Now that I have unburied my head from the sand, I see that I haven’t posted an entry on here in almost 10 months.  I blame it on my e-book addiction.  When not doing the necessities of life - sleeping, eating, doing laundry, working, flossing my teeth, and such - I have been writing e-books.  I can’t believe I stalled for almost two years from the time the e-book idea burrowed into my brain to the time I first published one. 

Back in April 2011 I published a fiction e-book, Benefit of Doubt.  It is a woman’s romance that I had written a few years prior and peddled unsuccessfully to agents and editors.  Getting a few sales from that, I was spurred to try a non-fiction work as I’d heard that non-fiction in general sells better than fiction.  I penned a book on general writing prompts and it did even better.  I liked the writing prompts idea so I stuck with that and wrote a book on writing prompts that was geared just for writers. 

My fourth e-book was a compilation of almost 40 articles on real estate that is geared for realtors, Advice for Realtors From Realtors.  My fifth was a diary-like book on what is like to be a full-time freelance writer.  I kept track of my daily activities and 55 Days in the Life of a Freelance Writer was published. 

In the fall of 2011, I wrote an article for WestWord magazine on how to publish an e-book.  Over the month of December, I added to the article in pieces and published e-book #6, No More Excuses!: Write That E-book Now.  As I am such an e-book addict, that was probably the easiest one to write. 

At the start of 2012, I turned my attention to a book idea that had been percolating in my mind - questions to ask your future spouse.  I am always surprised by how little the two people in a couple can sometimes know about one another.  I started jotting down question as they came to me in the weeks that followed and 555 Questions to Ask a Potential Mate was published; that was number 7. 

Just today I published #8 and #9.  I love doing the question type e-books so I wrote a book on speed dating questions to practice with before you try speed dating.  The other is a book of erotica, published under a pen name, something I have never done in my entire writing career.  It was almost too easy to write and it will be interesting to see how it does.  As a fellow writer so blatantly put it - Sex Sells!  You never know….

I will start on e-book #10 in the next day or two.  I’m leaning towards one on how to live well into old age (the majority of deaths in the western world are premature and avoidable) or I might do one on random acts of kindness as an inspirational piece.  Whichever I decide on, I have no doubt it will help feed my e-book addiction. 

That said, I promise to get on here more than once every ten months to update my blog. 

After a little too much socializing and discussion of our writing backgrounds, we got back to work.  People started trickling away around three which was easy to understand; six hours of focused concentration on nothing but writing fries some people’s brains a little bit. 

By the time we wrapped up at five o’clock, I was ready to go.  Yet I was impressed with how much I had accomplished.  Focused writing time will do that to you!

I have over six hours of focused writing time at home, five days of the week for most part.  But writing at home is different as the distractions screaming your name never go away.  There’s another load of laundry begging to go in the washer, a dog that would love to go for a long walk, and dinner that needs to be thought of.  All the more reason I was grateful for the Write-In today.  I can’t wait for the next one!

Yet again I am off on another writing tangent, one completely new to me.  A friend and occasional colleague of mine, Mary-Ann, is running for council in the ward she lives in.  Over a month ago, she asked if I would be her campaign manager.  Always up for a challenge, I answered, "Absolutely!"

Mary-Ann has never run for any political office before and the only political things I have done are vote and watch the W movie about the life of George W. Bush.  It is an understatement to say that neither of us had any clue what we were getting into. 

The first few days as Mary-Ann's campaign manager were spent doing research.  By the end of day #4, I had two bulging file folders full of information about every issue the residents of her ward have been dealing with.  We needed to really educate ourselves on what is going on in her area. 

Then we started working on her website.  We created original content for all the pages to avoid copyright and plagiarism issues and ended up cutting some when the webmaster said we were content heavy.  Then we moved on to working on the brochures and signs. 

Amidst all of this, we had media interviews to deal with, emails from voters and other interested parties that needed to be answered, more research that needed to be done as issues came up, and other odds and ends.

One day I had to take a break from my word finagling duties and put on my wood whacking hat.  We spent 12 hours pounding in 2x2 by 48" stakes - 74 of them in total - and screwing her signs onto the posts.  It felt good to do manual labour for a change.

As we head into the debate next week, there are questions the moderator gave us ahead of time (which is awesome!) that need to be prepared for.  Mary-Ann will talk for a total of 25 minutes before the Q&A period starts.  Meanwhile, the media and public continue to contact us with their questions which we need to tend to.

Once the election is over in another 8 days, I will be partly relieved as it has been a rigorous five weeks juggling my campaign manager duties with my other writing.  But I know I will also feel a tad melancholy as a part of me will miss this foray into another aspect of writing. 

Ciao for now...

Although Stallone has been a movie star for over three decades, his dream of being an actor and screenwriter did not come easily.  His mother had a difficult labour which left Stallone with a partially paralyzed face, including a droopy lower lip and slurred speech.  All doors slammed in his face when he pursued the movie business; he was repeatedly told that he was dopey looking and that that no one would hire an actor who talked out of the side of his mouth. 

But Stallone persevered for years.  He went to agencies a dozen times.  He tried out for every acting role but he never got one job.  His wife left him as she was sick of being broke and tired of having no heat in their tiny apartment.  But his lowest point, Stallone admitted in a magazine interview, was when he has to sell his beloved dog to a stranger for $25 just to eat. 

Two weeks later Stallone watched a fight between Muhammad Ali and a guy who kept getting knocked down by the boxing great.  Stallone was inspired and spent the next 20 hours writing the screenplay for the movie we all now know as Rocky.  Within a month he sold the screenplay for $35,000 and the right to the starring role. 

(As a sidenote, Stallone tracked down the guy who had bought his dog off him for $25 and tried to get him back.  But that fellow loved Stallone’s dog just as much and it took $15,000 and a role in Rocky to get his best friend back.) 

Stallone’s story is a great example of why you should never give up on your dreams.  He proves that you may not have the smarts or the looks or the resources but if you have a burning desire to achieve your dream, you will eventually find a way to reach it.  I challenge you to keep reaching for your dream, no matter what it is!

As a writer, I don’t always get a lot of feedback on my work.  Occasionally an editor will tell me he or she thinks I have done a great job on something; those words, when they trickle in, get tacked up on the wall in my writing space.

Every so often I hear from a reader.  The fifth article I had published was on elevator safety.  A few months after it hit store shelves, I got a phone call from a woman who had read my article and then a month later was stuck for three hours in the elevator in her apartment building.  She said thinking back on what I had written helped her to keep calm during those torturous hours.  The warm fuzzies from that phone call kept me motivated for months. 

Of course not all contact from readers is encouraging.  As one of my editors and I discussed an article I was doing on the recent trend to have sex at open houses (us Canadians are wild people!), we knew there would be some fallout.  I wrote the article knowing there would be repercussions and wasn’t surprised when I got some nasty mail. 

This morning as I was flipping through the most recent issue of Cottage magazine (which ran an article of mine on geocaching in January), I noticed one of the letters to the editor was regarding that article.  Emily from Vancouver wrote, “I am writing to say thank you to Toby Welch for writing a story on geocaching.  Geocaching is my favourite thing to do with my brother and mom and dad in the summer.  It is a great way to spend time together and have fun outside.  My parents have a subscription to Cottage magazine, and my mom read the story to me the day it came in the mail.  I hope you will write more stories like this soon.”  

As a writer, it is an indescribable feeling to know that people read what we are writing and some are even touched by it. 

P.S.  To those of you who inquired how my speech went that I mentioned in my previous blog entry, it went splendidly.  I stumbled in a few places but it was a great experience and I look forward to more public speaking in the future.

When it comes to people I care about, I always encourage them to step out of their comfort zone, to live a more meaningful life.  And I try to practice what I preach.  I take work trips to exciting places.  I am expanding my vegetable repertoire.  I’ve taken up yoga after merely thinking about doing it for a decade. 

But when I received an invitation two days ago to really push my comfort limits, I choked.  The University of Calgary and the Writers Guild of Alberta are hosting a night of lectures next month geared toward creative people.  Someone remembered an article I had written last year on income taxes for writers and asked me to speak on the topic.  I have an accounting degree and the topic is one I am familiar with; it’s the thought of public speaking that has me terrified. 

I’ve done zero public speaking in my 37 years and, although I am now a mostly former stutterer, the thought of opening my mouth in front of a group of strangers has me panicking.  And I am not a panicker by nature.  But the opportunity is too great to turn down.  Not just for networking and exposure but, even more importantly for me, to do what I encourage others to do and step out of their box.

I will accept the invitation and prepare as much in advance as I can, cursing myself all the while for not joining Toastmasters as I always intended to do.  And I will be able to hold my head high and know I am no longer a hypocrite.

Things are so much easier now in most ways for writers than they were in the Dark Ages.  We can do research and conduct interviews without leaving home 90% of the time.  We cut and paste to revise instead of typing the whole document again from scratch.  Articles and images can be e-mailed to editors with seconds to spare before deadline.  We can get back to editors in the middle of the night as most prefer e-mail communication.  Despite all the progress, it's tempting to daydream about being the next Hemingway; writing in the old slave quarters of his Key West house, taking mental breaks as he gazes out at the ocean, and breathing in the salt air as he pounds away at his Royal portable typewriter.  Personally, I'd want a kick-ass air-conditioner instead of a creaky, old fan though...