“Saddle up, Pard. We’re going for a ride.” Bosco Poon, my partner in work and business for thirty-some years, sauntered into my office and dropped a pile of winter gear on my visitor’s chair. “Don’t you look a sight?” I wanted to laugh but knew he’d kick my butt in one way or another if I did. He was sporting a camo tuque, a dark down parka, a red turtleneck and heavy bib overalls tucked into lace-up winter hiking boots. “I gotta do some surveillance in the west end. “ “So?” “Kenora’s off doing an interview and I need a second chair.” He headed for the door. I was just about done for the day, anyway, and I needed a break. My mind was as nimble as cottage cheese. I shucked off my loafers and office clothes, put on a turtleneck and a pair of lined jeans and suited up. I let Seta, our office manager aka ‘she who must be obeyed’ know that we’d both be out for a while. By the time I was done, Bosco was already in the parking lot with the motor running. His favourite 12-year old crap-brown van with the strategically placed rust spots and dents looked like a thousand other low-budget delivery trucks, but the interior was completely tricked out with ergonomic captain’s chairs, an electric motor that would keep us and our coffee warm even though the engine was turned off, front-rear-side mounted cameras feeding into a video system under the dash and fooler window coverings that made the vehicle look empty from the outside. “What’s going down?” He fiddled with his Bluetooth gizmo and peeled out of the driveway. “Check to see if the camera feed’s working.” Which I did. “Supplies.” We had our mobile radios, cell phones and flashlights under the seats. I checked the insulated box between the front seats. It was stocked with a pair of steel thermoses, bottled water, a padded box containing sandwiches and brownies wrapped in cellophane. I knew from the smiley face sticker across the fold that Kenora, one of my private investigators, had baked them. I flipped through the papers on the clipboard hanging from a magnet on the coin tray. By the time I finished my inventory, he was wheeling onto the Gardiner Expressway westbound. “Looks fine to me. What’s this about?” “I’m looking for a Rumanian dude I used to know. Worked auto accident injury insurance scams.” “You needed me for this?” “Seems he’s graduated to defrauding banks. I got a tip about a location in the Junction. Plus, it’s been a while since we had a chat, Bud.” “Chat? Sounds like you’re been in therapy.” “Nope. Working at being married again. Figuring that out.” “Okay, I’ll play. Whaddya want to ‘chat’ about, child-rearing?” “No.” “What? “ “You, Chum.” “Why?” “I’ve been picking up some weird vibes lately.” “Like what?” “You’re preoccupied. Pulled in. I’m not the only one to notice, by the way.” “Who else’s noticed? “Never mind. Your PSA up or something?” “No.” “Business problems?” “No. This last year’s been the best ever. More clients, more investigations completed.” “Uh huh.” Bosco waited until a southbound dump truck passed then pulled a left from Keele Street onto Glenlake Avenue. “So what’s been chapping your ass lately?” He got occupied searching for a parking spot on Oakmount Avenue. “Nothing.” He positioned the van in halfway down a line of rehabbed row houses, tight between a dark Mercury Marquis and a rusted Ford Taurus. “You hear about…” “Don’t care. What’s wrong with your life right now?” “Geez. What’s with the Q&A?” Instead of answering, he fired up the electric generator then took his time arranging his parka behind his head. He flipped open the storage box, pulled out one thermos for himself and handed one to me. I knew his would be one quarter Eagle brand condensed milk, his stakeout staple. Mine would be black, extra strong. I jammed the thermos back into the box. For some reason, I felt jacked up enough already not to need more caffeine. He wasn’t going to let go. “You lost the ability to form rational thought?” “This place brings back memories.” He grunted. And waited. He was good at that. The area he’d chosen used to be part of our patrol zone when we were teamed up in 12 Division. Lots of B&Es, thefts from parked cars, fence line disputes, some ethnic sports grudge stuff. We were on the west side of the park and I knew it was a long cold walk to Keele Street and a bus stop. Did they still run after midnight? I hunkered down, figuring I’d outwait the stubborn bastard. Half an hour passed. Bosco mainly stared out the window. Hungry, I fished out a sandwich, then had a brownie and a cup of java. “You put this together?” “Yeah, with some help.” “It’s good. Remember those clapped-out surveillance vans we spent so much time in?” “Uh huh.” “Did I tell you the one about…” “You forget I asked you a question?” He was getting testy. I couldn’t figure out why. I thought things had been going okay overall. “What the… you gonna talk about paradigm shifts next?” “Don’t demean our friendship with that crap, Bro.” He turned his body towards me, propping his knee against the gear shift. He folded his arms tight across his chest and leaned against the car door. In the light reflected from the street lamp, his face looked more like an axe blade than usual. “Tell me what’s going on. You’ll feel better.” Bosco was going all Reid Interrogation Technique on me. I could keep trying to fake him out, but that had about as much chance of success as me getting him to do a line of blow or an Aqua Velva shooter. If I really pushed back, he’d punch me in the mouth and make me walk back to the office without my coat. “Just say it.” “Fine,” I said. “Hanging around with Audrey and Kenora has made you soft.” “And whatever’s got your globes all shrunk up’s got you so confused you don’t know whether to crap or wind your watch.” “I wish I still smoked.” “Audrey’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Kenora’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Admit it.” “Ok.” I turned my head to stare out the side window. Bosco’s relentlessness was beginning to give me the heebie-jeebies. “I know you better than your mama ever did, Jake Barclay. Quit fuckin’ around. What gives?” I blew out a breath, fogging the window. “It’s real simple, Bos. I’m losing my edge.” “What do you mean, ‘edge’?” “When I played high school all and varsity hockey, they used to call me the ‘Cleaver’, because I could cut through anything that got in my way. Lately, it’s like I’m getting soft. Soggy. Maybe it’s an age thing.” “Pecker dysfunction?” Now that made me laugh out loud. He said it all serious and leaned in with a Sigmund Freud stare, all thoughtful and frowning. “Hell, no. You?” “My wife just had a kid who looks exactly like me. So, no. Backatcha.” “I’m…You know what my life used to be like? How I caught Sara-Jane in bed with Lloyd Schomberg after I helped put him away for that boiler-room operation in Woodbridge? Her showing up in the office brought all that shit back, but worse.” “WGAF? She’s been gone for what? Eight, nine years? Why the rebound jim-jams now?” “Kenora’s determined to find that little shit of a brother-in-law of hers.” “So?” “I don’t want her contaminated by anything having to do with my ex-wife.” “Why would she be?” “She’s so bloody-minded. And naïve. Thinks she can solve shit with research and a smile.” “She’s doing okay so far. You getting all Sir Lancelot for her?” “Yeah. That’s what’s wrong,” I said, turning to face him. “She told me you guys had the ‘partner talk’. I never had a relationship with anyone I worked with before.” “Me either. You envious or something?” “I don’t know, Bos.” He poured himself more coffee. Even with the heater on, the air was cold enough so that the hot brew steamed up the windows on the inside. “Is it kind of funky weird or does it make you horny all the time?” Before I could answer, he held up his hand. “Let me tell you what I see. When there’s more than three or four people around, no one who didn’t know you as well as I do or her, for that matter – they wouldn’t be able to tell something’s been going on. She’s deferential, you’re respectful. Most of the time, there’s not much direct eye contact beyond what’s necessary. But when it’s just the three of us, I’ll tell you, every once in a while, it’s like the two of you are connecting with some laser-rope-thing and the room feels real small and I get invisible. Then it’s gone.” “I know. I’ve never had that experience before. No demands, no crazy, either.” “When I told Audrey about it, she got all mooshy and had to blow her nose and then she started kissing me like my face was candy. I’ll be honest. I got wood.” “Kenora does that to me. Watching her mouth when she talks… I mean, I want to hear what she says…” “Most of the time, eh? Bet I know what you’re thinking about the rest of the time.” “True. I guess what freaks me out is that it’s so…undramatic. She’s such a pleasure to be around. I feel comfortable. But she’s not, you know, doing anything to make that happen. When that Mitch guy was stalking her, some of the shit that went down was making me crazy. But I had to let her find her way. She made me promise not to intervene.” “And you left it alone.” “Yes. Then I found out you were pulling some strings in the background. Thanks for that, by the way.” “Nothing to it, Partner. I got your back: I got her back. You guys have mine. It is what it is. You remember the last time you were happy? Not sloppy, Oprah-happy. Deep in your guts.” I bought some time by fussing with the thermos then refilling my coffee cup. “It was after Kenora’s dad’s funeral, when she found out a big piece of information about the mystery man. Then at her house, after her ex had sent back all the cards and family pictures with her face cut out of them.” “Why then?” “I could be there for her, even though she didn’t expect me to do anything. She wants nothing from me.” “And?” “And I want to give her everything. She’s so good for me. To me. I’m scared shitless that I’ll mess it up.” Bosco wiped his mouth with a napkin, tidied up the centre console then stared into my eyes. “You won’t.” He started the engine. “When we were on the Job, you were the steadiest dude I knew. Seldom put a foot wrong. Always reliable.” He did a quick shoulder check then wheeled the van into a U-turn. “Learn to trust yourself again. That’s all any of us want my friend.”
Note: I seriously started writing The Fifth Man (Book 2 in the Kenora & Jake series) while I was in Ajijic, Mexico in 2019. This post was written in April 2020, when we were still in the thick of pandemic restrictions. I’ve read many articles about how we, as writers, should approach stories where Covid-19 is part of the setting. To include or not to include the pandemic in my novels, that’s the question? Twelve months ago, who could have predicted (and been believed) that life around the globe would sputter to a slowdown such as we’ve never seen. Investment portfolios are in ruins, travel is done for now, holidays and special celebrations are being held via video link and grocery shopping is an exercise in managing personal safety. Thousands of sewists around the world are making cloth pandemic masks and surgical caps because local supplies have run short. Of course, if you write dystopian, fantasy or sci-fi genres, then our current situation may make your world-building easier. For me, not so much. Kenora Tedesco, the female protagonist in my novels, is a private investigator. The house she bought after her divorce is on a small lake north of Toronto. That means she either drives south or takes the commuter train to get to work. She works for a company located in mid-town Toronto – Barclay, Benford & Friday. The firm specializes in industrial risk mitigation. Her love interest, Jake, a retired Metro Police Superintendent, is CEO of the company. The people he employs include lawyers, former police officers, accountants and forensics specialists. Because she’s still considered a rookie, her mentor Bosco Poon, who worked with Jake at Metro and is his business partner, sends Kenora out and about various locations in Toronto to hone her skills at going undercover, interviewing informants or collecting information. Learning to interpret body language and determine deception requires face-to-face interactions. Private investigation is not a desk job. Kenora’s in constant contact with her co-workers, folks on the street, clients, etc. She hangs out at courthouses, restaurants and malls where people she needs to track, investigate or talk to might congregate. There are social events she attends with Jake to schmooze existing and potential clients. She works out, goes to the market and the public library. And she has friends and family, too. I considered whether to have Kenora and Jake isolated due to the virus. Separately, not together. In fact, I started writing a piece where they conducted business from a distance. But it just didn’t work. It felt fake. They have to be out and about to carry on their budding romance. BB&F staff have to investigate people, places and things. Bad stuff has to happen so that she can get herself out of scrapes. Wearing a mask and social distancing as plot devices or sources of conflict? No. I unearthed an old draft where I had her racing home due to a family emergency. Old, as in August 2010. Can you believe it – that’s how long it has taken for me to get to this point! But that was before I realized I’d crammed two books into one. To get one book into a manageable, marketable size, I had to spend a few years surgically separating Book 1 and Book 2. Originally, the plot device/tension-builder was the interruption of her travels by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. I would have had to set the story in 2010, which would have required too much research and rewriting. I abandoned that idea. After months of cogitation and false starts, I’m back to my original story line that takes place starting in 2018. There was enough going on in the world to keep things interesting, plot-wise. But freedom to meet and travel are important enough that volcanoes and pandemics just won’t work for me. Kenora doesn’t need a pandemic. She can generate enough action on her own while she tries to be the best PI she can be! So it’s back to the keyboard – not excuses.
The old man thrills to read the dirty bits where they’re most unexpected. Book shop displays, pale pages splayed wanton behind glass for all to see those slight sweet smuts; words that sound like what they mean - the awe of throb; the thrust of pearly breast, an itch to ‘b’, the hush of saucy whispers simply nothing – not even sweet unless she’s fifteen and fresh, her ink unsmudged. Cookbooks are better than prose, he finds, exposed riots of flushed cooks and rosier fruits – tumbling cherries burst with scarlet sap, the candied apples ooze, caramel toffee drapes a spoon; apricots slump over-ripe on a steamy counter in a drizzled honey bun kitchen - salacious orgies of what ifs, could be. A lap of pooled untempered chocolate, gauchely dark in its shadowy bowl; culturing yogurt teased from tepid milk, turned swollen and bulbous in bellied jars like the softened shape of virgins. After the slather of soft veiny cheese, the smack of cocktails and the seep of fruit juice on diner’s chin, then tussles at the table. Seduced by sweat peas bathed in butter, with lobster tails and a melt of cheddar spuds, the climax a shameless tart of passionfruit and mangoes, An errant breeze - the pages whorl meaty invitations to eat, slurp, stroke berry nipples stemmed by fingers, nails dirty from the dumpster. The words keep coming. A breathy stain of ‘O’ on the window, a blotch of forehead grease - the old man hitches up the cord that holds his pants and turns away, packing an appetite uncontained by empty pockets.
Sound: The misshapen amber ooze inside the stained tissue paper crackles to the counter top in a spray of needles and dried gum. It’s as if the clock has struck three and it’s July 1998 again. The crusty shoulders of Canmore’s hulking Three Sisters mountains are cloaked in rustling pine scrub, alive with the rude exuberance of birdsong. The slow footfalls of our procession are muffled to sad silence by thick leaf-mold on the winding down-sloped path. Brilliant sunshine clatters hot and wrong through creaking pines. Our eyes are buffeted by reflecting heavy shards of copper from the urn. The Bow River – merely a singing stream here – chuckles through mossy gaps in whispering shadows, absorbing the murmurs tumbling from our stiffly praying lips. The last handfuls of my mother’s ashes eddy past a clot of torn red rose petals, swirling over the chattering pebbles and away. Far away. The world will never resonate for me, the way it did before. Taste: The gritty brew frothing in the worn clay cup smelled confusing. At first, the lukewarm liquid tasted of stale root beer with a poke of powdered ginger. Then, for a second, the ‘ow!’ of pulverized hot pepper seeds clawed at the back of the throat, preceding the solace of bitter chocolate coating smoldering taste buds with sensually dark first aid. Competing with the biting oily tang of Seville orange peel, the musty sweetness of ground cinnamon teased the edges of the tongue and disappeared in a salty flourish. Smell: My love is always with me. The steaming iron planes wrinkles from the grey-striped work shirt. Fresh fumes of detergent, fabric softener and baked cloth gust from the ironing board with each hot pass over sleeves, then collar and yoke. Ah! There it is again! Beneath the fragrant tangle of clothes-scents hides the layered secret smell from my beloved’s body. Another swipe of the iron, this time with a shot of steam. The fragrant billowing haze transports that faint exquisite whiff of pheromones to my nose. They stealthily signal-trigger receptors deep inside my prehistoric brain. The fuse ignites, then sizzles through bone from head to groin and back again, in a shock of fiery recollection. Touch: The pads of his thick fingers burnish the knobs of my spine, imprinting heated ovals from nape of neck to swelling curve of waist. A heated slide of palms hovers over shoulders, feather light blows teasing a rush of pulse to the surface of trembling flesh. The vibrato of insistent stroking erases the contours of collar bones. He grounds the prongs of his electric fingers in the fold between my ribs and breast and sparks a breathy hymn from parted lips. His probing humid tongue maps moist paths across my earlobes, then trails from cheeks to cleft of chin downwards, ever downwards. Finally, finally, he captures my melting lips in the taut tasteful prison of a kiss. Sight: Ten days ago, the Christmas pine glowed in the living room window. Pretty parcels tumbled in precious disarray under branches cosseted with garlands, heavy with lights and baubles. Now tossed into the sulk of a January afternoon, half buried with green garbage bags of wrapping paper, the stripped brittle branches poke out of the soiled plowed mounds at the end of the driveway. A spill of spiky twisted needles fills the paper boy’s boot prints on a couple of crushed cones. Random tags of forgotten silver flutter in the sharp breeze. Sap congeals where the bark of the trunk was broken by the teeth of the tree stand. Only a muddle of rabbit tracks circles the forest flotsam.
I’ve been using the reference texts produced by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglise for longer than I can remember. Once they introduced One Stop for Writers , there was no going back to gazing out the window searching for inspiration. I may have the ‘writing gene’, like other members in my family, but inspiration does not always come easily. Or it’s stale and unimaginative. This double whammy of writer resources has solved almost all of my technical/craft-type problems. Unfortunately, they can’t get me into my seat with my fingers pressed to the keyboard, laying down pages of attention-grabbing words. Instead, I sneak a chunk of time here and there and frantically try to capture a new scene, plot point or character study in between other things. But here’s where it gets even more interesting. Tools, tools and more tools!
Edited article, originally published in Crime Scene Magazine, A Sisters in Crime Toronto Chapter Publication I’ve read many series featuring female sleuths like Kinsey Milhone, Mary Russell, Stephanie Plum, Precious Ramotswe and Frankie Drake. None of them resembled the character who’d been inhabiting my creative brain. Wrong age, race, background, values, locale, timeframe. Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” For me, that ‘it’ was Kenora Reinvented. The adage says, “Write what you know”. Hence, Kenora Tedesco is mixed race, black-identifying and middle-aged. Why? Simple. I didn’t have the knowledge or motivation to convincingly write her as a white woman. And despite the urging of an agent who read several early drafts, I couldn’t create an angsty female under thirty who preferred takeout to a well-cooked meal she made herself (or had someone handsome and sexy to cook for her). I’ve been writing Kenora stories since 2008. We’ve grown older together. At forty-two, Kenora Tedesco is the kind of woman you’d notice at an event. Attractive, tall, tastefully dressed, she’s standing off to one side holding a glass of wine, attentive to the ebb and flow of people around her. To all appearances, she’s got it together. Turn back the clock two years, when her tidy suburban existence imploded. Her mother died, her husband dumped her for someone he’d met while Kenora was playing recreational hockey, she got fired and became houseless. Challenged? You bet. Her score on the Life Stress Inventory was off the charts. While some of the details of Kenora’s heroine’s journey into investigations, mystery and second-chance romance may be unique, the major mid-life events she experienced were not. People are exposed to change all the time. They make choices: some are easier, others are gut-wrenching. I wanted her to struggle through setbacks and ‘fish out of water’ scenarios so readers could resonate with her personal and professional growth. Because I’ve worked in the Canadian policing sector for decades, I’m familiar with the frameworks officers operate in. I needed Kenora to have leeway to get into and out of scrapes using her unique talents. Her former job as a middle manager at a Toronto university was boring but paid well. What better career-swerve for a bookish former soccer-mom than starting over in an unfamiliar field, taking on cases law enforcement wouldn’t necessarily investigate? Free-wheeling action, escapades, learning new stuff, glamour! Yes and no. Private investigators must abide by a Code of Conduct and follow procedures. Craft detailed plans. Remain unobtrusive. Take copious notes. All that rule following chafed. Kenora’s mentor Ingraham (Bosco) Poon and her new boss (Francis Xavier (Jake) Barclay) are former senior police officers. They had high expectations. ‘Winging it’—one of her go-to strategies—was no longer an option. When rookie mistakes put her safety, job and a second-chance romance at risk, did she cave? No. A problem-solver, she’s smart, competent and resourceful. She’s also stubborn, skittish and insecure. We all know women like that. Good at what they do. Imperfect but determined. That’s why writing about her was so satisfying. Kenora Reinvented features a feisty, ‘seasoned’ protagonist with scars and plenty of life skills. She starts out thinking she can go it alone, but after several potentially disastrous missteps, she learns to trust her colleagues. With their help and her own creativity and competence, she saves herself. A true heroine in her own sphere, she earns the nickname, Ms. Intrepid. That’s the book I wanted to read and ended up writing.
In 2000, once we realized that the new century wasn’t going to destroy all of our technology, I decided that I wanted to learn to play a musical instrument. I had an old violin my dad had acquired somewhere, and it had always struck me as exotic and special to be able to make lovely music with a bow and a small wooden box with strings. I was living in a small town before the days of Google. I asked my local librarians if they knew anyone who taught music. They eagerly referred me to a woman who lived in a town twenty minutes away. Was I a successful student? Well, let’s say that I was keen. My instructor was accomplished at piano, violin and viola. I was her only adult pupil. She was also incredibly patient as I sawed my bow every week through rudimentary nursery tunes. Never discouraged, I did learn a few tunes. I switched to a viola, a larger instrument, because holding that dainty violin under my chin made me feel clumsy. I loved the deep sound and the way the vibrations of the chords resonated through my body. My biggest impediment was that I could not read music fast enough to keep time with the rhythm of the songs I weas trying to learn. I can speed read literature like a champ, but those black and white notes on the page were truly a foreign language to me. I resorted to memorization. That worked for a while but whenever a new song was introduced, I felt like I was back in kindergarten. What I found out later is that my instructor had a class of musical prodigies. Most were under twelve years old. They could decode the notes of the most complex piece like they were reading a comic book. We had a common task though – preparing for an outdoor concert at a park by the Barrie waterfront. On a glorious summer afternoon, the rest of the class and I played a mini concert. It had taken me all summer to memorize Pachelbel’s Canon in D Minor but once I got carried away by the beauty of the music, I could get through playing it without stumbling too badly. Our audience was an assortment of parents and random visitors who applauded loudly after we were done. Whenever I look at that photo and remember how I stood out from my young music-mates, I smile with pride that I didn’t embarrass myself at my first—and last—viola recital.
Suspended over Gull Lake is a long cedar dock that juts away from the moss-filmed rocky shoulders of the shore. A scarred wooden rowboat is trussed at the bow to a rusted wharf ring. Dew-damp spider webs across the gunwales shiver in the breath of breeze. A bloated, cocktail-cherry sun pushes through a jagged cleft between the mountains. Shadowy evergreens matt the hilly cheeks of the Muskoka Forest like a weekend beard. My footfalls on the warming planks, though light and tentative, send shivers across the skin of the placid lake. Scent from the shady edge of the dock swirls over me – cedar, mud, the lavender I planted years ago. When I still myself and shut my eyes, the busy silence resonates against my eardrums. It’s five thirty in the morning in the middle of July and I’m all alone. I turn my head towards a rustling sound at my back. There’s something under the red currant bush. I stand quietly, foggy breath swirling out of my mouth, wishing I’d worn my glasses. Finally, a pair of skunks waddles across the path leading from the cottage. They smell something and stop to look at me poised in the middle of the dock, then – perhaps because they, too, sense that I’ve lost track of my own importance - they amble, tails down, into the brush behind the boathouse. The sun is that much higher when I turn back with a crick in my neck from motionlessness. The marshmallow haze coating the far shore is breaking up beyond the shallows, disturbed by the crowds of mouths of feeding fish. Further up the hill, round bales of fog tumble down the gravel wash, unraveling to nothing over the felled logs by the beaver dam. As I shake off the last clogs of sleep and give up on keeping my feet dry, I catch sight of the deeps beyond the diving platform warming to navy serge under the sunlight. Someone told me long ago – was it Frankie or Pa – that if you tilt your head to one side and half-way squint, the first ripples of the day look like fractures on the plate-glass water. It’s true; they do. Why can’t I remember who said that? It probably doesn’t matter. The misty bits and all the hard edges of dark have burned off to golden air. A toilet flushes in the cabin. Up by the ridge at the end of the lake where the days begin, a red-tailed hawk coasts the thermals then plunges into the trees. There’s a scream, a momentary hush, then the marsh-quiet starts to crack under the catcalls of other wild things in the morning. Amidst that smell of rotting leaves the earth is giving up its cool. Something mottled and sinuous glides around my right ankle and disappears under the dock before I can focus my eyes; a hare bolts for the trees from yesterday’s fire pit. Screen doors slam. The sharp, high morning chatter of kids skittering across the night-cold kitchen floor cuts what’s left of the silence and I smell the fumes of perked coffee. A trio of crows argues over the broken carcass of a crab behind the old boathouse. The lake is alive with endless rags of glittering waves. I, too, will have another day.
I’ve been writing short and long fiction for decades, but I never was much of a planner. I have boxes of dollar store notebooks and steno pads crammed with notes and story starter paragraphs that went nowhere. Others were incorporated into my completed novels or they are part of works in progress (and I have dozens!). My go-to software was Microsoft Word on a Windows computer. However, the longer my documents got, the more unruly Word behaved. My default was to pound out a few thousand words, give the file a name and date then save it. The end result was a messy directory with multiple folders. I didn’t like that disorganized flea market vibe. Using Explorer to search for word strings was maddening. Arranging my ideas into a logical flow before starting a project was time-consuming and took the joy out of writing. I struggled with Excel spreadsheets, spending more hours configuring columns and cells than creating stories. Then I tried Pages. While it was less frustrating, I was impatient with the learning curve. I went back to Word. Easier? Not really. The original outline for the first draft of my novel ended up as an eighteen-page table. Large tables are manageable as eels – the content boxes change shape as you add text. Besides, the final draft of Kenora Reinvented didn’t end up conforming to the outline. Here’s what I did to get organized. I switched from Windows computers to an Apple iMac desktop and MacBook Pro laptop. I won’t go into rhapsodies about how seamless the Apple ecosystem is compared to what I was using previously, but for someone like me with an undisciplined mind, streamlining my writing process made life easier. Collecting ideas. Apple Notes, Drafts app. Both can be installed on handheld devices, laptops and desktops and sync data automatically. Drafts has an excellent dictation app and a browser widget that lets you save URLs and web copy. I can also Airdrop items between devices, take a screenshot, bookmark websites, save into the apps or as a PDF in Books. Planning. Story Planner ($10 USD). Works on iPhone, iPad and Mac. You can access your project outlines from any of your devices. You can also choose where you want your files saved – on your computer, in the cloud, etc. I downloaded Plottr ($25 USD), a tool featuring drag & drop visual timelines, index cards, character/place tracking, outline builder and templates (12 Chapter mystery, Hero’s Journey, etc.) Writing. Scrivener ($67 CAD – regular deals for Black Friday). Windows, IOS and Mac versions and plenty of free templates. Clean interface. Composing is a breeze. You can drag and drop scenes, collect research, links, photos and maps. Don’t get discouraged by the learning curve – there’s a 30-day trial period. Storage. Dropbox ($144 USD a year for 2T) I save, share and access files from my phone, iPad and computers. I use Selective Sync and only save the Dropbox files I use regularly to my devices. I also use the Sync software (Canadian) because I’m afraid of losing a single document, iCloud for short pieces and photos, Google and Amazon photos (free but not always user friendly). Formatting. Vellum ($339 CAD – to produce unlimited print and eBooks). Only available for Mac OS. Easy to import a text document, format then upload for ebooks. And print books of various sizes. The software gets better all the time. Yes, it’s a big investment but it can also save time and money. There’s a free trial available. Writing materials. Dollarama is an under-appreciated resource for ‘old school’ writing supplies like notebooks and pens.
I remember 1956. I remember 1956 because I was young, growing fast and usually hungry. My youngest brother – a chubby, happy guy – had been born in February. Those were the days when pregnant women were put to sleep to give birth, and children weren’t allowed inside the hospital, except as patients. My dad held my hand as we stood in the thick snow outside the nursery window and a matron in a long-sleeved starched uniform held up the blue-swaddled bundle as if he was a ham on display. I remember that I wore a dark brown hand-me-down coat with a fake black Persian lamb collar. My rubber over-the-shoe boots zipped up from the toes halfway up my skinny calves. I remember that my fingers and toes always felt thick and stiff in winter, no matter how many pairs of hand-knitted mittens or socks I wore. We were living in an old farmhouse in Ontario Wine Country. My father – always the dreamer – had spied the ‘for sale’ advertisement in a weekend newspaper in Montreal, and had decided that if he couldn’t be a coffee farmer in Liberia (thank you, Mom, for saying no to that insanity), he could be a fruit farmer in the Niagara Peninsula. Back then, the Queen Elizabeth highway was more like a two-lane suburban road, but he set out after his machinist job on a Friday night, drove the old Studebaker half the night, walked the 16 acres and decided to buy it. Without consulting my mother, of course, because she undoubtedly would have said that the idea was madness. We left behind all of the family we’d ever had – uncles, aunts, cousins, and our community – to start over in rural Ontario. We were dirt poor but stone rich on that blighted piece of property. There was a house – barely. It was poorly insulated, with a leviathan furnace in the basement complete with a coal bin. Thin concrete floors over dirt. No running water – unless you’d call an indoor pump in the cellar, ‘running’. No indoor toilet, no central heating. An attic that turned into a sauna in the summer and grew icicles in the winter. My mother was a city girl, convent school educated. She didn’t have a driver’s licence and was stuck at the farmhouse with four children under twelve. I was the eldest, but oblivious as only a bookworm on the cusp of puberty could be. She died before I could gather the courage to ask her what it was really like back then, and push for her to tell me the unvarnished truth. With a family of six and no indoor plumbing, my mother was seldom still. Sometimes though, after school, when the baby was asleep, Mom would stop what she was doing for a moment and sit at the kitchen table with her hands in her lap, staring into the air. I’d ask what was wrong. She’d smile a tiny smile and wrap me in a mother-fragrant hug. Her hair was soft against my cheek. Mom would give me that special raised eyebrow. “I have something to show you,” she’d say, as if it were the first time ever. “Go wash your hands and face.” She’d flip up the kitchen curtain to make sure my younger brothers were within earshot and hadn’t impaled themselves on a farm implement. Then she’d turn off the stove and climb slowly up the narrow wooden stairs to the attic, wiping her fingers on her apron, her shoes squeaking on the rubber risers. The narrow stairway smelled of soup. She would stop about four steps from the top and wait for a minute, head bowed, her breath loud in the shadowy passage. Beside her right shoulder was a door sunk into the dark wood paneling. There was a small brass handle in the middle, with pointy edges like a small bird’s beak. She’d turn the handle, then fold the door back so that it wouldn’t bang. I’d push by to stand a step higher up so I could see inside. She’d stretch her arm in – it was as if her fingers had eyes – and she’d tug the rusty chain that dangled from the rafters. The lemony light would cast her smooth brown features into sharp shadows. Dust swirled around the bare bulb, disappearing deep into the shadowy attic and reappearing in the beams of light from random gaps in the shingles. Our breath fluttered the cobwebs like pale sails. I remember shivering, wondering if we were disturbing someone who hid there and who’d only come out when the door wasn’t open.