What if the US stayed home?

This is the first political blog post I've ever made but I need to get this off my chest and like all writers, when I need to get something off my chest, I reach for a pen.

I've been following world events pretty close for the past several years.  I keep reading and watching, hoping to make a little sense out of it all.  I've not had much luck to be perfectly honest.  With the 10th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center dominating the news for the past few days I've been thinking about that event in some detail.  It certainly was a game changer wasn't it?

I've read that the subsequent "War on Terror", started because of 9/11, has cost in the range of $3.5 trillion dollars and approximately 250,000 lives lost.  God only knows how many have been wounded, maimed and displaced.  I'm not sure if the $3.5 T includes the increased cost of security at airports and government buildings or just for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Regardless, it's a big pile of cash.

After nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, has NATO forces made much progress?  Taking the Taliban out of power has done a great deal for human rights, especially the rights of women, but is it sustainable?  Can the fledgling police and military of Afghanistan keep the Taliban and al Qaeda from taking back over once NATO troops leave?  I don't know but I wouldn't want to bet on it.

Iraq is still a train wreck after the two military invasions, the entire mid-east is still unstable as the Arab Spring becomes Arab Fall.  Can revolutionaries run a country and create democratic political parties where none have existed for a very long time?  They will be finding out in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt in the coming months.  Hopefully these people haven't brought down one dictator to have him replaced by another.

Through much of their history, the US has helped police the world.  When the shooting starts, the US is often there with boots on the ground.  Sometimes that why the shooting started in the first place, but that's an entirely different story.  However, when you look behind the headlines you see that their presence isn't always appreciated by the people they are trying to help.  Obviously a country referred to as "the great Satan" isn't loved by the speaker!

Here's the part I was getting to in this long winded ramble.  What do you suppose would happen if the US went home?  Just said,"Look, guys.  Thanks, but no thanks.  We're going to sit a few of these conflicts out."  Imagine the reaction in these countries that seem to enjoy shooting at each other.  No US troops to shoot at instead.  Damn!  What's up with that!

Now to take this a bit further.  I suspect a lot of the $3.5 T that was spent on the War on Terror came from the US Treasury.  What would the world be like today if they had spent that money on something else?  They could have repaired or replaced all the aging infrastructure in the entire country.  I bet that would have put a big hole in their current unemployment situation.  All of the tax dollars generated from all that work could have gone back against the deficit.

Think too of the effect on some of the inner cities if all those young men and women had trades to go to work at instead of getting involved in gangs, drugs and the sex-trade.  Maybe I'm terribly naive, but I would think a job that pays regular wages would be preferable to any of those other things.  Might have quite an impact on the crime rate in the US don't you think?

Or, maybe the money could have been used to find a cure for AIDS, or cancer.  Wouldn't that have been a world game changer?

Or, with that kind of money to work with, the US might have chosen to become self sufficient in green technology so that they wouldn't have to buy as much foreign oil.  The US currently uses 18,690,000 barrels of oil per day.  That's a bit more than the next four (China, Japan, India, and Russia) combined.  What if US consumption was cut in half because of investment in green technology?  At $100 per barrel that would save the US about $900 million per day or about $330 billion per year.  President Obama could put a beating on the deficit with that kind of cash flow couldn't he?  As an extra bonus, many "green" manufacturing jobs would be created and it would significantly reduce the amount of money going into the coffers of some of the oil dictators who then use that money to train terrorists to become pilots. Just saying...

Imagine how all this could play out.  But it's never that simple, is it?  Powerful people in organized crime and the drug cartels wouldn't like to see inner cities getting cleaned up and drug use reduced.  Big oil would really hate to see all those great green technology jobs get developed while oil use dropped.  There would be a lot of pressure put on many politicians.  Even the arms dealers would be unhappy.  Who would buy their toys?

However, I suspect that the US won't stay home so none of this will come to pass.  But it's fun to take a few hours to think about what it would be like if it did.

How we work together

I've mentioned before that Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams Inc., is the illustrator and publisher of my first two books.  We are very fortunate to live in the same area so we can get together regularly to work on our books. In large publishing houses, the writer and illustrator often never see each other.  The story is bought, given to an illustrator in the publisher's stable of illustrators and that is that.  Jen told me of one famous children's author who, upon seeing her completed book for the first time, sat down and cried because she hated the drawings.

When I'm finished with the manuscript, I give it to Jen to start to work with.  She has already seen a "almost finished" draft, one where the story is pretty much finalized, so she can start planning her drawings.  She breaks the story down into pages and then blocks out areas in the text to insert her drawings.  Then the work really begins.

As she puts things together there is a constant stream of emails along the line of..." the 3rd paragraph on page 48, I need it 3 words shorter" - or longer.  The hardest is when she removes a drawing completely, which creates a gap and I need to write a paragraph or two to fit into the gap.  So I have content on either side to match up without an obvious blip in the story.

We get together for an hour or two a week to finalize pages, fix grammar and so on.  We have two "final readers" who get the chapters as they're done to check, spelling, look for typos, see that the drawings match the story, etc., etc.  It is quite a process since we also have day jobs to work around.

However, finally it's done and we are always pleased with the result.  No surprises from the printer and no surprises from our work.  Now the work of marketing begins and that is a whole different experience which we both enjoy.  I hope to see you at a book signing somewhere in the Maritimes between now and Christmas.  Look for "Emily Finds a Dragon" in Chapters and other fine independent bookstores in the Maritimes.

Breakfast TV - the big promotion begins!

Last Thursday Jennifer Aikmen-Smith, of Dragon Dreams fame, and I were invited to be on Breakfast TV for a few minutes to promote "Emily Finds a Dragon".  It went very well, or at least that's what I'm told.  I haven't actually seen it yet.  I was really surprised how compact the sets were.  Three sets used on BTV could all be fit in a good sized bedroom.  A couple of cameras sit in the middle of the room and spin around to point at the correct set.  Quite cool.

We went to Halifax on Wednesday evening since they wanted us on air at 8:15 am.  The hostess was great, gave a great intro and helped us plug the book signing that we had at Chapters later in the morning.  Through the jigs and reels, both Chapters and our distributor, Glen Margaret Publishing, took more books than they had originally had so that was great.

We have another book signing coming up in Dieppe in a few weeks, but once Jen has her daughters V-ball schedule nailed down we will be hitting the rest of the Chapters, a few on the independent stores, the Farmers Market again and so on.  Still hoping to sell at least 650 books by January 1st.

We have been asked a few times about self publishing and Jennifer would like us to do a workshop at the library on self publishing.  Maybe, between the two of us, we could put on a 2 hour work shop.  We have learned quite a bit so far. I think Jen is sharper about this than I am.  I still concentrate on writing and she is the one that works closer with the actual production.

Where do you get your ideas?

This is one of the most common questions I get asked and I suspect this is true for most writers, regardless of gendre.  I also suspect that almost every writer couldn't tell you exactly.  I find that most of my ideas come as a bit of an "aha" moment where something clicks in my feeble little cranium and an idea pops out.  I always carry paper with me since I have a good memory - it's just short.  Nothing worse than loosing the idea for the next blockbuster story for the lack of a scrap of paper.

I find I get most of my ideas when I'm not really thinking about it.  Mowing the lawn, road trips with music on, are all fertile places for me.  However, contrary to that, the idea for my second book did come as an "aha!" moment with the bulk of the story in place instead of a scrap of an idea.  I was looking at a drawing my friend and illustrator, the brillant Jennifer Aikman-Smith,  did of a baby dragon looking up at you holding a valentine.  He had the big puppy dog eyes and "pop" came the idea for "Emily Finds a Dragon" with 75% of the story dragging along behind.

That was unusual for me.  Most of my stories come in a series of movie scenes in my head.  I jot them down and eventually pull the pieces together to make the first draft.  As a result, I often have two or three manuscripts going at the same time.  One I focus on, one that is ruminating in my head and I pick out scenes for, and one that I'm researching.  Since my writing time is often hit and miss, this allows me to do something constructive with my writing time regardless of how long I have or how tired I am.  Sometimes I'm just typing notes into the computer.  This is good stuff to be doing when I'm too tired to be really creative, but I'm still doing something that needs to be done. 

I suspect this doesn't work for many writers, but it does for me.  I have had to juggle time all my working career so I'm used to trying to work on a couple of things at a time.  As I get older, and slowly back out of the many organizations I volunteer for, I hope to have a more structured day where I can block off time to write at more consistant times.  Then I hope I coan concentrate mainly on one manuscript at a time.

Parks Canada 100th Anniversary

Parks Canada is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year by doing something long overdue - at least for parks in our area.  Fundy National Park was formed in 1948 by the expropriation of approximately 206 square kilometers of Acadian Forest and kilometers of rugged Bay of Fundy coastline. This land, unfortunately, held the homes of many people plus logging businesses on the Point Wolf and Alma Rivers.  Many people were relocated, some homes (my parents and grandparents were two) were moved as well.  People were paid very little and moved because the government told them too.  My great-grandmother lived near where #7 green is on the current golf course.  She had lived there all her life and when the Park was created she was moved, even though she was quite elderly.  She died a few years later and my Mom always said it was of a broken heart.

Anyway, this year the Park decided to have a birthday party and invite all of the people they booted out, plus their children and grandchildren and, (drum roll please) a seasonal pass for the next month or so that you need one was given to everyone.  It was suggested that this may happen each year but we'll see what 2012 brings.

It was a nice get together even though they ran out of food early.  The crowd was much bigger than anticipated which is a good thing.  It was a like a family reunion and a number of people got to get reaquainted with people they hadn't seen for years.

My father Otty, who is 86, and his brother Leo, who is 94, were among the two oldest ones attending and were some of the last of the original expropriates.  My grandfather's home and Mom and Dad's home were located where the Fundy Highland Motel and Chalets are now.  Their homes were moved to Alma.  Ironically, Dad's house is now owned by the Park and is used for summer students.

My brother and sister lived in the Park.  They were 3 and newborn when they moved to Alma.  I was born after the Park was established and only lived in Alma until I was 6.

I grew up camping in the Park and heard all the stories from my parents of what life was like in that area when fishing and lumbering were the big employers.  The fishing is still there - you haven't lived until you've jack-hammered your way into a Fundy lobster - but the lumbering is gone.  Those jobs were replaced by government jobs with pensions and health benefits.  So in some way, some people benefited.

Don't get me wrong. I'm actually glad the Park was created as it is protected some very unique land like all National Parks do.  It would have been nice, however, if the "powers-that-be" had given those free passes to the expropriates many years ago.  Better late than never I guess.

Sometimes just a small change .....

Jennifer Aikman-Smith (Dragon Dreams Inc.) and I were in the final stages of our latest collaboration, "Emily Finds a Dragon", when we were presented with a conundrum.  Jennifer, illustrator extraordinaire and publisher, had just received a call from our distributor who told us that Chapters wouldn't take our book unless it had an Atlantic Canadian tie-in. Our first book, "Owen and the Dinosaur", had been set in Parrsboro, NS so it wasn't a problem.  I purposely kept this story without a specific location.  Wider audience, more potential sales I thought craftily.

So, Jen and I thought about it for a bit and then said, "What odds?" and inserted some Maritime references.  Now the book is loosely set in the Annapolis Valley.  We also flicked in a quick reference to Halifax as well.  Didn't effect the story at all.  Pas de sweat.

Then things went silly quickly.  Jennifer's Mom, our "fine tooth comb" editor and grammer genius, commented that the wolf pack that I had used as our "bad guys", don't exist in the Maritimes.  Jen checked with a senior naturalist friend about it.  No wolves.   However, no shortage of coyotes.  So quicker than you can say "we-have-to-reread-the-entire-book-take-out-wolf-and-put-in-coyote" we changed the story.  Then Jennifer had to change a drawing so that three mean looking wolves became 3 mean looking coyotes.

Next, there always seems to be a next, Jen discovered places where changing "wolf" to "coyote" didn't fit.  Those extra 2 letters played havoc at times.

Anyway, after a couple of days of frantic work on Jen's part and lots of emails (I was out of town during all this) the story was corrected and finalized at the printer.  Oh ya, the book was at the printer when this all came to light!

So the book is complete and back to us. Look for it in Chapters and fine book stores around Atlantic Canada this summer.

Update

The rain has been falling for about a month now and this morning I noticed the animals lining up two by two.  Anyone know where a guy could find a good supply of gopher wood?  The upside, is with all this rain, work outside is impossible so that leaves more time to write!

"Jimmy and Cinder" is done to the point that I'm comfortable enough to start searching for an agent.  I say it's done, but I'm sure if I'm fortunate enough to find an agent, I'll be doing more rewrites. 

"Emily Finds a Dragon" is off to the printer and we shoould have proofs by the end of the week. Yahoo!  I'll be glad to get that one out on the shelves as we are getting great feedback from our small releases on the publisher's website (http://www.dragondreams.ca/). 

Lately, I've been very busy and traveling quite a lot with my real estate work.  I'm 1st VP for the Provincial real estate board which requires some travel.  In 2012 and 2013, I should be President which requires more travel.  So, I've been trying to fine tune my things so that I can write and keep track of my real estate business when I'm on the road.  I think I've got it in pretty good shape, so now evenings stuck in a hotel somewhere can be productive.