Welcome to “The Journey”, a newsletter from my little corner of the internet!
In this bi-weekly newsletter, I share experiences and observations from day-to-day life and the occasional broader “life lesson”, bigger projects I’m working on, and details I think you might find interesting about my recent photography or writing efforts.
“The Journey” is a reader-supported publication, and arrives in your inbox every second Sunday for free! And if you wish, you can opt in for a paid subscription ($5CAD/month or $50CAD/year), and you will receive a surprise item in the mail as a “thank you”!
Life at Large
The last two weeks have flown by, accelerated by a quick visit back to Canada. Michal had work related to meetings and courses to teach, as well as being able to participate in the Commencement Ceremony for Adler University. I was also busy, with a few days in New Westminster filled with seeing friends, and being the guest presenter for an Emergency Management class at the Justice Institute of BC. From there, I flew to the Kootenays, where I have been visiting with family. I squeezed in an author talk in Procter last weekend, but the rest of the time has been spent with family.
We are working through the edits on the story of Mom’s youth and nursing career, and I have just started interviewing Dad for his story as well. The days go by quickly. I’m so glad we have the ability to return to Canada at regular intervals to stay connected, and see family face to face, not just over Zoom. Today’s world is certainly a disaster on many fronts, but the ability to stay connected if we wish it, is a gift we have today that wasn’t as easy in the past.
Projects
The last few weeks offered a few opportunities to talk about my book, the guest Presentation at JIBC was based off the book, and the author talk in Procter. I also had a chance to visit all the books stores that are carrying the book. They are looking forward to the Christmas season, as books make great gifts (hint, hint!). Paperback copies of the book are available in the following locations:
Rosebud Bookshop - Porto, Portugal
Groove Cat Books & Records - New Westminster, BC
Kinder Books - New Westminster
Otter Books - Nelson, BC
Notably, A Book Lover’s Emporium - Nelson BC
Triple Rose Arts & Craft - Procter BC
Paperback, ebook, or audiobook formats are available here.
I will also be planning some Christmas promotion for calendars and cards from my website over the next week. There is always something to keep busy with!
Writing
I mentioned the “Family Stories” projects above. Mom’s project is going well, we have fallen into a pattern of working together to produce each chapter. I write a rough draft of the chapter, Mom reads it and checks for accuracy in the detail and tone, then sends if back for me to refine. I still slip into passive tense a lot, and I use a LOT of extra words. Once I have given it a bit of a polish, I load it into a draft Substack post, complete with photos, for her to go over again. There is always something else that needs a tweak. I try to have the chapter ready a week or more before it lands in your inbox, incase Mom’s remembers something else we should add, or there are more edits needed.
The vision is to get all the chapters up on Substack, then in the background, compile it into a book. We are compiling a few ideas and additional memories that have come up for the earlier chapters, that we will add in later after we have compiled the whole document. I like having the final goal in mind, it’s easier to work with a clear plan in place.
This week I also started interviewing Dad for his story. I’m approaching it slightly differently, taking into account my experiences with interviewing Mom. I’m doing voice recordings of Dad, then using the dictation function in MS Word, to make a transcript. It’s not a flawless process. Because Dad is just talking, not dictating, the transcription that is emerging is one massive sentence, completely void of punctuation. It is currently sitting at just over 10,000 words. It is word soup. Still, I’d rather sort through that than try to type as he talks. I missed too much trying to type Mom’s story as she talked. I had to go back for clarification on even simple things, and that cause her frustration.
Once I have gathered the initial stories from Dad, I’ll plot it an a timeline, as I did for Mom. The timeline will help my focus my questions to fill in gaps that emerge. Like Mom, Dad is also keen to have the end result be a book, so that gives me a structure to work toward.
Photography
Before the rains came this week, I went for a walk around my parents’ neighbourhood and took a few photos. I enjoyed playing with the macro-extension tube, and multiple exposures.
Last Thoughts
Thank you for following along as I share odds and ends from life and creative pursuits, and to those of you who opted in for a paid subscription, THANK YOU! There is a small token of my gratitude on its way to you in the mail for new paid subscribers.
There is also a little “bonus” at the end of this newsletter for paid subscribers, this week it’s a video message I made of moments from our drive across BC, as we travelled from Nelson back to New Westminster.
As always, I love hearing from you - your comments, questions, suggestions, or just a quick hello, they are all very welcome!
Até à próxima! (Until next time!)
Kathy
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