My short story “Freezer Breakdown” will be published in The Best of the Puerto Vallarta Writers Anthology 2012. The book is supposed to come out in time for the Puerto Vallarta Book and Authors’ Festival on Feb 24-26, 2012.  It’s nice to think of my story in that warm place, especially given the story’s title. 

I joined the Puerto Vallarta Writers group last spring after reading a travel article on Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in the Calgary Herald. Author Wanda St. Hilaire mentioned the writers group. A few weeks earlier, a friend who spends half the year in Mexico had told me about the annual PV festival. I was intrigued, having spent one holiday at a PV all-inclusive resort. That week, in addition to lounging by the beach and pool, Will and I strolled the Malecon, hiked up Gringo Gulch, zip-lined and rode a speed boat to a village inaccessible by road. We often talk of returning to Puerto Vallarta some winter for a longer period of time.

A Google search of the festival led me to the Puerto Vallarta writers group website. It invites everyone to join online with no membership dues or requirements such as having any connection to Puerto Vallarta. Most members seem to be English speakers from cooler climates who live or winter in PV, although some members have Latino names. The group meets Saturday mornings at the Los Mangos Library for discussion and writing feedback.

I joined mainly to have a tiny connection to PV, which I felt I’d particularly appreciate during the long Calgary winter.  Plus, I thought, if I ever did return I might like to attend a meeting of the writers group or the festival.

I started getting e-mail postings from group members. One with the subject header “Call for Submissions” caught my eye. The group was planning to publish an anthology.  The requirements were a short story (1,000-5,000 words) and online membership in the group.  You could submit up to two stories, but only the highest ranking one would be accepted. Each story was judged anonymously by 5 or 6 people, some members of the group, some outsiders. “Freezer Breakdown” made the cut.

The anthology is in production now. Its cover image is a beautiful Mexican beach. I’d like to do a warm weather holiday this winter and am thinking of Puerto Vallarta in February.   

The Best of the Puerto Vallarta Writers Anthology 2012 will be available for purchase on Amazon.com. For a list of contributors, visit the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group facebook page.

My personal deadline for reaching the midpoint of my novel-in-progress was a trip to Toronto for Thanksgiving weekend followed by a week in Montreal and Kitchener. I made the writing deadline so tightly that I’ve only found time to blog about it now, after returning from the trip. 

This first half of this book is a re-write of the “Summer” Paula Savard mystery I started last fall. It involved changes required to turn “Summer” into the second book of the series. The writing followed the original draft fairly closely until the last four chapters, where I had to rearrange, delete and add large chunks of material. 

Now, I’ve moved into new, unwritten territory. It helps that I developed an outline for the next quarter, except that knowing what’s coming up makes me feel the chapters have been drafted – until I face the blank page and realize I have more to do than I’d thought. 

In the past, I’ve enjoyed writing the second half of novels more than the first.  With the stage set, characters developing and events playing out, the work has usually gone faster as the story rollicks to a close. I hope this happens with my current novel-in-progress – Ten Days in Summer – so I can finish the first draft by my next personal deadline – Christmas.

Writing a novel is a daunting task. It becomes more manageable for me if I break the novel into quarters, with each quarter ending at a turning point. I start out with a fuzzy idea of what the first turning point will involve, but know it will be about 80 pages in. Writing toward page 80 feels easier than following that first sentence with a full-blown 320 page plot.

In early August, I started the sequel to Deadly Fall.  This wasn’t a totally new start. I had previously drafted the first half of “Summer,” but wanted to make changes that were significant enough to go back to the beginning rather than continue from where I’d left off. So, this first half feels more like a second draft, while what follows will be all new. I’m calling it Draft 1A.

To reach each turning point, I tend to set personal deadlines. The one quarter mark one for “Summer Draft 1A” was a brief trip to Banff at the end of August. I didn’t quite make the deadline. Calgary’s weather this August was too darn good and I wanted to be out there enjoying it. I tried a few tricks to do that while accomplishing my writing goal: getting up early to write and taking my laptop out to the patio. The first I only managed a couple of times; the latter worked okay, but was better one evening when there was no glare on the computer screen. I made it to the first few pages of my turning point chapter and had to finish it after the holiday, helped by Calgary’s dip into a few bad weather days. 

Now, I’ve entered the second quarter of “Ten Days in Summer”, the working title for the sequel, and Calgary has entered another warm, sunny spell that’s forecast to last until the end of September. My next deadline is a trip to Toronto on Thanksgiving weekend. Enjoying this last burst of summer and meeting that deadline will be a challenge.