiated the project, so he’s been involved from the very beginning. He approved my story concept, then my outline, and I won’t touch my first draft again until I hear his feedback.

I’ve had fun with this story. It’s another mediaeval fantasy, like the Dragon Speaker series. I’m working with Cheryl Rainfield and Debbie Ouellet again, but this time, our books don’t have to be sequential. They just share a world. Not sure how much we’re allowed to reveal yet, so I’d better leave it at that. But yes, wolves are obviously involved, and foxes. And a “big adventure”.

And Aliens…

Also this week, I received feedback on my Muskoka Novel Marathon manuscript. My story about a little boy and an alien won in the Juvenile category for the 2009 marathon. Part of the prize is that an editor with a Canadian publishing house agrees to critique it. The novel marathon is a fundraiser for the Muskoka Literacy Council, so it strikes me as extremely generous of the editors and publishers associated with it to volunteer their time.

I was fortunate enough to receive feedback from Kathy Lowinger of Tundra Books, who has volunteered to help the novel marathon in this way for several years in a row. She gave my still-very-rough manuscript a thorough substantive edit and offered detailed (and encouraging!) feedback. She absolutely made my week.

(Well, okay, that and the ARC made my week. Can’t forget the ARC.)

Anyhow. Big week, filled with blog-worthy events. Things should be a little bit quieter now. My next planned blog entry will be about an amazing writing book that I came across recently.

Should you happen to read this before it happens, please wish me luck with the reading tomorrow morning!

Incidentally, she is currently running a contest, if anyone wants to become a character in her book. Not my cup of roiboos, but it’s an interesting idea.

Full disclosure: I’ve never read anything by Holly Lisle. My love affair with fantasy is hit-and-miss (although I’m currently enjoying Kathleen Duey’s Skin Hunger). And seeing as how I just signed up for the Talysmana mailing list moments ago and haven’t received a chapter yet, I can’t comment on it as a story.

I’m going to read it, though.

I liked Holly Lisle’s post on what constitutes a first draft. As as writer, I’m impressed and not a little grateful that she’s willing to share hers, because it’s always helpful to get a window on someone else’s work process.

My first drafts tend to be skeletal, heavy on action and dialogue and light on setting and texture. My plots get messy. However much time I spend outlining before I write, by the time I reach the midpoint, things have usually diverged enough from the outline that I’m no longer sure of the ending.

I have novels that have been in progress for years; the shape consolidates after a few drafts, as they get closer (I hope) to being finished, but they bear very little resemblance to what I wrote in that first draft.

I’m not likely to post a first draft here anytime soon. I share them with my critique group, and sometimes a draft is so sketchy that even my critique group must be spared. But I appreciate that Holly Lisle is willing to share hers.

It’s not a bad promotional idea, either. I’m already planning to read the finished book when it comes out, if only so I can compare it with the draft. One new reader, just like that. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

On the downside, she has already been criticized by one reader who apparently didn’t understand exactly what ‘first draft’ meant. That’s unfortunate. Kind of like going to the first reading of a play and then asking why the costumes weren’t pretty and no one knew their lines.

As an “emerging” (that seems to be the polite term for rookie) writer, I hear more and more about the importance of building a platform and reaching out to readers. I think Holly Lisle has chosen an interesting way to do that. I’ll be watching to see what happens.

Anyone read or can recommend any of her published novels?