The Lazy Blogger's Return!

I'm back. And even though I suspect no-one ever actually reads this page, I apologize anyway for the extended absence. Look at all the incredible things that happened while I was gone! Summer, for starters. Here in Toronto, Canada, we had grave doubts summer would ever arrive. But it did and it was everything summer should be. At least, I hope summer came to the city - in truth, I spent it mostly in the country, at an 1858 farmhouse, with 98 acres of pasture, cornfields, and woods. It was the first goof-off summer I've had in years. We picked wild strawberries and raspberries and watched beavers dam the creek, and we climbed trees and kicked soccer balls and we turned croquet into a blood sport (surprisingly easy to do). We slept under the stars and sang songs around a campfire and swam and gardened and talked to frogs and mink and rabbits. We built and launched rockets. We lost kites to hungry trees (including one especially voracious maple) and we startled the deer that came to drink the cool creek waters at dawn. We had a summer.
After all the snow and grey of last winter, we made every moment count.
But before we knew it, autumn arrived, and with it the return to school, elections here and in the United States, and a new-look Raptors team with the aging (but still great?) Jermaine O'Neal and the slender but stealthy Roko Ukic added to the roster.
Lots going on.
And thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, I missed it. Well, most of it.
I was in Ireland.
Yup: Ireland.
!!!!!!
In fact, I've only just returned from the most exhausting, absorbing, exciting, and amazing adventure: nearly three weeks exploring Ireland. Alone.
How? Why? Well, much of the credit goes to my brave spouse, who turned a blind eye to the mounting bills and shouldered the task of caring for three children on his own. And even more of the credit goes to the children, who rose to the occasion with grit and grace, never once setting the house on fire or accidentally bringing peanut butter to school in their lunches.
But most of the thanks goes to the Canadian taxpayers.
Last winter, I received the most wonderful gift: a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to work on a third Hazel Frump book. According to the rules, I could use some of the money for groceries and childcare, and some of the money to travel to Ireland, where the next adventure takes place, to research the book.
I can't tell you what this grant has meant to me. When I visit schools, I am usually asked, by younger readers: "Are you famous?"
To which I reply cheerfully that I am not.
The follow-up question is most often: "Are you rich?"
Rather less cheerfully, I explain that I am not.
"How come?"
"Because... I write children's books."
I explain that writing for children is a very expensive hobby. I'm lucky to have a husband who can support me, and children who recognize that some things that are worth doing come at a cost. Children's books, and children's authors do not, as a rule, make much money - J.K. Rowling notwithstanding, they never have. And to be brutally honest, my books are not selling well.
Now, it may be that my books don't sell for the simple reason that they aren't very good. Most of the time, particularly at three a.m., that is what I think.
But then I remind myself that although most bestselling books for children are terrific, many terrific kids' books never become bestsellers. Sometimes good books - like good TV shows - don't find their audience. Sometimes they are cancelled.
Just ask Joss Whedon.
So when the Canada Council for the Arts awarded me that grant, the money was important (oh so very important) but even more crucial was the vote of confidence. I had ripped open the envelope and tossed it on the recycling pile, and the letter was drifting down to join it, before the first words of the opening sentence registered: "We are pleased to..."
Pleased?
That didn't sound like a rejection. And I should know - I had thirty-four rejection letters for The Mystery of the Martello Tower before HarperCollins came along. Some of those letters were written by people who clearly relished the task, relished it more than might be considered seemly; still, no-one had ever been bold enough to use the word "pleased" when rejecting me.
I snatched the letter back and studied it, reading it three times before the words sank in. The Canada Council for the Arts was awarding me a grant. Me, the forty-four-year-old mother of three whose books were languishing unsold in storerooms across the country!
Someone out there believed my work was worth supporting. Someone not related to me.
I can't begin to explain how wonderful that was. Is.
In the end, of course, I will have spent far more on writing the next book - on travel and subsistence - than the grant would cover. But that's hardly the point. The letter - and the money - buoyed me more than I can say. I am now determined, so very determined, to write a good book, a better book, my best book (not to mention a book that might actually sell) because of it.
I want to prove the Council right. I want Canadian taxpayers to know that they were right to support me, and that their support meant everything, that it made the difference between a story in my head and a book in the library.
I left for Ireland just as the global economy slid off a cliff. You can imagine the guilt, the worry. I lay awake a few nights before departure, fretting: should I cancel the trip and send the money back?
It was too late, too many costs were sunk, too many arrangements made; alea jacta est, as they say. So I went. And it was everything I could have hoped for and more and better.
Next post, I'll tell you about some of my Irish adventures, and the incredible people who helped me along the way.