CANADA BOUND

The touring around the backblocks of Victoria has come to an end. My good friend Adrian and I saw quite a bit of Victoria in the first half of the week. It is beautiful country, luch green fields with fat shhep and cows, interwoven with area's of stately euclypt forrest.

I particularly enjoyed the old towns, some big and some real small, all had character and a interesting array of old buildings. Well that is they are old to Australian's, around 150-100 years old, our history doesn't go back all that far and the 1850's is a long time in Australia.

Victoria lived up to its reputation as being cold and bleak one moment and the next you are dazzled by bright sunshine and find yourself shedding clothes. Earlier in the week it struggled to get to a maximum temperature of 13c, whiclst today it was
34c. Crazy!

It was great staying with my old Army buddy and fellow Chinese tour guide, but I am looking forward to heading back to Canada and MORE cold!

Early start on Sunday morning, a flight to Sydney with Qantas and then a 12:15pm flight to Vancouver with Air Canada. I usually fly Qantas so it will be interesting to experience the Air Canada flight.

I will then have four days in beautiful downtown Vancouver before heading back to Okanagan Falls over the Rocky Mountains.

Nothing at all to report on the writing front as I am waiting for comments from friends and family about my first draft. Perhaps it is terrible as no one appears to want to give me feedback and they don't want to hurt my feelings.

I will certainly get cracking with the edit when I get back home as time is wasting and I really want to know if I am wasting my time or not.

And for all aspiring writers here is another story of hope See it can be done!

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

I am not really all too sure what it is all about, I am not even quite sure why I am writing this blog.

Well that isn't really true, I am writing it because all of my research has told me that I need a blog presence if I want to get into the writing game. A blog as well as a website, facebook and twitter are just a few of the ways to promote a book. All of this, so I am told is called "my platform."

I must point out at this stage I don't have a book published, I am an aspiring, published author. This is a part of the plan to achieve that goal.

What I do have is a first draft of a 85,500 word book about a boy called Tommy Tippett and it tells his story about growing up in Sydney, Australia in the 1960's. Tommy has a sort of weird family and the smartest individual in his household is his German Shepherd dog Ace. Tommy has a variety of adventures and misadventures. Life is never dull in his household!

At this stage the first draft is out with several friends and family members for feedback and advice. Sometimes I think what I write is good to okay, whilst other days (most) I think it is ordinary crap.

To tell you the truth I don't even really know what genre the book fits into, young adult fiction, literary fiction, or perhaps just drivel! Probably the closest character I can think of is PK in the Power of One.

As I said earlier in the post I have researched writing and being published to such an extent that I am totally confused. Originally I thought I would self-publish but that quickly went by the wayside. Then I found out about how to get an agent and write query letters. Perhaps I will place my book on Authonomyhttp://http//authonomy.com/ to get some feedback and advice.

I have discovered so much information about writing and getting published, it is rather mind-boggling. I have made several false starts in regards to commenting on blogs or joining writing websites such as http://http//www.absolutewrite.com/ like anything it is just about having the will and confidence to do so.

I should state now that writing a book hasn't been a long-term goal or desire, it just sort of happened.

For 15 months I had lived and worked in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory of Australia as part as the Intervention http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Territory_National_Emergency_Responsehttp://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Territory_National_Emergency_Response

I lived in the communities of Yuendumu and Ngukurr which are some of the most isolated communities in all of Australia. Unfortunately my government contract concluded on 30 June 2009 and I was suddenly unemployed.

Then by a stroke of good luck a wonderful friend in Canada invited me to stay and in a matter of days I packed my bags and moved to beautiful British Columbia. I can't work in Canada so I acted on my friends suggestion and started to write about Tommy Tippett.

I am back in Australia visiting my kids and head down to Melbourne, Victoria tomorrow to catch up with an old mate before heading back to Canada next Sunday. I have a great life!

So if you are game enough to stick with me I will take you on the journey that will hopefully lead to the publication of the Tommy Tippett story, with a bit of a travelogue thrown in for good measure.