Bow. James Bow.

A big thank you to everybody who turned up at our open house to celebrate the official launch of Plain Kate. We hosted a large gathering, including Seanan Forbes who visited from New York, to my parents, to Erin’s Hopeful Writers friends, to Rebecca, who dropped everything and came in from Stratford. Wellwishes were received from Erin’s family long distance (Rosemarie tells me that the book is in the wild in the Midwest).

We had loads of food, and we weren’t able to eat more than a fraction of it. I know what we’re having for dinner tonight. But the highlight among highlights was the cake that Nan Forler put together, which featured the cover of Plain Kate, rendered in icing.

We spent most of today recovering, not doing much, and tomorrow will be spent cleaning, so you know a good time was had by all.

I’ll have more to write about later, but for now, here’s a picture of my two daughters colouring…

In amongst the hard work of preparing for the release of Plain Kate, it’s easy to forget that there’s a second book in the family coming out on the same day. Indeed, I’d forgotten about it myself until a few days ago.

In October 2008, I was commissioned by a contractor working for Crabtree Press on a children’s non-fiction book that’s come to be titled Earth’s Secrets. The book is about the aspects of the Earth which we can’t easily see, like the winds that blow the weather, heat pockets, or the pressures in the fault lines deep beneath the Earth. It was part of a string of work-for-hires I was commissioned to do back in 2008 and, for whatever reason, the title was pushed back until now.

By comparison, it is already possible to pre-order Lamborghini, part of Crabtree’s upcoming Supercars Series, that I just handed over to the editor exactly one month ago.

But that’s how these work for hires go, sometimes. They are written on a completely different schedule, and a completely different creative pull than your standard novel. When I was given two months to write Lamborghini from scratch, including designing an outline, that was the most time I’d been given for such a book. I was assigned a subject, and had to research it, quickly.

And, in spite of that, I had to wait two years before publication. Still, I’m quite pleased by this release. It’s another title under my belt, and it was a book I enjoyed putting together. I look forward to seeing what the book actually looks like, once I get it in my hands (for some reason, Amazon hasn’t seen fit to post a cover of Earth’s Secrets).

Tomorrow is going to be a big party at home for the arrival of Plain Kate, and like Erin, I am looking forward to seeing how the book does in the wild. Still, as big as Plain Kate is, it’s interesting how it’s still possible to be proud of a much smaller, lower-profile book, simply because it has my name on it. And the reason for that is because an author’s name is written in blood.

The photo on my left is entitled Blanik Glider, by Frank Kehren. It is used in accordance with his Creative Commons license.

I think most writers — the lucky ones, at least — have a loved one who is a natural editor, be it parent or child or sibling or spouse who isn’t afraid to say exactly what he or she thinks about what the writer has written. That person has a sense of what works and what doesn’t, and is a wealth of ideas on how certain things can be improved. Only the most arrogant writers think that they don’t need to be edited. Those people who can give you advice and still manage to speak to you the next day are a vital asset that must be cherished. Indeed, it’s critical. Your material has a much stronger chance of being accepted by editors if it comes pre-edited.

I’m lucky enough that I don’t have one such individual, I have two: my mother, and my wife. Both are published authors (we are eagerly counting down to the official release date of Erin’s Plain Kate). Both are talented. And both aren’t afraid to tell me when something isn’t working in one of my stories and when something needs to be changed. My mother has long proofread my material, going back from my fan-fiction days, and her advise has always been helpful. My first draft of Icarus Down was no different.

Some of you will recall this bit of advice, which forced me to reconsider a critical aspect of Simon’s character:

The big weakness in the book is Simon (who ought to be your greatest strength)… …You have cast Simon very much as a beta male — he is passive, does not try very hard to hold his own against Isaac, tends to follow Rachel’s lead, chooses a risk-free career, insists on not questioning authority, and does very little thinking for himself. In conversation, his responses often make him seem startled, abashed, or confused. This does not make him a character who engages the reader’s interest or sympathy.

You’ll also remember her suggestion: make Simon a pilot, as he was when I first started the story, instead of a postal clerk.

But Erin had some advice of her own to add. Simply changing Simon back into a pilot wasn’t enough. The first scene didn’t quite snap. And part of it, she thought, may have been due to the ambiguous relationship between Isaac and Simon. They clearly have a long history together, but they’re not related. As a result, Isaac comes off as a bully, and Simon comes off as a wimp by simply accepting his presence. There have been friendships between golden boys and quiet keeners before, but if Isaac irritates Simon, why doesn’t Simon just walk away?

But what if Isaac and Simon were brothers?

You can see the difference in my mother and my wife’s creative styles, here. My mother came up with her suggestion after an extensive review of my full manuscript, considering the character of Simon as a whole and identifying the change that could improve the structure of his character throughout the story. Erin’s idea came more spontaneously, one evening as we were getting ready for bed. Her view was, the difference in Simon and Isaac’s characters was not one that would naturally bring them into conflict with each other, unless they tied closer together by familial bonds.

This meshed several dangling elements in the early part of the novel together. The mystery of Isaac showing up on Simon’s maiden flight deepens, from an attempt by Isaac to recruit Simon to a cause, to a discussion about something that is now a pressing concern for the both of them: their mother’s mysterious death.

Erin went further, and took a stab at revising the first scene. After a bit of back and forth between her and me, we have a completely new opener for Icarus Down, which I’d like to share with you, after the break:

It’s been busy here. A lot of things are going on. Many of them boring things that don’t bear reporting, such as laundry. Many more of them exciting, but which also don’t bear reporting, such as the ins and outs of kid wrangling. And some things worth reporting.

The Waterloo-Wellington Bloggers Association get-together went off without a hitch a week ago today. A few people turned up, but what we didn’t have in quantity, we certainly made up in quality, as we all sat and talked for two hours on a number of subjects, including aspects of social media, pedestrian and transit issues in Waterloo Region, and sparking a ‘none of the above’ revolution. I had a good time, and I’d like to thank everybody who came out. We’ll do this again sometime soon.

Also, on Tuesday, my parents took both kids and I to the Canadian National Exhibition, just as we’d done with Vivian the year before. This was Nora’s first time, and she loved the lot of it, especially the riding of the train to get to and from the event. Though we only stayed for about three hours, making use of just the Food Building and the Kiddie Midway, I think we got our money’s worth. Maybe a couple of years from now, we can actually look at more of the exhibits.

Anyway, I snapped a number of shots on my iPhone camera, and Erin posted them to Flickr. You can see the full set here.

Last, but not least, we are now four days away from the release of Erin’s Plain Kate. Erin’s very nervous about the whole thing, but I think we’ll be fine. She received a starred review in the Quill and Quire, and a lot of good publicity in the United States. And speaking of publicity, Erin has been encouraged to produce a daily video-log, counting down the days, and reading off small sections of the novel, all free on YouTube. Here’s the first one:

Although there are still changes to be made, I hope you like the new look. I thought the blog could be refreshed, and I wanted to make my writing-related web presence look more uniform and professional. I also found that I wasn’t really making use of the ephemera on the right sidebar, so why not save some resources and HTML and just eliminate it? I hope this produces a less cluttered, cleaner look.

Unfortunately, you can’t tell me what you think at the moment, because my webhost (Hostgator) has had to shut down my Movable Type comments, likely to do an over-enthusiastic spambot trying to get past my defences. I’ve currently set up a ticket to resolve this, and normal service should be resuming shortly. I’ll keep you posted.

(Update: 5:31 p.m.): I’m just off the phone with Hostgator’s technical support. We’ve gone through the process of optimizing the databases (I had no idea that this was maintenance that should be done regularly. I haven’t optimized my tables since signing up with them, years ago. Hmm…). We’ll see if this helps. Hopefully, comments will be restored, shortly.

(Update: 6:16 p.m.): The optimization appears to have done the trick, and normal service has resumed. I’ll have to remember to do this more often.

So, what do you think of the new look?