COLD CANADA

Sweltering in Melbourne one moment and freezing in Canada the next. Now I know why my body hates me at times.

Departed Melbourne without too much fuss though I did manage to leave my camera in my friends car. No problems, camera's were on special at the duty free, so I moved from a bulky Cannon camera to a lightweight model. Still it is an annoyance to leave stuff behind.

On most of my travels I avail myself of the Qantas lounge, something I have become accustomed to. But not this time I wasn't travelling Qantas so I had to wait with the great, unwashed masses and forgo free food, drinks, magazines and newspapers. I don't know how I survived.

I lucked out and scored a row to myself, thank you Air Canada! As I always do I slept little but watched several movies, the pick of which was Juilia V Julia. The Julie part all about a women that writes a cooking blog. She too wondered if anyone would read her blog. They did and it not only lead to a book but the film as well!

It was the first time that I had travelled Air Canada and I had no problems at all with the service. It wasn't the best airline food I have had but it was okay.

The plane actually landed early into a dull and bleak Vancouver Sunday morning. Rain and cold. My good moon at being off the plane soon dissapeared when I was given a going over by Canadian immigration. Apparently I came to Immigrations notice because I left and then returned to Canada so quickly. I must admit I was a little worried for a while as time dragged on, I had visions of being on the next plane back to Australia with my tail between my legs.

Thankfully that was not the case.

I had a three day wait in Vancouver and didn't really do a lot as I had been to Vancouver several times before. Also it was cold and wet and thoroughly miserable. So I managed to catch up on some sleep and reading.

Just yesteerday I hada wonderful trip back to Okanagan Fall through the Rocky Mountains. Huge snow covered moutains and pine trees covered in snow. To an Aussie who spent the best part of the last two years in the Central Desert region of Australia the snow was a wonderous sight.

So I am now back in my home base and trying to get up the motivation to continue with my Tommy Tippett book. Yes the first draft of 85,000 words is written but now comes the hard part, editing and honing the words that I wrote. Cutting and chopping here and adding something there. I really want to get on with the task but I am dragging my feet.

I have promised myself that I will start next Monday and I will hold myself to that especially now that I have placed the threat in writing.

Life is good I sit and write this as I look out over a majestic mountain range that runs down to the shores of a cold Lake Skaha. No complaints from me.

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.