The Writer's Journey. Follow Your Dreams

When people follow their dreams, their passion often leads ultimately to the fulfillment of those dreams. Sometimes it takes a long time. At others, the dreams may change and open up other avenues. I always wanted to be a writer and while it took almost a lifetime to get to the published book stage, I do not regret the journey. And here I am to tell you that you never know where you will find the encouragement to continue.

There were many spots on my journey when something happened that suggested it was possible that I would one day publish a book. Then more books. An early such moment was when I opened an envelope to discover that a recommendation had been made on my behalf, unknown to me, by James Polk, then an editor at the House of Anansi Press,  for an Ontario Arts Council grant. I did not know who Polk was except that he had turned down my manuscript. Yet only a month or so later, he was recommending me for a grant.

Another significant event was when a story that was accepted by the University of Windsor Review was accepted for broadcast on the CBC's Anthology. And then not long after came a small Canada Council grant. I corresponded in those days with the Editor, not knowing until many years later who the Fiction Editor, who had actually accepted my work, was (Keep reading!).

When I met Adele Wiseman during her stint as writer in residence at the University of Toronto, I met not only a mentor but a friend who remained both until she died many years later. Bill Kilbourn was another mentor and friend. Sometimes my work wasn't entirely ready to submit and yet these two wonderful writers could see something in it.

And then there was the Humber School for Writers. After years of deciding I would not take this  program because it was where I live, Toronto, so wouldn't provide an opportunity to go somewhere else (as I had done by going to the Banff Centre of the Arts in 1992 and to a summer writing program at the University of New Brunswick in 1997), finally I read their course information.. My express purpose was to move on in my career as a writer. So I applied and was accepted, too nervous to ask for Alistair MacLeod as mentor, thinking that was presumptuous on my part. Lo and behold, Humber decided his small group was the right one for me.            

It was while at Humber that I learned that, ten years apart,  MacLeod had accepted two of my short stories that were subsequently published in The University of Windsor Review. Somehow this drew the strands of my writing life together and gave it all some coherence. And the courage to move on. Not long after, my short story collection was accepted by Inanna. Later, my first novel in 2010. And now in 2014, I look forward to the publication of my second novel in the fall!

The dreams continue as one after another my books emerge.A long, arduous, but satisfying, journey.

Alistair MacLeod. 1936 - 2014. RIP

Farewell to one of Canada's best loved writers.  MacLeod wrote beautifully and he treated people kindly and with good humour. He will be missed. And I, for one, will take out his short stories and his novel and read them again, marvelling at the skill and compassion with which they are written.

Some people leave us far too soon. Although MacLeod was 77, it feels that way, as if the world has lost a gentle soul who made the lives of the rest of us better. Fortunately he leaves behind the books that we can still hold and read, a legacy of value.

Reviews, Brief.

Ron Schafrick's first book, a collection of short stories, The Interpreters, is masterfully written and with many of the stories set in Korea, of interest to those who find other cultures fascinating as well as those who appreciate good literature. Well done characterization as well as revealing dialogue.

Now reading Olivia Laing's The Trip to Echo Spring; On Writers and Drinking. At first, I was curious about the writers she chose...Cheever, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Carver among a couple of others, all writers whose work I admire. I did not know about the drinking history of either Cheever or Carver, but what is more fascinating is how well written this book is. When people want to know what I'm reading, I imagine when they see the title they might think I have a drinking problem!

Life of a Writer. #31. The Art of Revision.

Oh yes, a title to obscure the drudgery of revision. It is art, is it not? Or will produce art. As writers what we know is that it is necessary. Inspiration may be what first drove what we are working on, but once those halcyon days of flashing lights and long hours capturing those images have disappeared into the past, what we are left with is shaping, cutting, adding, redoing. Whatever words fit the 90 percent of the work of creation. It requires persistence, dedication, joy and sorrow. Probably much else as well. Patience. Quiet surroundings usually. An understanding family if one is lucky enough to have one. A supportive spouse/partner, also if one is lucky enough to... These supportive people may help us financially as well as emotionally. Or we may have to do this for ourselves. But one way and another, we find our own way through the morass of figuring out how to find those long hours to put in on writing and revision.

In my case, I have the readers' comments from the publisher about my upcoming novel, Would I Lie To You?, and am working on incorporating the ones I agree with prior to editing further with the actual editor of the small press that will publish my book in the fall. One wonders at times if it never ends and then is grateful that when the time comes, the book that emerges will be a better one!

Cuba. March 2014

Street Scene in Old Havana

Old Havana

Old Havana

Old Havana

Old Havana

Cuban flag

Ernest Hemingway's House near Havana

Restaurant on Water. Most magnificent seafood.

Santa Clara

Che Guavera Memorial

The size!!!

A trip to Cuba that included the interaction with a feminist, activist lawyer and a biologist/environmentalist, lectures from a doctor, a lawyer and an economist. Lots of questions and answers in all contexts. An opportunity to meet people who live in Cuba and for us to benefit from their experience. A visit to an organic farm, to the psycho ballet, to dance demonstrations, to a sculptor and doctor's home. To hear music and tour community and women's centres. To meet the children. To see the happy children in school yards and parks. And on it went. Even enjoying the beach! But primarily learning about the people, their struggles, their courage and creativity. About a system that has health care for everyone and where however poor, a roof over everyone's head. Through all the hardships of the embargo and the collapse of the Berlin wall, later the financial embroglio at the beginning of this century in North America, these people have survived and thrived. When the subject of the U.S. comes up, it is clear they do not want to change anyone else, only to be left alone to continue carrying out with the philosophical insights of their national hero, Jose Marti, which place community at the core of everything. So decisions and policies are made by the community for the community with that care for everyone in mind.  

Mavis Gallant. A prized photo. 1992

With Mavis Gallant at the Banff Centre for the Arts. 1992.

Growing up in Bourlamaque, Quebec. An early northern Quebec mining town.

With my father on the front steps of our house at 103 Champlain. With my mother in front of the beauty salon on the main street.

Self Photo.

.

 

Draw a balloon over her head with the words...If it weren't for the neck!... written in it.

 

Well, what do I expect in the seventh decade? Author photo promises to be a problem/hassle for the next book unless it can appease my vanity. On the other hand, for a quick shot with an IPAD this is not bad.

Life of a Writer. #30. Introducing the Detective.

The first chapter of the mystery, The White Ribbon Man, introduces the detective, Detective Sergeant Jack Cosser. If you have been following this blog at all, you know that there were other attempts at a beginning. Gradually this character has assumed his place. The revision is almost complete now. And here are the first paragraphs of the first chapter of my upcoming mystery novel, The White Ribbon Man.

On a gray Sunday in November when just a touch of frost in the air heralded winter, Detective Sergeant Jack Cosser hoped to spend quiet time enjoying the last of what had been an unusually long fall season. He had considered reading a new mystery or maybe driving a short distance out of Toronto to some peaceful spot for a stroll. He could not muster the energy to go and work out at the gym, nor to try to find someone for a fast game of squash. Maybe his partner on the most recent case, Simon Reid, would be interested. But he could hardly call an off duty police officer and expect him to be happy to give up a quiet Sunday morning. Reid might not know it was to allay Jack’s unease, something that had not diminished in the days and weeks since he and his wife, Marion, had separated, but he would know it was an unwanted interruption.

            Cosser glanced at the mirror over the sofa and saw a man of medium height with brown hair with a slight wave in it. He thought his fair reddish skin suggested he probably had freckles in his youth and a short tree trunk of a neck seemed almost to sit on top of his shoulders. In spite of everything, he thought he did not look too terrible. Or not, at least, in a way anyone else would notice in spite of dark circles under his eyes and a worried frown that he tried to erase by smiling. A lopsided smile that did not improve his appearance, he thought.

Not a tall man, probably not more than five feet nine or ten, it was said he was nonetheless an imposing figure. His ruddy cheeks suggested he enjoyed his liquor, but it was also part of having fair skin. Oh, vanity, he thought. But how would he ever court Marion again if he looked as if he were falling to pieces? And, of course, he was not. Just take the recent case that had gone cold for years. An old one for which evidence had surfaced about a year earlier and when it was assigned to him to follow up, he had been able to find the person who had perpetrated the crime and this had led to an arrest when the man had admitted his guilt in the old rape and murder. So there had not been massive publicity that went with a trial. Just a couple of articles when the man was arrested and then confessed. He was now finally in prison. Cosser felt good about that one, satisfied that one more criminal was finally off the streets.

Although nothing made up for his domestic situation. He did not like it and he was lonely.  There, he had acknowledged to himself the gnawing feeling that overtook him once he left his work and tried to relax at home. A trial separation. Then there was no end to the trial, just this ongoing reality of his existence in a tiny apartment in an old brick house just a few blocks from the smaller house where they had lived together. And then the divorce papers that he had wanted to tear up, but if divorce was what Marion wanted he had thought he ought to go through with it. After all, what point was there in trying to preserve a sterile relationship with someone you did not even live with any longer? But suppose she still loved him? Suppose. Oh, he had to stop that. He had to get some sleep. He lay down on the floor and started to do push ups. Afterwards he had a shower. When he finally sat down at the kitchen table, wearing the bottoms of a striped pair of flannel pyjamas, he thought that some time soon he would talk to Marion. He would ask her if-  After all, it would not be the first time that a couple married again.

From the window across from him, he could see a small park in the Annex where Jaime still went to play at times. She was too young to go on her own, but either he or Marion took her there. He loved the delight on his daughter’s round, chubby face when he pushed her on the swings or she slid down a slide. But unfortunately it wasn’t his Sunday to have her with him.

            He picked up a book, lying open on the floor beside him, and started to read where he had left off the last time. It was a mystery novel. You would think in his line of work he would read something else and often he did. Matthew Fox’s Original Blessing and some of the books that had come after it. And heaven knew how he even knew about the books he picked up, but Invisible Man by an American called Ellison. Tonight it was a mystery called The Last Detective. He liked the curmudgeon in charge of the investigation, a British cop who eschewed computer technology. You could not last long in this business these days without using a computer, but he liked the way this cop was able to focus differently because he had come from another era. Not one replete with cell phones and faxes and all the gimmicks that the last twenty or so years had given to the world and to police investigations. Not that Jack did not use all of that same gimmickry himself, it was just that there had to be a place for human ingenuity. And, he thought, also for the human spirit.

        

Visiting Maxland. Snoopy and Charlie Brown skating in front of Max" House.

 

p.s. Max is my grandson.

Life of a Writer. #29. Looking Forward to 2014

 Looking backward, 2013 was a good year. Looking forward, 2014 holds great promise. A new grandchild in the spring and the launch of a new book in the fall. My second grandchild and my third book. Travels to include Montreal, of course, as that is where my grandchild will enter the world. Also, Cuba in March with a group from Ryerson's Life program and Newfoundland for the AGM of the Writers Union at the beginning of June.

In the meantime, a mystery aficionado is reading the latest draft of my mystery, The White Ribbon Man. I am hopeful that I will complete it soon and be able to send it to my agent.

2014 began at a New Year's dance at Mad for Tango in downtown Toronto with a congenial group with whom I have taken many lessons and attended many dances. On January first, the year was welcomed at Ruby and Larry's brunch, a long time tradition by now. The food is always exquisite, the guests interesting, the camaraderie overflowing and always a cause the hosts have asked that we support. This year it was Willow, a support organization in Toronto for women going through breast cancer. 

And so, with hope and optimism, I greet 2014. Blessed by a family that is growing and friends who enrich and challenge me. I looked over the events of the last year and created some goals for 2014 that include enjoying the upcoming events.

2013 Journeys

Life of a Writer. #28. News on soon to be launched Website.

The website www.maryloudickinson.com is imminent. Jessica Heald, graphic designer with Digit Digital (www.digitdigital.com/), has been working with me to create a new website. Once complete, it will help to inform about my books, especially the new novel scheduled for publication in Fall, 2014.

I will continue to post photographs on my blog from time to time, reviews of other people's books and even recipes and travel information that I find appealing. The blog will feed into the website, or so far as I know it will.

So progress is being made, although I slow down the process when I can't find the relevant information quickly. Jessica, on the other hand, is a whiz!

My upcoming novel posting on HSW Literary Agency website.

Mary Lou Dickinson

 

Mary Lou Dickinson grew up in northern Quebec and has lived for many years in Toronto, where she worked as a crisis counsellor. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University and a Master in Library Science from the University of Toronto. Her fiction has been published in the University of Windsor Review, Descant, Waves, Grain, Northern Journey, Impulse, Writ and broadcast on CBC Radio. Her writing was also included in the anthology, We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman. Mary Lou published a book of short stories, One Day it Happens, in 2007, and her first novel, Ile D’Or, in 2010.

Works on Offer:

Would I Lie to You?
Inanna Publications, Fall 2014

After ten years of marriage, Sue and Jerry would say they know everything about each other. But each harbours a significant secret.

When Jerry becomes ill and it’s apparent he’s dying, Sue visits a psychic, Hans, who tells her there is someone like a son in her life. She dismisses this, but at Jerry’s funeral his son turns up—a son Sue didn’t know existed.  At first Sue feels betrayed by Jerry, but gradually she accepts her own complicity. And regrets never telling him, or anyone else, about the baby girl she gave up for  adoption when she herself was only sixteen.

Encouraged by Hans and a relative of Jerry’s, Sue starts looking for her daughter and relying more on Hans, who is struggling with troubles of his own…

Manuscript available
World, excluding Canada

New Orleans. November 2013

Exciting trip to informative Friendship Force International Conference in New Orleans with time to experience much of New Orleans as well. Jazz at Preservation Hall (don't miss it!) to riding the streetcars, eating beignets as well as po-boys, walking in the French Quarter, visiting the Civil War Museum and the Art Gallery of southwest art. Great city and it was warmer there, even though cool, than it now is in Toronto. Also saw Joseph Boyden at LANOAirport, he en route to Toronto unable to say why yet. Discovered on CBC the next day that his book, The Orenda, is featured on the Canada Reads comeptition this year. Good luck to the author.
p.s. as a non meat eater, did not eat 'gator meat!

Life of a writer. 27. Contract signed!

How exciting is that! Contract signed for my third book. It will be published by Inanna Publications in the fall of 2014. Would I Lie To You? Of course not. By now, you might know this is the title of the book, one about FAMILY SECRETS.  Sue is about to lose her husband without knowing his deepest secret. It turns out she has one also that he does not learn before he dies while her discovery after that is foreshadowed by the words of a psychic... "There is someone like a son..." Words she chooses to discount and ignore until...

Life of a Writer. 26. How to flog a book. 2 Family Secrets!

Yesterday, at WOTS (Word On The Street), I ran into Heaher Wood, another writer who is also part of my writing group, Moosemeat. We found a table and sat for a while in the sunshine, talking about what we had seen that afternoon, about what we were doing. Since Heather knows a lot about promotion, I asked her about it for my next book. It will be my third book, likely with a fall 2014 pub date.
     First she asked more about it and from our conversation asked, "Would you say it is about family secrets?"
     Ah, thank you, Heather. At last I have the short description for this novel. A jumping off point for conversation about it.
      Since the action happens before instant means of conversation and the secrets harken back to the 1950s and 1960s, it was a time when the kind of secrets the characters had were frequent. A hidden pregnancy, for instance. And the 1980s and onwards a time when many of them came to light. So it is in 'Would I Lie To You?' my upcoming novel.

Life of a Writer. #25. How to Flog a Book?

One would expect some ache after the extraction of a tooth. Also some bleeding and swelling. Fortunately on Day 2, there is progress. I look like a chipmunk on one side and can't eat anything solid yet, but had a scrambled egg for breakfast and yoghurt and banana. I also feel as if I ought to remain fairly quiet so that leads to some reflection. Especially after hearing author interviews on the radio earlier and hoping to be relatively normal tomorrow so I can attend Word on the Street 2013 Toronto. From my new home, this is only a short walk and so even more a possibility.

Among other things, I will go to the Inanna booth where other Inanna authors will gather. I did not give a specific time, not knowing how the healing would have progressed by tomorrow. But now that the bleeding seems almost to have stopped, I am more optimistic that I will actually make it. Soon I will look at the WOTS map in the Toronto Star and identify what else I want to do, as well as wander aimlessly!

The reflection also led me to thoughts about my life as a writer over a lifetime. I wrote my first published piece at 7, or at least that is when my grandmother published it in her column in the Toronto Telegram and sent me $5, which in those days was a pile of money. Probably full of false promises also that writing might be lucrative. Rather a joke to anyone who knows the scenario, although there are the few who actually make a living at it and even fewer who make piles of money. I won't name names, everyone knows those stories.

My story is not so different from another norm, perhaps less well known although I have read somewhat similar stories and heard them on the radio. My books came late even though I have been writing all my life. I had short stories published over the years in literary periodicals, but it was after I retired from the work force where I had held many part time and almost full time positions to support myself and children that my first book (One Day It Happens, a collection of short stories) was published when I was70. Inanna saw the merit in it and also in my novel, Ile d'Or, which was published when I was 73. They have recently accepted another novel, which will be published in my mid/late 70s.

I now have two other books well on the way...one a mystery, the other a memoir. It will be interesting to see if they get published when I am still alive, perhaps in my late 70s early 80s.

The point of this bit of personal history is that I keep wondering how to promote what have been well reviewed books (and hopefully more to follow) is that I wonder if there is a hook for publicity in these facts of late publication. There is a story there of passion, persistence, determination and dedication, but thus far I have not told it in a way that has captured any attention.

Any ideas? Throw them my way and I will run with them when I know the publication date of my next book...Would I Lie To You? No, I wouldn't, but that is not a question but the title of the upcoming novel.  I call it a Canadian Philomena, for those of you who saw the Film at TIFF, because the main character has also given up a child for adoption when she was a young teenager. There are many strands that are different, but that central core is there for both Philomena and my character, Sue.

Friendship Force

Recently I joined the newly formed Toronto group of the Friendship Force (www.friendshipforce.org), a non profit cultural exchange organization since 1977 promoting friendship and goodwill through a home stay program. Most recently, I joined the group for a dinner held for people from elsewhere, including four women from Egypt and 15 or so from the USA. The American group that pulled the larger number together was from Connecticut. It was a fun evening with much camaraderie when I learned more about our visitors as well as the way the group works. Both as host and as traveler.

The next day, a member of the Toronto group gave a tour of Ward's Island (involving a ferry ride to get there) and invited us back to his place before we went to dinner at the Rectory, a charming restaurant on the water on Ward's. Some of us sat out on the porch and the rest at a table under the stars. Or the sun before the stars came out. I had the pleasure of chatting with a number of people, including a man from Virginia, Roger Dickinson, whose sister in law shares my name. He bought my novel to take back for her. A keen reader in the group, Sue Reiter, also wanted a copy. I don't often take books to events like this, but I thought Roger would be interested, as he was. And Sue wanted an autographed copy also, so I took one
to the desk at her hotel (as prearranged) the next day while she was out touring in Toronto.

Prior to this particular weekend of hosting folks from Connecticut (who were staying with hosts when they went north to North Bay, but had caught the Toronto group on a long weekend when many were away), we met out in the west end and had a mural walk on Dundas Street West before eating dinner at a pub.

The aftermath of Hurricane Hazel. Mural in west end Toronto

Another mural.

TIFF 2013. (Continued)

Today's films:
Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom. Excellent. Would that there were contemporary leaders anywhere with his courage.
Paradise. Mexican romantic comedy about a fat couple who love each other, but run into difficulty trying to diet when one succeeds and the other doesn't. I thought the movie rather charming, but not that comic and somewhat predictable.

TIFF 2013.

September in Toronto is the time for the Toronto International Film Festival. Time to stand in lines and talk to others attending. Even though my films have been chosen, a time to listen to what others have seen. Everyone so knowledgable about directors, actors, what is hot! Sometimes I have added to my list on this basis. Sometimes I have made new friends. I have met people from many American cities who come to Toronto to spend time at the Festival. So much fun.

So far I have seen three excellent films. The first was Exit Marrakech, a father son story set in  places I recognized from my January trip. What wonderful scenery and a moving coming of age story where both son and father moved through significant passages and came to a reconciliation. Next was a coming to terms with the war story called  The Railwayman, starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. A large Q&A panel thar included Firth as well as the actor who played his younger self. Harrowing war scenes seen in flashbacks, but a final remarkable forgiveness of the tortuer that led to an unlikely friendship. And saved a marriage. Then a delightful romantic comedy, Enough Said. So that even standing in line in the rain for two films on Saturday was offset by good conversation and excellent films!

More to follow!