Terry Fallis - Best Laid Plans

My editor, Doug Gibson, dropped by yesterday morning with the final version of the manuscript for The High Road. He’d wanted me to see and approve a couple of dozen or so added commas and other punctuation changes to put the book to bed. It took me less than an hour last night to walk through the entire manuscript, searching for Doug’s modest pencil edits. So it’s really done now. Well, you think it’s finally done, but it’s never really done until it’s sitting on a bookstore shelf. But the final manuscript is now handed over to one of McClelland & Stewart’s skilled copy editors. As Doug describes it, it’s the copy editor’s job to make Doug and me look like idiots by discovering many errors in syntax, grammar, spelling, and continuity that neither Doug nor I caught the first 47 times we’d reviewed the manuscript. And rest assured, additional minor edits will arise as we wend our way towards publication. That’s just how this works. But, it feels good to have reached this stage, and before our deadline too. The manuscript isn’t contractually due to M&S until January 11th.

This copy editing phase apparently should not take too long. Then they’ll format and lay out the book block, as it’s called. This is how the inside of the book will look when it’s finally published. We’ll then print out several copies on 8.5 x 11 inch paper and send them around to literary luminaries who might read it and pass favourable judgement on the novel. Ultimately, we’re looking for endorsements that can be quoted in publicity materials, and even on the book itself. Finally, they’ll move into cover design. Doug Gibson’s idea is that The High Road should look like a companion novel to TBLP. So there will almost certainly be graphic and thematic elements from TBLP’s cover that will be found in the cover design for its sequel. I find the publishing process to be endlessly fascinating, so I’m looking forward to what comes next. Still, we’re at least eight months away from the release of The High Road. That’s just how long it all takes. Sigh.

This has all gotten me thinking about what may come next. So I spent this past Friday mapping out novel #3. (And that’s what it’s called at this stage, Novel #3.) It’s not part of the Angus canon, but is something new. I’m enjoying plotting the story, but it still needs more time just steeping in my head before I’m ready to start the formal outlining and chapter notes, let alone the actual writing. Strange not to have Angus in my head, but I’m sure he’ll return…

Earlier in December, I did an interview with Nigel Killick, who produces PeopleTalk, a great podcast, out of England. He has a considerable following in North America and in Asia. In our conversation, we talk about my publishing journey, politics and social media. You should check out some of the other interesting interviews posted on the site. Many thanks Nigel.

A week or so ago, I was pleased to participate in a great event at the wonderful Re: Reading bookstore on the Danforth here in Toronto. The reading was organized by a group of students in the PR program at Centennial College and it was in support of Frontier College. Also reading at the authors event was Pasha Malla, who wrote the award-winning short story collection, The Withdrawal Method. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with Pasha. I hope our paths cross again. The event was very well organized and the food was great. Frontier College has been doing extraordinary literacy work in this country for over 100 years. I was honoured to support this important institution.

Alexandra Courneya, a talented photographer, was at the event and took some shots. Be sure to vist her site.

While this list changes every hour or so, it seems that TBLP has again risen to number one on the “Political” bestsellers listing at Amazon.ca, at least for a few minutes. Perhaps someone in my family is doing their last minute Christmas shopping. However it happened, it’s good news. As I often do in such situations, and never knowing if it will ever happen again, I grabbed a screen shot as evidence. If you click on the graphic below now, TBLP will probably be well back in the pack, but for this one brief shining moment, on a Friday afternoon the week before Christmas…

Still six days of Christmas shopping left…

On Monday evening, December 7th, I’ll be travelling to Dundas, Ontario, just outside of Hamilton, to give a talk and reading to a group of Liberals. Hamilton is my old university stomping ground so I’m really looking forward to going back. My friends at the wonderful local bookstore,  Bryan Prince Bookseller, will be on hand to peddle copies of TBLP. My pen will be uncapped and ready to inscribe.

The event is to celebrate the contributions made by members of the Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale Federal Liberal Association and I’m delighted to be a part of it. The kind organizers have even put together a flyer to promote the event, featuring a generously overblown description of my political career. In reality, and even through the rose-coloured glasses of hindsight, my formal stint in politics was neither “long” nor “storied.” It was a blast, and certainly shaped my future. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But I was never really a “player” in the Liberal corridors of power. Nevertheless, I’m thrilled to have been invited. Secure in the knowledge that I’ll be among the party faithful, I may read some of the more partisan sections of TBLP! I’ll report on the event afterwards.

Last weekend, I finished polishing the manuscript of The High Road, the sequel to TBLP. It felt very good to close the document and send it off to my agent Beverley Slopen. My wonderful editor/publisher Douglas Gibson at McClelland & Stewart still has to read the second half of the novel and I’m sure he’ll have some edits and suggestions as he did on the first half. So the process is not yet complete, but we’re getting closer. Provided he has no major issues with how the story unfolds, (and I suppose he might), we’re really in the home stretch now.

Believe it or not, I was actually jotting down notes today for my third novel. I think I’ll be taking a break from Angus and Daniel for the next book. An idea is steeping and fermenting in my head. It needs to rattle around for a while yet but there’s something there. Thinking, thinking, thinking…

…thinking, thinking, thinking…

This coming Sunday afternoon, October 18th, I’ll be in Thornbury, Ontario, near Collingwood for a reading, talk, and signing, at the L. E. Shore Memorial Library. The good folks from Jessica’s Book Nook will have copies of TBLP available, so I’ll have something to sign. I’m looking forward to it and appreciate the efforts made to pull it together.

The fall colours should be beautiful on the drive up if the sun is shining. The Meaford Express has written about the event already so here’s hoping it’s a full house.

I’m really happy to report that over the weekend, I finished the draft manuscript for The High Road. Yep, the process that began last December when I started to create the outline for the TBLP sequel, has now, some 10 months later, crossed another major threshold. I must confess, after such a long process of outlining and writing, it felt amazing to key in the words “The End” after putting Chapter 20 to bed.

Writing my second novel has reaffirmed my faith in the writing process I seem to have adopted, or stumbled into. I was looking back through this blog and noted that I finished my first pass at Chapter 1 on February 17th. I could not have written 100,000 words in less than eight months of evenings and weekends without leaning heavily on the outline I’d already  spent about two months preparing. When writing, I have two Word documents on the screen at the same time. My outline is on the right hand side and my manuscript is on the left. I just follow the outline and write, page by page, chapter by chapter. There was still room for spontaneous creativity as I was writing. There were several additions to the story that weren’t in the original outline, but the major plot points have all been preserved. It felt like the process worked well, though I admit I have little to which to compare it.

Though the manuscript is now essentially complete, there’s still work to do. I’m now returning to the beginning of the novel to begin editing and polishing. I actually do quite a bit of editing as I write, so at this stage, I’d say the manuscript is probably the equivalent of a third draft. My plan (and my editor’s too) is to hand over the edited and polished manuscript by the end of October. There will almost certainly be some additional tweaking and, of course, proof-reading after that, but the heavy lifting (I think and hope) is done.

Now, on to the polishing…

I’ve been remiss in not reporting on my two stop tour of the Niagara region a couple of weeks ago. It was a great day. First, I gave an afternoon talk and reading at the Fort Erie Public Library. The people were wonderful. Several of them had already read TBLP while many of the others purchased books afterwards. The current and former Mayors of Fort Erie even came.

Then in the evening, I headed back down the QEW to the picturesque town of Pelham to speak at the public library. A capacity crowd filled the room. Believe it or not, the mayor of Pelham also stopped by to say hello. Pelham is also home to a few of the leaders of the team that built a replica of the Silver Dart, the first powered airplane to fly in Canada back in 1909. Knowing of my interest in the Silver Dart, Elaine at the library invited them to attend the reading. I’d followed the exploits of this intrepid group and the climax of their efforts in February when the replica took off from the ice near Baddeck, Cape Breton, exactly 100 years after the original Silver Dart first flew. In fact, I blogged about it back in February. It was great to speak with them. They kindly presented me with a photograph commemorating the historic event (the replica’s flight, not my reading in Pelham).

My thanks to Amy in Fort Erie and Elaine in Pelham for such a well organized day.

I’ve told my editor/publisher Douglas Gibson that I’ll have the completed manuscript to him by October 31st. So I thought it was time for another update. (Anything to distract me from actually finishing the book!)

I’m actually quite far along now and feeling good. It seems to go faster when the finish line is in sight. There are 20 chapters in The High Road, and I’ve just started to write Chapter 18. Yes, only two and a half chapters to go and I’m done. Well, not so fast. Actually, when I finish Chapter 20, I’ll then go back to the beginning and take another pass through it all to edit and polish. But I’ll make my Halloween deadline. Doug has already reviewed the first 60,000 words or so and has made some suggestions that I’ll incorporate. Mercifully, there are only minor edits to make and he’s quite pleased with what he’s seen so far. So I’m breathing again.

Usually, if we’re not too busy on weekends, I can write a first draft of an entire 5,000 word chapter from Friday night to Sunday evening. And it almost always happens on weekends when I can carve out several hours at a time to write. I don’t seem to be able to get much writing done during the week after a long day at the office. So thanks to my very indulgent and understanding family, I able to sequester myself in our third floor library for long stretches on Saturdays and Sundays. I’ll report in again when Chapter 20 is in the books (as it were).