June 24, 2008
SOMETIMES …
A POV change is needed … and voila — there the road lies.
I was stuck with something in my plot. My hero just wanted to be somebody other than who I was telling him to be. So I let him get above it all, in a bush plane … and whammo … that was it! Turns out he needed to fly. He needed to see things from above. And he’d been trying to tell me all along.
June 23, 2008
HOME RUN …
Almost home with my current deadline. DH is almost boarding his plane back from South Africa.
And I ran almost an hour … hot, but good. In the woods. Hey, I almost feeling like doing the dishes — but not quite.
* I am planning on giving my website a complete overhaul, a fresh new look — so if there are any author sites out there that really grab you, please tell me. And let me know why they work for you.
You know where to find me …
June 17, 2008
BIGGER
An inukshuk on our mountaintop … echoing Black Tusk, a volcanic cone in the distance.
My words in the blogosphere have been scarce of late, and will probably remain so for a while. I am saving them up for my WIPs … and I do have a few in the works at the moment.
If you need me … you know where to find me 
May 25, 2008
IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY …
…. You’d better not wear disguise. For Loreth and KJ Howe will have guns … And knives.
And pens.
In the name of research, we’ll be participating in a series of courses ranging from mantracking to falconry, to trap shooting, knife throwing, rifle marksmanship, managing ‘aggressive persons’, and several things in between.
The venue is Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, deep in the forest. And the courses are being hosted by the British Columbia Wildlife Federation - essentially a pro-hunting body, which has come up with an innovative way to grow and foster the organization’s sport and membership … by reaching out and teaching women how to love, cope with, and understand the outdoors along with the associated guns, and knives and bows and arrows, plus skills such as preparing and cooking game, navigating via map and compass, canoeing, fly fishing and handling ax and chainsaw.
The BCWF recognizes that it is woman - mothers and wives - who are more likely to introduce their children to hunting and outdoor activities — and to sustain that passion within a family unit — if they have a level of skill comfort … if they come to love the outdoors themselves. The BCWF thus initiated the BOW program - Becoming an Outdoors-Woman.
I stumbled upon this program some time last year while researching mantracking for my November SRS — MANHUNTER (My heroine is a mantracker up north who must lead my Mountie hero through unforgiving Yukon terrain after a cunning survivalist serial killer). I immediately wrote the federation, asking when they’d be putting on another series of courses, and where. I wanted to ride horses in the bush, handle a rifle and shotgun, smell gun powder and wood smoke from a fire cooking game … I want to bring that kind of veracity to my stories. So I signed up with unmitigated glee. I am also keen to meet folk from completely different walks off life, ones outside my immediate writing circles. I want to talk skills not related to POV and plot and world building.
And I was delighted when fellow RS writer Kim (KJ) Howe jumped at the chance to fly out west and join me. Kim is an ‘experience’ junkie, and it shows in her writing.
If all goes according to plan - KJ and I should emerge from the woods around June 2, and have tall tales to tell — books to write. And hopefully photos to show.
Stay tuned 
May 24, 2008
HAVE POLES, WILL TRAVEL
T’was a glorious day for ‘moose hoofs’ as one of my UK Nordic Walking connections calls it — jogging with the poles, in this case up the hills to get the heart pumping. One hour. And that’s Lost Lake down there between the trees. The perfect spot to mull over my new plot.
The Canadian Olympic cross country ski team will be coming into our Callaghan Valley to train this summer (at the new venue for the Nordic events of the 2010 Winter Olympics). A section of trail through the woods has been paved, upon which they will skate with poles. I plan to find out what they use on the tips of their poles that enables them to propel forward without slipping on rain and fine dust and gravel, because the rubber feet I use on my Excel tips slide irritatingly … which is why I’ve been sticking to unpaved trails, using the naked graphite tips (I think they are graphite)
Any suggestions or tips (um… sorry) would me most welcome!!!
