April 2009 Archives

Middle of the tour and I'm feeling pretty good still. Despite the rocky start with the flu/fever, I'm now feeling pretty energetic with my presentations. Today, I was at St. Dominic and Monsignor Neville Anderson. The presentations were very diverse. The first session of the morning was for a group of students from kindergarten to grade two. They had already had the book read to them and were keen to hear the real story. The second session was aimed at the older students, and I found myself in a gym presenting to over 200 students. The session was fine right up until three students decided to fool around in the middle of my presentation. A teacher had already warned them once, and they opted not to listen to her. I figured if the kids were disrespecting a teacher, then they needed to learn that there were consequences to their actions. I hauled them up to the front and let them know the fooling around in the middle of a presentation was wrong, and then I split them up. I'm not a fan of disciplining kids in the middle of a presentation, but their actions were pretty disruptive and not something I could ignore. My hope is that the next time something like this happens, the other students take action to get their classmates to show respect to their teachers, their fellow classmates and guests to their school.

I ended the day with smaller sessions (grade 1 and grade 6 students). I decided to turn them into mini-writing workshops, and both went off great. My favourite moment was when one student who did not want to be at the session suddenly turned out to be my best actor in all the presentations I've done. He was awesome. I hope he does more acting.

All in all, I had a fun day. Now I'm going to rehearse for my keynote tomorrow night and try to find some food.

Is it only Tuesday? Wow, it feels like I've been on the road forever... oh wait, I have been on the road forever. Even though this is the start of my official Calgary tour, I've been on the road for over a week, and I have the collection of restaurant menus to prove it.

Today, I learned the technology is only as good as the dough head using it. I was supposed to be at St. Philip School this morning, but I tapped in the wrong school and ended up way on the other side of town. Thankfully, I opted to leave early today to beat the traffic, but I was still ten minutes late for the presentation, which probably gave the librarian no great confidence in me. My cell phone battery was dead and I just kept wishing that the Deerfoot Trail would end at some point during my mad dash to the right school.

Anyway, the kids at the school were fantastic. Very enthusiastic. I even found a funny actor to play the back end of Buddy. I hope the students laughed a lot and learned a lot as well about writing.

The next session was at St. Bede. This time, I arrived a half-hour early, just to make a point to myself. The sessions were fun. The grade 3/4 students were bursting with energy as I tried to do the Eyewitness Game. Next time, I think I'll make it a little tougher to identify the robbers. The cops I picked figured out the robbers way too fast. They must have keen eyes. I had an awesome time in the final session of the day, especially when I spotted one student with Mexican Jumping Beans. It brought back the memory of playing with the beans when I was a kid. I was so freaked out at the bean that I couldn't hold it in my hand. When I tried today, I found that I was still too freaked out.

So ends day two of the tour. I'm checking the weather in Fort MacLeod and hoping the roads are clear when I have to travel there on Thursday for an evening presentation. That's going to be one long day (I have 3 school visits during the day).

Maybe I'd better get some sleep now.

What a way to start the second leg of my Calgary tour. I visited Monsignor J.J. O' Brien , St. Gregory and St. Joan of Arc Schools. I was talking to a mix of elementary and junior high students throughout the day. The first session of the day, I stood in a gym in front of 300 plus junior high students. They were a wonderful audience, but halfway through the presentation I got lightheaded and nearly did a faceplant in front of everyone. Lesson learned: eat a bigger breakfast in the morning.

My favourite memory of the day was at St. Gregory School. A group of elementary students at the front of the group help up signs with cool slogans and welcome messages. My favourite was "You Rock," which is the line I use when I autograph many of my books.

The only sour note of the day came after all the school visits. I was turning onto Bow Trail, and a truck rear ended me. Thankfully, the truck was only moving a few km per hour and there was no damage to either of our vehicles. But my adrenalin did shoot up and I did end up stress eating a rack of ribs from a nearby BBQ joint. Oh boy, I think I need to go for a run... nap... run... nap... run... zzzzzzzzz.

Argh. Back home for a day and a half and I came down with something like a flu. High fever but no coughing. I slept all day yesterday and now I'm pretty worn out. Tough drive ahead to Calgary in the snow. I'm taking it slow and hoping winter will give me a reprieve. Off I go.

Well, I guess to be more accurate, this entry should be back at home. I finished my sessions at the Write to Shine conference this afternoon, and I'm a bit down in the mouth about coming home. I had such a blast and the students were so enthusiastic, it was hard to leave. I wish all my school visits were like this. The kids hooted and hollered for every one of the presenters. Last night, there was a celebration of the kids writing over the last year, and I had the privilege of presenting a mini-keynote and the joy of listening to Paulette Bourgeois (author of the hit Franklin series) close the note. She's a funny lady with a biting sense of humour.

Now, sadly, I have to wash clothes and figure out what my cats did to my office while I was gone. Anyway, if any of the Banff Elementary students read this blog, you guys are totally awesome. Thanks for making my year!

No longer in Calgary. Now I am resting after a full day at the Write to Shine Young Authors Conference. Wow! The staff and parents of Banff Elementary School students went above and beyond to pull together an amazing conference. As one writer put it, we are being treated like rock stars. I'm at this amazing resort (Douglas Fir) and my every whim is taken care of by the organizers. Today, I worked with the grade 3, 4 and 5/6 students. They've been preparing for this conference for three years, and it shows in the quality of their ideas. I'm totally impressed with all the budding writers. This evening, I was a speaker in a night of celebration for the conference. My favourite moment was watching Paulette Bougeois, the author of the Franklin series, close the night. She's an amazing spirit; so down to earth for an author who is tremendously successful.

I really hope the students keep writing after I leave. There are some great liars in all the classes. Just remember; lies are good only for writing stories and not for real life.

One more day of presentations to go and then I head back home. I just hope the roads are clear. There was a blizzard just outside Canmore. Eek.

Just back from two school visits: St. William and St. Cyril. Wow, I love presenting in a new city. All the old stories I told in Edmonton are suddenly new again. The cool thing is to see how the students react to my origin stories. I find myself changing how I tell the stories and getting re-energized about writing. My favourite moment of the day was when one girl shared a scary story after she heard about my haunted school. I really hope she turns that into her own story.

Now I'm trying to figure out if I should go for a run or pig out at a barbecue house that's just down the way from my hotel. Or maybe I'll just grab something from Safeway and pack. I have to hit the road tomorrow after my last session and drive to Banff for the Write to Shine conference. Decisions, decisions.

Memories are sweet. Reality is bitter. I had brunch a year ago at a Calgary restaurant and discovered this amazing dessert that was part mousse and part cake - light, sweet and delicious. I daydreamed about coming back to Calgary, sitting down for brunch and savoring the cake of my dreams. Sadly, not only was the cake not available, but no one had ever heard of it. Aaaaggghhh!

On the plus side, the server offered to get the pastry chef to make something like it the next time I came for brunch. Now that's what I call quality service. I just might take him up on the offer the next time I visit Thomson's Restaurant.

I spent the rest of the day running on the hotel treadmill to work off my morning binge.

I'm back from the Young Writers Conference, an extravaganza of writing workshops for over 1,200 students in Calgary. I'm always amazed to see how the organizers can wrangle and funnel so many students through workshops. Everything went off without a hitch. Marsha Skrypuch delivered a great keynote in the morning, and I tried out my new workshop on endings.

The morning session was awesome. The students were engaged and ready to write. I was thrilled with how fast they picked up on the concept of going backwards and forwards. The afternoon session was a bit tougher. I'm not sure what I did differently, but I just wasn't connecting with the students on the same level. The jokes that normally got laughs were met with every stand-up comedian's worst nightmare: deafening silence. I had to admit it was humbling. I don't know what happened, but I felt like I lost the group right from the first minute. I'll have to look at how I introduce my sessions to make sure I'm engaging the students.

Now I get to kick back and relax. I was planning on trying to work on the revisions of my novel while I'm on the road, but a fellow author at the conference put everything in better perspective for me. She said that developing presentation skills is just as much work as writing a manuscript. She's still working when she presents. I think I'm going to adopt that attitude and not feel so guilty about putting the manuscript aside for a bit. If I'm inspired and still energetic, I'll tackle a few things, but I'm not going to knock myself out. My dad's recent surgery reminded me that I have to learn to relax.

Just checked in at my hotel after a wonderful visit at Catherine Nichols Gunn School, where I spoke to the grade 4, 5 and 6 students. Talk about the royal treatment. Lunch was catered with my favourite appetizer... salad rolls! Turns out one of the staff is also a caterer and often preps the meals for special occasions.

The students were awesome. Great questions from both sessions. I was particularly impressed that they wanted to know about the Orange Seed Myth. I guess they must have visited my website.

Anyway, my thanks to the students and staff for making the first day of my Calgary tour a memorable one. Now I have to figure out what to eat. Sushi? Burger King? Pizza? Should I be healthy or not? Ack.

There aren't enough exclamation marks to express how grateful I am for the special Power Point presentation that the fine folks at James Gibbons School put together for me. I spent a week doing a writer in residency at their school, and a shutterbug captured some cool moments of me working with eager students. It must have been a lot of work to put the presentation together, and I was so touched. Thank you! Your school rocks!

Today, I was happy to hear that I have one less stress in my life. My dad got the green light to drive. He can now get to his rehab appointments on his own and take my mom to the city for groceries. Oh boy, you can't believe how relieved I am to hear this. It means less of a burden on all the family, but it also signals another major step in my dad's recovery. Now I won't feel so guilty about my Calgary tour next week. I was a bit worried that I was leaving the family in the lurch. Now I can concentrate on my presentations. Hey, maybe I'll even have time to finish the revisions to Bad Hair Day.

Oh, and the big news is the province-wide video launch was a success. Lots of kids from all over the province tuned in to hear my illustrator talk about how she came up with the cat characters in True Story and to hear me drone on about the real-life origin behind the picture book. We had 16 sites tune in to hear us. There were a few technical glitches with microphones being left on, but we rolled with the punches. It was great fun, especially being able to use the document reader to show the picture book.

The one thing I took away from the experience was how cool Power Point presentations are. My wife built a presentation to show the real Buddy and Max and the kids were enthralled. I'm thinking I might build in a Power Point presentation about the picture book process for my regular visits. Hmm. Another project to add to the list.

Get ready Alberta! I'm going across the province tomorrow morning with the launch of True Story. Thanks to a video conferencing coordinator who works at St. Mary School, I'll be broadcasting twice tomorrow morning with the help of my illustrator, Lorna Bennett. We'll be presenting to about 10 schools across the province. It's a very cool launch.

I'm hoping to get the link to the launch posted on a website, so that those who aren't a part of the live launch can at least see what we did.

More on the launch tomorrow. Happy Easter.

It's been a long week of school visits and catch up. I'm pretty tired right now and next week looks even busier as my dad starts his rehab sessions at the Glenrose. I think I'm going to shut down for a couple of days to recharge the batteries before I launch into revisions. The weird thing is now I'm itching to get started on the new Marty Chan Mystery series, but I'm even more excited to get cracking on the Codebreakers Club novel. Sigh. So many ideas; so little time in a day.

Happy Easter!

Ack! I barely have enough time to prepare for my speaking engagements, let alone do them and work on the revisions to Bad Hair Day. I'm so glad I knuckled down and bashed out the ugly first draft. I think I'll be working this weekend on the novel. There's some work to be done, but once I regain momentum, I should have it done fairly quickly.

The good news is that I spoke to my publisher about the fourth in the Marty Chan Mystery series, and he'd love to add it to his 2010 publishing schedule. Looks like I'm going to have a busy summer.

Just came back from a thrilling presentation at my old school in Morinville. The students were awesome, and I had one teacher laughing so hard she could barely breathe. I love when that happens.

My favourite memory of the presentation was when a visitor from Florida bought two books and was going to promote it to a teacher friend down in the U.S. The experience reminded me that an author sells one book at a time. You never know where that one sale is going to lead. I'd be thrilled to fly to Florida for author presentations. What better excuse to visit Disneyworld!!!!

I just learned that one of Edmonton's bright stars just went out. Joe Bird passed away from a heart attack. Anyone who was in Edmonton in the late 80s would remember him as one of the founding members of Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. Anyone who was part of the Theatresports scene would remember him as one of the quirkiest and funniest guys around.

I'll always remember him as the loud guy who paired up with Wes Borg at a fantasy role playing game called Dreamquest. The two were actors hired to mess with the players. My group fell for Wes and Joe's story about being newbie players and we ended up getting robbed by the pair. Even though they screwed us over, we couldn't help but like them because they were both so funny. They spent the first night doing every Monty Python sketch in existence, and they had everyone rolling in stitches.

Joe loved life and lived it to the fullest. I always smiled when I heard about his antics, and I know he will be missed.