My "Field Notes" column, that appears bi-weekly in the newspaper and on the work blog, is nominated for an Atlantic Community Newspapers Award in the Best Specialty Column category.
When the list of finalists was released last week, I thought -- assumed -- it was the "In Conversation With..." column because that's the one I submitted as a Specialty Column. I can only figure -- and this is surprisingly generous and unexpected -- that the judges decided that because it's not a straight opinion/editorial column, it should be moved out of the General Interest category and into Specialty.
Ultimately, it's likely better for Field Notes to be nominated than ICW because it's the personal column, which counts more when you are trying to get a book published. Problem with that is, it counts more -- and now I really want to win!

Later, having read over Saturday's post...
It's starting to sink in: Field Notes was nominated for an award. That's huge. That's a big help in getting a book published. To have a "personal" column nominated (as opposed to the column that is a profile of someone) is a giant step forward. That's starting to sink in.
I guess this Field Notes nomination kind of tells me that I'm doing the right thing. It confirms what I know but always lose track of: Follow your heart. Be true to yourself. Do what comes naturally.
If I try to be something I'm not -- really opinionated or pithily funny -- my writing will fall flat. But if I write from the heart, it will be true and real and appreciated.
Ha ha ha

Rick Bragg writes a humour column for the last page of Southern Living magazine, which my mother buys when she is in Georgia. She brought two of the columns to me tonight to read, one to read out loud to Dwayne about grovelling to the wife and to the dog.
And I said, "Why can't I write funny? I can talk funny but I can't write funny." Seriously, Mum and I in the car? If I recorded it, we'd go viral on YouTube, if only for the way my mother laughs so hard she cries then says, "I can't see to drive but I can't see to pull off the road." Or maybe that's just funny to us.
Regardless, well-written funny sells. Some of my favourite books are by authors who are funny. Not necessarily all the time but consistently. They leave me envious but also amused. You can't resent someone who puts a genuine smile on your face.
To succeed, a writer needs either to be funny or to be really, really opinionated. So I've decided to be funny.
A writer needs to know her strengths and being opinionated doesn't come naturally to me. Regardless of what Dwayne or my mother may say. Having a "relentlessly contrary point of view" is known as arguing, not as having an opinion that is worth sharing. Unless, of course, it's funny.
I see both sides of a story, or three or four if I'm on a roll, and I don't like to argue and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I also don't want people writing mean emails to me. So that pretty much rules out writing opinion pieces. I can get cranky about things -- like four doctors being unable to diagnosis the weird, pussy rash on my upper arm -- but I don't really have a viable opinion about our health care system.
But that cranky column grabbed people's attention and they liked it. So cranky-funny works for me too. That Dwayne will agree with.
"Have another glass of wine, dear," he will say.
I'm telling you this because the nominations are coming out for the community newspaper awards. My "In Conversation With..." column is nominated in the Specialty Column category for the Atlantic competition but "Field Notes" was not; next week, I'll find out if FN gets nominated for the national competition. Because it would help my book publishing prospects to have an award-winning column, I have been trying to write opinion pieces because that's what these competitions want to see.
But here's the thing: It's not what I do best. I did a couple every so often that were well-received but those are the exception. If I can do funny well, in memorable, even quotable ways (a la Rick Bragg), that is far greater reward than any nomination or award. Nice as those are, it is always more rewarding to be true to myself and do my best writing.
Ha ha ha.

Dwayne's countdown to the return of our osprey began last month (they usually arrive around the 12th of April) and he sent me this email to me at work on Wednesday morning in the middle of a snowstorm:

"Just had a email from our osprey. Still in MEXICO.They had text from the eagles here saying it was cold & snowing here. So they are going to stay another week & drink CORONA beer, sun tan & smoke some good MEXICAN dope."

Too much time on his hands...

Speaking of countdowns, two weeks today is his shoulder surgery. Then HE is going to want some good Mexican dope.

Linwood Barclay, Canadian suspense writer, former humour writer for the Toronto Star, posted on his Facebook page recently that he reached the 50,000 word mark in writing his latest novel. He said that most novels run more than 100,000 words but that 50K always seems like halfway to him.

What struck me is how normal his post seemed. I mean, normal to a writer. I do the same thing -- keep track of the words, feel good when I reach a big round number. His post makes it seem like I'm a writer just like Linwood Barclay -- who happens to be my gold standard for the kind of novel I'm trying to write. He counts his words and seeks benchmarks just like I do. 

Now if only I can master the plot twists like he has...but right now, I'm happy to be normal.

For the first time in almost two years, someone sent an email to the newspaper complimenting my work. She wrote, "Just a note to tell you how fortunate you are to have Sara Mattinson writing for your newspaper. I have been reading the OJ all my life and Sara's column is so interesting, enjoyable, respectful of her subjects and well-written. She is certainly a welcome addition to my reading enjoyment. Thank you for having her on your staff."
Holy crap. Beyond lovely. I don't think anyone has ever written something like this about my writing. You can bet I'll be buried with the hard copy of this email! (And maybe my husband's response: "GREAT!!!!")

I am writing very well on weekends. There are three, including one, until Dwayne's surgery, so I'm working hard to get as close to 100 pages as possible so I can take them with me to the hospital. That's a third of the book done and that's a good spot to stop and read over and edit and revise before heading further in. How else should I pass the time? I went shopping while he had his foot operated on in 2010 and while everything went well, it did seem a little carefree!

Writing fiction is very different than writing memoir. For any book, the information is in your head but unlike non-fiction, everything for this novel is created as I go along.
Two things I've discovered:
1) If I sit and wait, something comes to me. Every time. "I don't know where this chapter is going," I'll think then I'll go back over what I've written or I'll sit there or I'll just start typing and BAM! What needs to be written unfolds itself and flows out of me. Love that feeling.
2) I go into a trance when that happens. That's a weird feeling. I reach the end of the scene and actually "snap out of it".

So it's three o'clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon and my quota of 2,000 words is filled so we're going for a drive. If winter hadn't returned overnight, I'd say I deserved an ice cream.

Busy week.
We had the satellite fixed -- hopefully -- so I can do my "community correspondent" gig tomorrow without the satellite conking out at the last minute, like at 8:09 for 8:10 spot. Happened the last time Embarrassing!
So this my mother-in-law is sworn to secrecy. She can't tell anyone to watch because last night it was a wash-out. "But I could tell Joan, couldn't I?"
Sigh.
Abby has recovered from her twig-in-foot injury. A $200 twig as it turns out. And it really was just a twig. It didn't stop her from chasing Archie around the house. Dwayne continues to lament that he lives in a zoo. I'm trying to teach the cat to stand on one the dogs' backs so that I can claim it's really a circus.
A woman who runs an Alzheimer support group that meets monthly contacted me, wants to me meet the group, speak to the members. That came out of the blue. Gave me hope after another rejection that said, "We'd be covering same old ground." Really? Did you not read the part in my query where I said "radically different take?" Perhaps I'm just too radical. Wait, not for a support group.
Sigh.
Wrapped up my house-cleaning sideline today. Will use Thursdays for novel writing. Found myself doing a "What if?" riff today as I vaccuumed and was thrilled. Didn't think I could do the what-if thinking which is kind of important if you're going to write fiction so I'm thrilled that I recreated some plot twists.
Why I stopped using pronouns in that paragraph is beyond me. Also why I don't write at night.
Speaking of which, am going to bed now. Have lost all pronouns and need my beauty sleep for the beauty that is Skype.
Good night.
Who's reading this blog if Aunt Gail is here visiting??

Kind of hoping she wouldn't figure out the lever action and the safety but she has. So Annie Oakley of Riverview is taking aim at the pigeons on the power line.
Also scaring the crap out of Stella, who doesn't like guns.

There is just something so wrong about this photo, don't you think?
Then later, she hollered, "I need a .22!"
Scarier and scarier. I think it's time my mother got a job.

Should there be a content warning on this post? You're about to see images that may be disturbing to some viewers:

Yes, that is my mother with a gun. Thankfully, it is just a BB gun.
"It's a lot bigger than my other BB gun," she said. The one that didn't shoot straight.
She wants to shoot at the pigeons to scare them away from the bird feeders. She claims she doesn't want to shoot the birds, just scare them away. She's going to shoot from her balcony.
Really, it doesn't get more redneck than that. Won't be long until she's shooting squirrels and frying up  their brains. 
It was her son-in-law who bought her this BB gun, by the way. Let's blame it on the drugs he's taking for the shoulder pain. Must be addling his mind. Wait till he's sitting on the front deck and she uses the cigarette hanging out of his mouth for target practice...

Mum, my friend Jane and I had an awesome evening in Halifax last night.
We ate supper at The Wooden Monkey, a restaurant made famous by actor Ellen Page, and it's worth the celebrity endorsement then we spent three hours basking in the singing of...
...The Tenors!
At 71, my mother attended her first concert! And she only complained twice about how loud it was. The Tenors made her night by singing Cohen's "Hallelujah".
The show is really good; the four men make you feel like you are the only audience in the world. Loved their chit-chat, and each tenor gets to be on stage alone to tell a story then sing a song, something not in their group repetoire. Their live rendition of "Amazing Grace" is better than the CD version.
The most memorable, for us East Coasters, wasn't just that Jimmy Rankin opened with a few songs (he's in town for the East Coast Music Awards this week) but he came on in the middle of their second set to sing two East Coast ballads with them, including his own Rankin favourite, "Fare Thee Well". One of the tenors said he can now put a check mark next to 'Sing with Jimmy Rankin'.
And -- BEST ENCORE EVER. They picked the perfect song to bring down the roof.

Since they're wrapping up their Canadian tour before heading to the States where they released their CD in January, go get that CD, "Lead With Your Heart" - great for the car where you can crank it.

March is coming in like a lion -- and we are glad. This is what roaring and tossing your mane around will get you:
A DATE FOR SURGERY.
One month tomorrow, Dwayne will be getting his shoulder fixed.
Only found out at 8:30 this morning and it hasn't sunk in yet, we've been waiting so long.

(AG, your 75th birthday is lucky!)

Happy 75th Birthday, Aunt Gail!
And many more...

Stella is 10 years old today.

We had a dinner party for her and her one friend, Sam, was here (along with her human friends Jane and Jerry). Everyone got a piece of carrot cake but Stella's piece was the biggest. Because she's the birthday girl
 

 

Stella says it was a very good birthday. 

This is our version of WWF: World Wrestling Felines.
Archie never says a word but we know when the games are about to begin because we hear Fern's low "Errrrr...." growl. We actually sit and watch this. We actually give points for pins and pounces, rolls and rumbles. Sometimes we hear a body slam against the floor. Then suddenly you look and the cats are lying two feet apart, looking totally relaxed, tails barely flicking, as if they were a moment earlier ripping at each other's throats and pushing their paws into each other's eyes.

I put a quote on my FB page yesterday: "Rejection isn't failure. Failure is giving up." (Richard Castle). I like the part about not giving up which is what I do best. But a friend saw it and thought something had happened and she scurried over here to see if I'd written about it.
No, everything is fine. I just like the remember, a la Winston Churchill, to never ever ever give up.
That's not to say things can't be adjusted, however.
Instead of the heavy weight of a thousand words a day, I am aiming to write about 5,000 a week and planning to have at least 50,000 words written by the end of June. If it's more, great. Otherwise, I'm not going to enjoy this new adventure of writing fiction if all I feel is pressure every day, especially when I still have a column to produce each week. Once I hit my stride, which I haven't yet -- hence writing on the blog at 11 o'clock in the morning-- I will find it easier to write this story; 1,000 words is only 4 pages; in stride, I can do twice that but only if I know what's happening on each page. I'm struggling with the beginning in part because I don't have the plot fully developed, as in the order of events. I have the destination and the passengers but the road map is not clear enough.
But that's no reason not to write something so off I go. Good or bad writing, it doesn't matter because it's the draft. Just as long as it's four pages.