Terry Fallis - Best Laid Plans

Tis the season for new year’s resolutions.  For many years, a mainstay of my annual list of resolutions had been “get started writing the novel.” I took that one off my list in 2006 as I tweaked and fiddled with what was essentially a completed manuscript for TBLP.  But here we are on the eve of 2009 and I’m finding myself resurrecting “get started writing the novel” for this year’s list.

So here, in no particular order, are a few new year’s resolution I’ll be trying to keep:

Write the sequel to TBLP. I’m nearly done the rather detailed outline for the sequel to TBLP so it will soon be time to start the writing.  I’m excited yet filled with trepidation at the prospect.  I’m not sure how long it will take, but I’m on it!

Add more meaningful content to this blog rather than just littering it with every minor new development in the life of TBLP (I may find it interesting that libraries are ordering TBLP but I’m hard-pressed to expect anyone else to find it compelling reading!).  So, with this in mind:

• I intend to blog about some of the writers who have inspired me including Robertson Davies, Stephen Fry, Paul Quarrington, John Irving and Mordecai Richler, among others.

• I’ll blog a little about how I approach the task of writing.  I’m always interested in the how writers actually tackle the act of writing.  And I really mean the more practical aspects of it.  Do they write in the morning?  Do they write in long or short time spans?  Do they write in the kitchen?  How do they start?  Etc. etc.   I’m still feeling my way on this but I think I’ve learned a couple of things from writing TBLP.

• I may also offer some observations on the broader topic of writing in general, and humour writing in particular. This will likely veer into questions of technique rather than just dealing with the more practical issues like  laptop versus pen and pad, kitchen versus home office, etc., noted above.

Continue to do whatever I can to promote TBLP. Since the Leacock shock in the spring, I’ve been quite busy with readings and speaking gigs at various writers festivals.  It’s been a new but very fulfilling and enjoyable experience for me.  And, I think that book sales are higher because of those events.  Even though M&S published TBLP in September, I think there are still appearances and talks and readings that I can do keep the name of the novel out there.

Spend more meaningful time with my wife and two sons,  despite returning to a heavier evening and weekend writing schedule.  We’re a very busy family.  But being a busy family doesn’t mean we can’t be busy together.  It takes planning and patience, but nothing is more important.

Make 2009 a strong year professionally (i.e. my day job!). I derive great satisfaction from my work as a PR professional.  I work with some wonderful people, clients and colleagues alike.  We have a great PR firm in Toronto and Ottawa and we’re doing some very interesting and innovative work for our clients.  I want that to continue and grow even more.

So here’s to a wonderful and memorable 2008 and a happy and healthy 2009.

Self-publishing TBLP was not my first choice.  After I finished writing it, I spent the better part of a year peddling my manuscript around to agents and publishers with nary a flicker of interest.  To many experienced writers, a year doesn’t seem a very long time, but I confess it did to me.  In December 2006 I could see no evidence that I’d ever interest anyone in my novel.  So it was not with excitement or anticipation that I signed up online with iUniverse to self-publish TBLP.  No, I laid down my money with disappointment and a clear sense of unfulfilled dreams.  But those feelings dissipated in time.  My calculation was a simple one.  I convinced myself (and I’m glad I did) that it would be easier to build an audience for my work, and interest agents and publishers if I could actually put a published book in their hands (okay, a self-published book that didn’t look like many self-published books).  I was, and still am, fully aware of the often well-earned stigma of self-published books.  For many readers, self-published works cry out that this writing, this story, this book, is just not worthy of mainstream publishing houses.  The common refrain from critics is that if the quality is there, it will eventually find a home with a publisher.  Intellectually I know this is not necessarily true.  But it’s been true often enough to entrench this belief.  I knew all of this, but went down the self-publishing road anyway, feeling that it at least gave me a chance to get my novel “out there.”

So what’s my view of self-publishing now?  Well despite the success of my rather unorthodox journey to the published land, self-publisihing still wouldn’t be my first choice.  Being published by a mainstream house brings so many benefits that it remains the goal to shoot for if you’re an aspiring writer (as I still consider myself to be).  But, if that route doesn’t pay off, self-publishing is an avenue worth considering if the circumstances are right.  As for my charmed year in 2008?  None of this would have happened had I not first self-published TBLP.  Were it not for the TBLP podcast and iUniverse, there would never have been the Leacock shock, Beverley Slopen, Doug Gibson and McClelland & Stewart, and all that has come since.  So self-publishing worked for me.  But because it has worked and I’ve somehow found a home with M&S, at least for TBLP, I’m hoping I won’t need to resort to self-publishing in the future.  And that was the point of trying it in the first place.  So, not necessarily self-publishing but self-publishing if necessary…

McClelland & Stewart has introduced a cool new feature on their catalogue website that allows visitors to browse and even search through a book online.  This is the virtual equivalent of picking up a novel in the book store and flipping through its pages.  For TBLP, there are 35 “preview pages” including the title and copyright pages and the entire Prologue.  Then, the first page of each of the next 14 chapters are available to round out the 35 preview pages offered.  The controls are straight-forward and easy to use.  You can even “search” within the book and references will be listed, including those found in the entire novel but not visible in the preview pages.  I assume this feature is designed to close the gap further separating the in-store versus online book shopping experiences.  An interesting use of ever-advancing technology…

I see now that there is a second watchmojo.com segment available from the interview I did while in Montreal back in October. In case you haven’t had enough of my argyle sweater (which seems to turn up often when I’m promoting TBLP), here’s the second clip. (The static opening frame shot that sits there until you hit “play” almost always makes me look a little psycho… sigh…)

Quebec’s largest weekly newspaper, The Suburban, ran a nice little piece in early December about TBLP.  I did a phone interview with Julia Gerke when I was in Montreal back in October, and this article is the result.  Nice.

I’ve been keeping one eye on this cool site call BookManager since another author suggested I monitor it.  It apparently tracks independent book stores’ orders of every book available in Canada.  Anything ranking in the top 5,000 is considered to be in “High Demand.”  As we approach the all-important holiday season, TBLP checks in at #673.  (It could change tomorrow but that’s where TBLP is today.)  This is the highest it’s been since I’ve been watching and I’m told that this is good news, particularly as it’s been more than three months since it was published.  By way of comparison, Joseph Boyden’s Giller-winning novel, Through Black Spruce is at #7 and  The Killing Circle, by Andrew Pyper (great writer, great guy) published in early August, comes in at #8766.  Mind you in the big box Indigo stores, there are hundreds of copies of bestseller Pyper’s novel, many more than there are of TBLP so who knows what it all means…

I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries lately about a sequel to TBLP, so I thought I’d bring you all up to date.  Doug Gibson at M&S has been quietly and gently encouraging me to write a sequel and that certainly fits in with my own thinking.  Now that I know my characters a little better than I did back when they were created, I’m eager to embark on their next adventure.  With this in mind, I’ve been working on the outline for the as yet unnamed sequel.  I’ve mapped out the storyline and the major plot points and have created a few new characters to shake things up a bit in Cumberland.  Currently, I’m working on individual chapter outlines.  The sequel will generally be structured along the same lines as TBLP.  I’m aiming for 100,000 words (but who knows?) broken roughly into two parts.  As in TBLP, there will likely be about ten chapters in Part 1 and ten chapters in Part 2.  Each chapter will again come in at around 5,000 words.  (I know, it seems a rather mechanical and unromantic approach that may rob the writing of its mystery and spontaneity.  (Blame the engineer in me.)

I’ve discovered that there are many different ways to write a novel.  I’ve heard many respected writers talk about just starting with a basic idea.  They just start writing and let the characters emerge on their own and shape the story themselves while the author tags along for the ride.  Sorry, I’m not built that way.  Even though I’m hardly experienced enough to know, I felt the first time around at least that I really needed the structure and security of a detailed outline, character sketches, and chapter summaries before actually starting the formal writing.  It was a great sense of comfort to know where I was going, and with whom I was dealing, page to page, and chapter to chapter.  Yet, my outline was still flexible enough to accommodate late-breaking ideas for plot twists and the weaving together of initially disconnected side-stories.

My fear with adopting a much looser and more organic approach to writing is that I’d be forever discarding and/or rewriting huge swaths of text to ensure that the story hangs together all the way through.  I simply don’t have time for that.  I never seem to have enough time for writing so I think it makes sense for me to lay down a detailed story outline so that when I am able to start writing in earnest, I can be very efficient and focused on the prose itself rather than developing the plot and characters on the fly.  It seemed to work well for me the first time around so if it ain’t broke, etc., etc.

Our current political turmoil is a wonderful backdrop against which to be creating, outlining and eventually writing the sequel to TBLP.  A writer could hardly ask for more.  Stay tuned…

When I was in Montreal a few weeks ago for a day of media interviews about TBLP, I shot an interview for the popular video site, WatchMojo.com. For what it’s worth, here it is:

For writers, it’s not always easy to know how well your book is selling.  Yes, you’ll eventually get sales reports from the publisher and ultimately a royalty cheque or two.  But in the interim, beyond tracking how many copies are sitting on the shelves in the many Chapters/Indigo stores across the country (which you can actually do if you have plenty of time on your hands), it’s difficult to get a handle on sales.  When I was in Ottawa, another author told me about BookManager.  As far as I can tell, it’s a website that tracks independent bookstores‘ demand for books.  It also ranks books based on orders from the Independents.  At any rate, I’m given to understand that if you get the red designation “High Demand,” all is well.  There are at least a few hundred thousands books captured in this system so coming in at number 952 nearly three months after publication seems like good news to me.  Just for comparison, Giller winner Joseph Boyden’s Through Black Spruce sits at number 6 while Alice Munro’s new book, Alice Munro’s Best: Selected Short Stories, published in late October comes in at number 691.  What does it all mean?  I have no idea but I’m feeling good about cracking the top 1,000.

A few weeks ago, my friend and editor/publisher Doug Gibson and I met to record a podcast for Booklounge, a great website that brings together offerings for the book lover from a number of Canadian publishers, including McClelland & Stewart.   Doug is a stellar conversationalist and as I hope you can tell, we had a great time in our little chat.  The only real challenge was sticking to our ten minute target as prescribed by the folks at Booklounge (we came in at 12 minutes!).  Hope you enjoy our wide-ranging conversation about TBLP.