Tag: workshop

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Workshop student lands book contract

As soon as I heard the voice on the an­swer­ing ma­chine I knew some­thing big had happened. Then Yvonne’s words came singing down the line, “I got a pub­lish­er! I’m go­ing to be published!”

The equa­tion can be this simple: a good story + good writ­ing + ded­ic­a­tion = pub­lished book. The real­ity is: many people have a great idea for a book, some have the writ­ing skills but few have the ded­ic­a­tion to see the pro­ject through. But right from the start I thought Yvonne Maximchuk might have all three.

I met Yvonne last May when she took one of my writ­ing work­shops. She’d been work­ing on a mem­oir for five years. But she wasn’t sure if her story was good enough and she was hav­ing a hard time fin­ish­ing the manuscript.

After read­ing the first pages of Drawn to Sea I knew Yvonne had the mak­ings of a story that would en­gage and in­trigue read­ers. The plot re­volves around her de­cision to re­main in an isol­ated com­munity after a break up with her part­ner. The chal­lenges were huge. She had two chil­dren to sup­port and wondered if she could sell her paint­ings and pot­tery from her Simoom Sound location.

Then there were the day-to-day con­sid­er­a­tions such as get­ting fire­wood and trav­el­ling back and forth to a lar­ger com­munity to get gro­cer­ies, med­ic­al care and oth­er ne­ces­sit­ies of life. If she was go­ing to make it, Yvonne knew she had to do three things. Get a chain­saw, get a boat and learn how to op­er­ate them.

Drawn to Sea is funny and heart-warm­ing; totally can­did and very evoc­at­ive of place. Vici Johnstone, pub­lish­er of Caitlin Press, told Yvonne her writ­ing was lyr­ic­al, the story well-paced and that it was a pleas­ure to read a book where the writer craf­ted her story like a work of art.

Yvonne, at right, made ex­cel­lent use of her time at the writ­ing retreat.

 

And that’s a key part of Yvonne’s suc­cess. As a self-em­ployed paint­er and pot­ter, she knows what it means to be dis­cip­lined. If you don’t sit down and do the work, it doesn’t get done. And that can mean the dif­fer­ence between earn­ing a liv­ing or starving, com­plet­ing a book or not.

I’m very proud of Yvonne. And I was touched when she said, “You got me over the last hurdle. Your ad­vice on how to fin­ish a book was brilliant.”

I can’t wait to see the pub­lished ver­sion of Drawn to Sea, per­haps fea­tur­ing one of Yvonne’s paint­ings on the cov­er. To find out more about one of BC’s new­est au­thors vis­it www​.searosestu​dio​.net.

 

 

Posted on

Workshop student lands book contract

As soon as I heard the voice on the an­swer­ing ma­chine I knew some­thing big had happened. Then Yvonne’s words came singing down the line, “I got a pub­lish­er! I’m go­ing to be published!”

The equa­tion can be this simple: a good story + good writ­ing + ded­ic­a­tion = pub­lished book. The real­ity is: many people have a great idea for a book, some have the writ­ing skills but few have the ded­ic­a­tion to see the pro­ject through. But right from the start I thought Yvonne Maximchuk might have all three.

I met Yvonne last May when she took one of my writ­ing work­shops. She’d been work­ing on a mem­oir for five years. But she wasn’t sure if her story was good enough and she was hav­ing a hard time fin­ish­ing the manuscript.

After read­ing the first pages of Drawn to Sea I knew Yvonne had the mak­ings of a story that would en­gage and in­trigue read­ers. The plot re­volves around her de­cision to re­main in an isol­ated com­munity after a break up with her part­ner. The chal­lenges were huge. She had two chil­dren to sup­port and wondered if she could sell her paint­ings and pot­tery from her Simoom Sound location.

Then there were the day-to-day con­sid­er­a­tions such as get­ting fire­wood and trav­el­ling back and forth to a lar­ger com­munity to get gro­cer­ies, med­ic­al care and oth­er ne­ces­sit­ies of life. If she was go­ing to make it, Yvonne knew she had to do three things. Get a chain­saw, get a boat and learn how to op­er­ate them.

Drawn to Sea is funny and heart-warm­ing; totally can­did and very evoc­at­ive of place. Vici Johnstone, pub­lish­er of Caitlin Press, told Yvonne her writ­ing was lyr­ic­al, the story well-paced and that it was a pleas­ure to read a book where the writer craf­ted her story like a work of art.

Yvonne, at right, made ex­cel­lent use of her time at the writ­ing retreat.

 

And that’s a key part of Yvonne’s suc­cess. As a self-em­ployed paint­er and pot­ter, she knows what it means to be dis­cip­lined. If you don’t sit down and do the work, it doesn’t get done. And that can mean the dif­fer­ence between earn­ing a liv­ing or starving, com­plet­ing a book or not.

I’m very proud of Yvonne. And I was touched when she said, “You got me over the last hurdle. Your ad­vice on how to fin­ish a book was brilliant.”

I can’t wait to see the pub­lished ver­sion of Drawn to Sea, per­haps fea­tur­ing one of Yvonne’s paint­ings on the cov­er. To find out more about one of BC’s new­est au­thors vis­it www​.searosestu​dio​.net.

 

 

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Making your book dream a reality

 

Sometimes it seems like every­one I talk to wants to write a book. I’ve lost count of the num­ber of people who’ve told me they have a great idea; all they need is the time, mo­tiv­a­tion, a new laptop or some oth­er little thing that will al­low them to cre­ate the next best­selling nov­el or the defin­it­ive world history.

And, you know, some of the ideas I hear would make good books. So why haven’t they been writ­ten? Motivation is a primary reas­on, I’m sure. It’s hard to get up an hour early or to skip your fa­vour­ite TV pro­gram to work on a ma­nu­script. But some people do it. What gives them the will to park them­selves in front of their key­board and write in­stead of just talk­ing or dream­ing about it?

For most folks there’s a de­fin­ing mo­ment when they de­cide to go for it and do their best to be­come a pub­lished au­thor. A couple of years ago Chevy Stevens (the pen name of Rene Unischewski) was work­ing as a real es­tate agent in Nanaimo. But she wanted to write a book. 

“I figured if I was go­ing to do it, now would be the time,” she said in an in­ter­view with the Nanaimo Daily News. “It’s a lot harder years later, es­pe­cially if you’re mar­ried and have children.”

So Chevy quit her job, sold her house and lived off her sav­ings for two years. When she’d writ­ten the best nov­el she could, she hired a pro­fes­sion­al ed­it­or to help her make it even better.

Stevens was will­ing to take some big risks but they res­ul­ted in an agent, a con­tract and a book that made the New York Times Bestseller List and is cur­rently op­tioned for a movie.

For Comox Valley res­id­ent, Harold Macy, it was dif­fer­ent. He’s writ­ten scores of short stor­ies and won nu­mer­ous awards for them. But he wanted to write a book.

About six years ago he began a fiction/​nonfiction hy­brid based on his ex­per­i­ences as a for­est­er. He’d write and re­write and, on oc­ca­sion, take his ma­nu­script to work­shops to get feed­back and hone his craft.

Eventually Harold knew his ma­nu­script was as ready as it would ever be. He also knew he’d be 65 soon and wanted his book pub­lished soon­er rather than later. So he in­vest­ig­ated his op­tions and de­cided to self-pub­lish. The Four Storey Forest, which in­cludes a dust jack­et blurb from award-win­ning au­thor Jack Hodgins, is sched­uled for re­lease this May.

I met Harold 25 years ago at a writ­ing re­treat at Strathcona Park Lodge. That was my wa­ter­shed mo­ment. I’d had a few arti­cles pub­lished but, like every­one else, I wanted to write a book.

Getting away from the ob­lig­a­tions and dis­trac­tions of daily life and spend­ing time with like-minded people opened my mind to the pos­sib­il­it­ies of what I could do — if I was pre­pared to work at it. And re­ceiv­ing feed­back from pub­lished au­thor, Bill Valgardson, was invaluable.

What did you do – or what will it take for you — to make your book dream a reality?