Gordon Kirkland At Large

Death Takes His Due

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 19:25:00 +0000

It’s been a rough week. Maybe it’s because Halloween is approaching, but for whatever reason, Death has been hanging around and pulling his old tricks.

In September of 2013, I was on Death’s front porch, about to ring the doorbell when an organ transplant saved my life and pulled me back from the brink. I was completely ready to cross that threshold. My funeral was planned. I had indicated that my body was to be cremated and the ashes spread on the lake where my parents had their summer home when I was a kid. My wife said that would be fitting. That way I could continue to be all wet throughout eternity.

I’m beginning to think that the old skull-face is extracting some revenge for my escape from his clutches.

Shortly after my transplant, a younger man made contact with me through an online support group for patients with, or waiting for, liver transplants. He had his transplants about two months before me. As one of the fine parting gifts you get after a transplant is medication induced insomnia, Eric and I would often find ourselves on line in the middle of the night. We would spend time, in the dark, talking and joking about our new realities, and trying not to laugh so loud that we would wake our housemates.

As the months past, we became good friends, despite the 2000 or so miles and an international border between my home in British Columbia and his in San Antonio. Eric challenged me to the Ice Bucket Challenge in August. We last talked early in October. Shortly thereafter, Eric went into complete liver and kidney failure and lapsed into a coma. He died on Monday, October 20^th.

It’s a fact of life for transplant patients. Things can go awry suddenly and disastrously. It is in the back of my mind all the time.

Death wasn’t satisfied with that one event. In the next few days, two others awaiting transplants and members of the same online support group lost their battles. That happens far too frequently. Approximately twenty people die every day in North America waiting for a transplant. There are simply not enough viable organs available.

Too few people take the few minutes it requires to register to be an organ donor. Of those, only about one percent die in such a way that their organs could be used. The donor must be in a hospital, on life support and be declared brain or cardiac dead. That status must be confirmed independently by two physicians not related to the transplant process. Of those, only one percent will have organs suitable for transplant.

And Death still wasn’t finished making my head spin. I also learned last week that Lindor Reynolds, a newspaper columnist I had gotten to know when we were both members of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists passed away on October 17^th. Lindor was funny, intelligent and compassionate. She’s leaving a big hole behind that will be difficult, if not impossible to fill.

Enough is enough, right? Well, Death is never satisfied. There will never be enough to satisfy him. On October 24^th, Dru Campbell, an author I had taught with for several years on the faculty of the Southern California Writer’s Conference succumbed to cancer. Dru was a great writer and educator. Many people benefited from her knowledge of the craft of writing, which she shared freely over the years

Canadians as a whole were affected by Death’s touch last week. Two radicalized individuals brought terror to our country. One used his car to run down two soldiers, killing one. Another used a rifle to kill a soldier standing guard on our national capital war memorial and tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before running into the halls of Parliament. As I watched the video of that man’s last moments my mind ran through the same steps the security officials took as they chased him down. I used to walk that hall every day when I worked as a writer for then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. I watched in shock, knowing that he was just steps away from well over one hundred members of Parliament sitting in their respective caucus chambers.

Seven days. Seven deaths. Yes. It’s been a rough week, and I can only hope that Death is finished messing with me for now.

The Difference a Year Can Make and The Difference You Can Make

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 16:36:00 +0000

One year ago today I lay dying in the palliative care unit of a small regional hospital. I was lapsing in and out of consciousness, and my breathing had become quite shallow. Most of the time I didn’t really know what was going on around me. While I might have been able to carry on a halting conversation, a few minutes later I wouldn’t remember who I had been talking to, or what we had said.

The hallucinations were like nothing anyone had seen since the brown acid at Woodstock.

My liver had been failing for several years due to cirrhosis, which was not caused by alcohol. I was barely what could be called a social drinker. I would drink the occasional beer or glass of wine. I could nurse a shot of single malt for several hours. In fact less than 10% of the people suffering from liver disease were drug or alcohol abusers, roughly the same percentage as cancer and heart disease patients. Because of the stories of the likes of Mickey Mantle and Larry Hagman, people seem to believe that all liver disease patients are drunks or junkies.

I had been told that the only thing that could save my life was a liver transplant. The chances of getting one were so microscopic that we had no hope of that occurring. I had a rare blood type, one shared by roughly five percent of the population. I am 6’4” and the liver would have to come from someone with a similar build. Less than three percent of the population is 6’2” or over. While those two factors alone significantly reduced my chances of a liver being found in time, they were not the biggest obstacle I faced.

Eighty-five percent of the population agree with organ transplants and would gladly have one if they needed it. The majority of people think that anyone who needs a transplant should and will get one. Unfortunately that is not the case. In my area, less than twenty percent of the population has registered as an organ donor. Of those only one percent will die in such a way that their organs can be used, and many of those organs will not be suitable for transplantation.

To be a donor, a patient must be in hospital, on life support, and two independent teams of doctors must rule that the individual is either brain or cardiac dead. Every effort must have been made to save the person’s life before organ donation is even considered. If all those efforts fail, then the family will be asked about donating the organs.

Mathematically, there was no realistic hope that I would receive a transplant. My family and I were told to prepare for the end. I was given a workbook to use to write out my wishes for my funeral and what was to be done with my remains. My wife had already nixed the idea of setting up a motion detecting tape recorder in my casket so that when people looked in at me I could say things like, “Hi! Thanks for coming!” “So this is what it took to get you to visit?” or my personal favorite, “It sure is hot here… but it’s a dry heat.”

On that morning of September 18, 2013, I woke up early and watched the sun play on the dew on the leaves outside my window. As I looked at the day breaking, I thought it would be a good day to die. The usual hospital breakfast of cold eggs, cold cereal, and an English muffin that was so stale it might have been shipped by surface mail from England. The doctor from the local long-term care/hospice facility came to see me. As we were talking, the phone rang.

On the other end of the line was the coordinator for the transplant team at Vancouver General Hospital. She said that they had found a liver that was going to be available shortly that was a perfect match for me. I thought it was someone playing a joke. It took her three times to convince me that I was going to get the transplant, finally saying, “Look, Gordon. I’m hanging up now and calling for an ambulance to go out there and pick you up.”

The doctor who was there said, “Well, I guess you won’t be needing me now.”

I buzzed for a nurse, but they were all busy with other patients in the unit, most of whom were in their eighties and nineties. I started shouting “I got a liver!” hoping one of the nurses would hear me. I heard some shuffling outside my door, and looked to see a small group of geriatric patients staring in at me while I lay there shouting. “One old dear turned to another and said, “Did he say he got liver for breakfast? I sure don’t ever want liver for breakfast.”

After about twenty minutes I thought it might be a good idea if I called and told my wife what was happening. There was a chance she might like to know. (See. I told you my mind wasn't working on all cylinders, and if that wasn't reason enough, I am after all a husband, and we don't always think quite straight.) I still have a slight ringing in my right ear from the scream that came through the phone lines. Dogs in a five mile radius probably stopped what the y were doing and wondered what that noise was.

At 6:00 the next morning I was wheeled into an operating, and here I am, a year later. My bi-weekly blood tests show that my new liver is functioning perfectly. I think my donor must have been in incredible shape.

Across North America twenty people die each day waiting for a transplant. One donor can save the lives of up to eight people through heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas transplants. Up to 50 lives can be impacted directly through skin and cornea donations. Registering to be a donor is a simple and charitable act. If you don’t know how to do it in your area, I have placed all of the organ donation registration information for the United States and Canada on a web page at http://www.gordonkirkland.com/donor.html.

Please, for the over 150,000 people currently waiting to receive a transplant, take a few minutes out of your day, and register to be an organ donor. You sure won’t need them after you’re gone, but they could mean the difference between life or death for someone else.

A Funny Thing Happened Looking Out From The Top Of The World

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 21:17:00 +0000

The last time I published something on this blog was March 5, 2012, two and a half years ago. A couple months before, my second novel, The Plight Before Christmas had hit number one on the Amazon Kindle Parenting & Family Humor Bestsellers list. I was on top of the world. A lot of you have forgotten about it. Some of you probably thought I had just packed it in and quit. A few of you probably thought I had died.

I almost did.

Shortly after publishing the blog right below this one, I left for a vacation in the Barbados. I wasn’t feeling all that great. I knew that it would probably be the last time that I would travel while still walking on the crutches clipped to my arms that I had used for eighteen of the twenty-two years since I became a paraplegic in an automobile accident. I knew I would be dusting off my wheelchair in the not too distant future.

On the way home, at 38,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, I collapsed in an airline lavatory. The flight attendant was obviously concerned when I fell backwards through the door and landed at her feet.

She continued pouring cups of coffee for her first-class passengers.

When we landed at home I went straight to the hospital, thinking that the few nerve connections that allowed me to continue “walking” on the crutches had finally eroded. In the small, overcrowded regional hospital, rooms were at a premium. I was put into a space not much bigger than a janitor’s closet in a corner of the emergency department. I lay there for 3 days.

A young doctor came to me one morning and said that he had noticed something unusual on a blood test, and wanted my permission to do more tests. Well, I wasn’t doing anything else at the moment, so what the heck.

Over the next two days, enough blood was drawn to feed a family of vampires for a month or two. I had a CT scan, multiple x-rays, and an ultrasound. In case you’re wondering, I wasn’t pregnant. I felt injected, inspected, and rejected.

A few days later a specialist came into my room, and without so much as a howdy-do, said. “Mr. Kirkland, you’re in deep shit.”

He went on to explain that I was at end-stage of liver failure due to cirrhosis. I told him I couldn’t have cirrhosis because I wasn’t an alcoholic. I was certain of that because alcoholics went to meetings, and I didn’t like going to meetings. The doctor went on to explain that what I had was something called Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis that had caused the cirrhosis, or in laymen’s terms, I was in deep shit.

He went on to explain that the only thing that could keep me alive was a liver transplant, but that I wasn’t a good candidate for getting one. I had a rare blood type (less than 5% of the population.) Fewer than 20% of the population register as organ donors, and less than 1% of them die in such a way that the organs can be used. At 6’4” the liver would have to come from a donor of similar build (less than 3% of the population.) Mathematically, the likelihood of a match becoming available in time was somewhere between microscopic and nonexistent.

Over the next year my condition worsened dramatically. Liver failure causes a build-up of ammonia in your system, which in turn causes your brain to turn into mush.

I never wrote another word.

By the end of May 2013, I was hospitalized and at times did not even recognize my wife. Let me tell you something, when a man has been married for 40 years, it is not all that healthy to look at your wife and ask who she was. By August, I had been moved into palliative care, and was being told to prepare to die.

On the morning of September 18^th, 2013, I was being examined by the doctor in charge of the local long term care and hospice facility. My life expectancy could be counted in days. Suddenly,the phone rang. The transplant team at Vancouver General Hospital had found a liver for me. I was transferred there later that day, and the surgery started at 6:00 the next morning.

I woke up later that day in the intensive care unit. A nurse asked me if the doctor had given me a Mercedes Benz of a Lexus. My immediate thought was, “Man, this Canadian healthcare system is even better than I thought. I just got a new liver, and they’re giving me a car, too!”

It turned out she was asking me which car company’s logo looked like the incision that had been cut into my abdomen. It turned out that I got the Lexus cut. If I take my shirt off I look like a billboard for an over-priced Toyota. I’m just glad the doctor didn’t give me a Dodge Ram.

So I am back. I won’t say I am back to normal. Normal is not a word that anyone ever used to describe me. I’ve been writing again for a few months, working on a book about the experience of walking up to Death’s door, but not quite ringing the doorbell, as well as a sequel to my novel Crossbow that I have been promising my readers for several years. Next month I will be releasing a Kindle short story called Duke’s Christmas featuring the characters from Crossbow.

I’ve also decided to start writing short humorous essays again. My syndicated column ran in newspapers from 1994 to 2007, but I’m not going to go through the joys of trying to deal with newspaper editors again. Transplant surgery was bad enough thank you. So I will post the essays here as regularly as I can.

I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 21:09:00 +0000

An Author Remembers A Poet

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:42:00 +0000

I've often said that there are two distinct kinds of poetry; good poetry and most of it. A man whose work fits into the first category was one of my first inspirations. He later became my teacher, and my friend.

One day, when I was about twelve years old, my sister lent me a book, Irving Layton's Collected Works. I can still recite my favourite poem from that book.

On my way to school
I used to pass
A Baptist church
And fields of grass.

"Jesus Saves"
Above the gate
Would comfort me
If I were late.

The church is gone,
The street is paved,
The Home Bank thrives
Where Jesus Saved.

When I went to York University in Toronto, my English professor was Irving Layton, I was thrilled, and more than a little bit intimidated.

On a September morning, I was walking down the hall past Irving's office. As I past, I heard him shout a great cheer. I looked in, and he beckoned me to enter. On the corner of his desk sat a small black and white television. The picture wasn't great, but all you could expect from the small antenna. Sitting in the cramped office, along with Irving were two of the other lecturers from the course, Eli Mandel and Dennis Lee, both were also poets of renown. Amid the piles of books and papers, I managed to find a place to squeeze into the small office to watch the remaining moments of the 1972 Canada-USSR Hockey Summit.

With just 34 seconds left to go in the game, Paul Henderson scored what has come to be known as "The Goal." Cheers erupted throughout the Ross Building, but I doubt that any were louder than the ones coming from three poets and a freshman.

Irving Layton was an incredible lecturer and he filled his students with a love for the writing that was coming out of Canada at that time. Our lecturers were the people he could cajole into coming into the lecture hall, including a young Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler, Leonard Cohen, and many others.

Over bottles of beer that afternoon, Irving assigned me to Dennis Lee's tutorial classes. Dennis, who would later be the poet laureate of Toronto, and the lyricist for Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock TV series, was exactly the sort of person I needed to foster my love of writing.

Irving and I would become friends during the remainder of my stay at York. He once told me that I should be out writing and not sitting in lecture halls studying other people's writing. I took that to heart, and tucked the idea away for several years, while life got in the way between me and my career as an author. I am pretty sure he would be happy that my name is now appearing on best-seller lists, knowing that he is one of the people who helped me get there.

I owe Irving a lot. From the earliest inspiration as a child just becoming exposed to writing that didn't involve the Hardy Boys to my first publication credits, Irving was always a part of my life. Sadly, Alzheimer's disease took his mind and then in 2006, at the age of 93, it took him from us. I miss him.

This weekend is the 100th anniversary of Layton's birth. Poets are gathering across the country to honour him. I will honour him in my own way, and in a way I think he would appreciate. I'll raise a glass to him, and remember that day with three poets and a freshman cheering at a snowy picture on a tiny TV screen, watching "The Goal."

Thank you Irving. I wouldn't be where I am today without you.

MisunderstandingBy Irving Layton

I placed my hand upon her thigh.
By the way she moved away
I could see her devotion to literature was not perfect.

Pricing E-books For Fun And Profit

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:14:00 +0000

Melissa Foster recently wrote an excellent article about the various pricing options being used by independent author/publishers and the commercial publishers for e-books. (Read it here.)

I price my back list titles at $0.99. These are the four collections of humorous essays published between 2005 and 2009. They are priced this way to attract new readers to some of my older material, and to encourage them to purchase more of the newer material, which is priced at $2.99. I price my novels at $2.99 as well.

These price points seem to be working well for me. While the average independent author/publisher sells fewer than 100 copies of an e-book, I have sold thousands, and I have heard from a lot of new readers that wouldn't necessarily have found me if the price points had been higher. Many buy one book, then return for the rest of the ones available.

I will admit though, it was a bit of a gut wrenching decision to let books go for $0.99, but in the end, the quantity of sales and the new dedicated readers has made it worthwhile.

My first two books were published by commercial publishers. I have tried to regain the electronic rights to those books so that I might add them to my e-book catalogue, but in both cases was refused. They say that they will publish them as e-books "someday." One tells me they intend to set the price for the book at $14.99 (the paperback is $18.99.) When you consider that these books were originally published seven and thirteen years ago, their pricing seems out of wack.

In addition to this, my books are all available to Kindle Prime members through the Kindle Owners Lending Library. Participants are allowed to "borrow" one book per month from the library at no cost. Amazon pays me from a pool of money they set aside each month. That pool is divided equally by the authors in the pool based on their percentage of total number of books borrowed.

We are all still in a learning mode. We have to walk a fine line between what we hope to earn in royalties and what readers are willing to pay for our books. The most important thing is to put the best possible product forward, so that readers will return to buy more books whatever their price might be.

The Customer, Not the Boardroom Will Decide Who Wins The Bookselling War

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:30:00 +0000

The decision to refuse to carry Amazon published books may well prove to be one more nail in the coffin of the brick and mortar bookstores. Barnes & Noble and Books A Million (and Indigo in Canada) are making this decision at the boardroom level. The small independents in the American Booksellers Association are not making their own business decision, it is being made by the few elected members of the association’s board. Those people do not have a vested interest in the business of any bookstore except their own. I hope some of the better book stores around the country, stores like Left Bank Books in St. Louis and Third Place Books in Seattle, will see that this decision does nothing to improve their bottom line. It could very well harm it. Part of being ‘independent’ is having the ability to make your own business decisions.

The bookstores that are refusing Amazon published books are forgetting the most important element in their business – the customer. If a customer wants a specific book they don’t care whether the bookstore doesn’t like the publisher, they simply want that book. If one bookstore won’t sell it to them, they will go to the competitor who will. Odds are they will return to that competitor for other books, even if they are available at the bookstore that wouldn’t sell to them previously.

It would be like a customer who wants Crest toothpaste being told that it is not available at the pharmacy where they usually shop because they don't like Proctor & Gamble. The customer will find a store that sells Crest, and will probably buy other products while they are there. They will probably keep returning to that store, even if they are not out of toothpaste.

If publishers think that Barnes and Noble or the others are their new allies, they had better think again. None of those stores give a rat’s hairy tukas about the publishers. It wasn’t that many years ago that the smaller publishers were railing against the Barnes and Nobles, Borders and Indigos of this world, because of the way they were being treated. Delayed payment of invoices and massive returns were killing the smaller and some larger publishers.

I’ll use the Canadian example of Stoddard Publishing and General Distribution Services as an example of what good friends the big-box bookstores are to smaller publishers. In 2002, Jack Stoddard the owner of both companies was forced into bankruptcy, not because he ran his business poorly, but because Chapters/Indigo were putting long delays on paying their invoices, and excessive returns. It was reported at the time that when pushed to pay a bill they would ship back enough books to cover the invoice with returned (often damaged) books. As an article written at the time said:

“Among the very specific things that sunk GDS [General Distribution Services] was a practice among booksellers designed to get around the new game rules set by the Federal Competition Bureau. Stoddart provided a basic outline of the practice in his affidavit, implying that both Chapters/Indigo and some of the independents were employing it. It involved the bookstores returning books within the 90 day return period, and then reordering those same books again—thus extending Chapters/Indigo credit beyond the 110 day period, and leveling the playing-field slightly for a few independents, in effect enabling a few of them the privilege Chapters/Indigo already had, of paying only for the books they’d sold. But it worsened the warehouse and accounting logjam for GDS, and set an ugly precedent for the future.”

(Read the entire article at http://www.dooneyscafe.com/archives/166.)

What other retail sector can get that kind of advantage from their suppliers? I have written before about the looks I got when I asked a florist if she could return unsold roses for a credit.

Stoddard was far from the only publisher that was hurt by those events. General Distribution Services served over 60 publishers. When it went under its creditors were owed over $45-million.

This also had a huge impact on the authors. Royalties owed to them also disappeared in the bankruptcy. Ten years later, many of them have still not fully recovered. In my case, this was all occurring in the first couple of years after my first book was published. When it received the Stephen Leacock Award of Merit for Humour in 2000, it should have been a huge shot in the arm for my sales. My publisher at the time was experiencing the same business practices from Chapters/Indigo as Stoddard, and was refusing to ship books until bills were paid, mine included. The book made its way into smaller independents, but not into the largest retailer in the country.

Barnes & Noble Indigo and Books-A-Million are behaving like schoolchildren, telling Amazon, “You can’t play in our park.” Amazon can either fight them for control of the park, or make the smarter move and build their own park. Having $6-billion at their disposal, you can be assured that the new park won’t just have a basketball court and a couple of swings.

I think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg from Amazon when it comes to finding new and better ways to serve the customer. Remember the customer; that person who actually lays down their credit card to buy the product. As I said earlier, that’s who is being forgotten by the bookstores like B&N.

Some publishers and booksellers are forgetting that B&N and BAM bullied them a few short years ago, but now they want to hang out in their park because they think that the bullies will protect them now. That thinking doesn’t work in the playground, and it sure as heck isn’t going to work in the business world.

The mantra of independent booksellers has always been that they can provide the customer with better service and a good knowledge of books. That is something the minimum wage employees at the big box bookstores lacked. The smart booksellers will realize that there is no point tilting at the Amazon windmill like some latter day Don Quixote. They will look for ways to promote themselves as being the better choice over Amazon, B&N and the other big box sellers. (We haven’t even mentioned Walmart and Costco in this discussion yet.)

Publishers need to show authors why they are a better choice than Amazon for book publishing. It will take a lot of creative thinking. The book promotion model that many of them use will need to be altered significantly. The royalty formula will have to be reworked significantly. (Many publishers will have a great deal of difficulty with that one.) The timeline between completed manuscript and book release will have to be significantly reduced. They will also need to look at the pricing of electronic versions to bring them more in line with the reality of that marketplace.

You can be sure that Amazon expected this sort of reaction from the other booksellers, and planned for it. If you can make your opponent focus solely on defense, you are the one in possession of the ball. They cannot score and you have every opportunity to do so. Amazon is drawing their focus away from the customers, and therefore away from what will keep them in business.

The people who actually buy the books will decide how and where they want to shop. They don’t care about the battle going on in the background. The companies that recognize that and use it to their advantage will in all likelihood be the ones to win the war. At present Amazon is in the position to keep their eye on that prize, because everyone else is trying to keep an eye on them.

In reality, booksellers and publishers have a lot less to fear from Amazon than another group of players in the industry. If companies like Ingram and Baker & Taylor don’t see the writing on the wall, they had better visit an optometrist. Distribution, and finding the most practical and cost effective manner to quickly put the product into the hands of the customers will be the key to victory.

Here I Come A'Castle-ing

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:47:00 +0000

I don't mind admitting it, I thoroughly enjoy the television show Castle. If I could only watch one show each week, that would be the one. Now I get to do a little of what Castle does.

I am doing research to help add more police realism to my next couple of novels about the small town police who first appeared in my debut novel, Crossbow. I have received a lot of fan mail from people who enjoyed the quirky characters in the book, and I have decided to bring them back for more.

I will be joining members of the local detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in night watches, traffic patrols and more. I want to add a female officer to the mix in the novels, so I will also go on patrol with a female RCMP officer.

It seems that one thing that all the fans of the book who have written to me so far have in common is a love for Duke, the pee-mail communicating, snack-sniffing Springer Spaniel that one of the deputies is vainly trying to train as a police dog. I'll be watching a K-9 officer and his human counterpart, as well.

Castle is right. As he says, "There are two kinds of people who spend their time thinking about ways to kill people: psychopaths and mystery writers." In Crossbow, I found ways to kill off 12 characters, and it definitely is the better paying of the two. I may not kill as many in the book I am working on now, but I can assure your their deaths will be unique.

Have I got a great job or what?

A recent reader review of Crossbow:

Having read all I could get in my Kindle of his other books, I approached Crossbow with a pleasant sense of anticipation. Thinking it would be a book of hilarious mishaps with the eventual solving of a murder, I was quickly brought up short by the seriousness of it. I love humorous fiction, and this was not it. It was better. Much better. It was not as light a read as, say, Charlotte MacLeod or the like. But I absolutely loved the quirks and twists and convoluted nature of the whole thing as it unraveled. And the humor WAS there ... right where it should be in a story like that: in the background a bit, subtle, always hovering around the edges to soften the hideousness of the crime(s). Also, unlike many mystery writers, he neither gives you the knowledge of "who dun it" right up front, nor does he make you wrack your brain and then have the mystery solved by someone who had knowledge all along that the reader had no way of knowing. The hints are there.

But Duke, by far, steals the show.

Why Does Someone Like Me Write Humor?

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:31:00 +0000

Someone asked me why I write humor, or for that matter, how can I write humor? I know what they were really saying, “How and why can someone who has a spinal cord injury possibly find anything to laugh about, let alone share it with others.”

I was raised in a family that laughed a lot. We were taught that there was a funny side to just about anything, and it was a lot better to laugh than cry. Occasionally, my mother would think my brother, sister and I might be getting a little too far into the hilarity and she would say, “Be careful. Someone could end up crying.”

It was usually Dad.

I didn’t see anything funny about being disabled; certainly not for the first few years. It hit me right out of the blue. I guess I would be better off saying it enveloped me, and it seemed pretty blue. I was sitting in my wheelchair one day, either in a line-up at the bank or the grocery store, I don’t remember which, but that’s not important.

The idea to start writing humor was propelled in my direction. The unknown person in front of me gave me the idea. I remember thinking, someone should write about living life at fart height. (Think about it for a minute. You’ll get the picture.)

My wife had been encouraging me to write the kind of material I wanted to write, now that my career of writing what other people wanted me to write for them was behind me. Maybe I was the person to write about living at fart height.

In the ensuing eighteen years I have written nine books, hundreds of newspaper features, and magazine articles. My readers may ascertain that I am disabled from some of the things I have written, but I still haven’t written about living at fart height.

Until today.

I write about being a husband, father, dog owner and observer of life. All of those subjects have little or nothing to do with being disabled. Being disabled is just a small part of my life. For a lot of people it defines me, but I don’t define myself that way. Reader’s Digest said my specialty is making readers laugh at me, at themselves, and at life in general.

It’s that life in general where the humor is most easily found.

I’m not your everyday writer. A TV talk show host once said she never know what I might say next. (Truth be known, neither do I.) One look at my titles will tell you I am just a little bit different. It’s been that way from the very first book, Justice Is Blind – And Her Dog Just Peed In My Cornflakes.

My ninth book was just released last week. My Slice Of Life Is Full Of Gristle is my seventh collection of short humorous essays. My other two are novels, including the top selling Christmas humor book on Amazon Kindle leading up to Christmas 2011.

And someday I promise. I’ll write about living at fart height.

My books are available at

http://www.gordonkirkland.com/bookstore

Contact me through:

Website – http://www.gordonkirkland.com

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My Monitor Survived,

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:32:00 +0000

OK. I’ve calmed down a bit, now.

Last week I was anything but calm. There were a few moments there when I was tempted to punch my monitor. A friend sent me another columnist's Thanksgiving column, and asked if it contained my material.

It did.

Part of the reason for my anger is that this material is something I was particularly proud of, because it always got a great reaction form my readers and audiences. I had used it in three separate newspaper columns, a magazine article and a stand-up comedy routine. I even used it as an example of how to use exaggeration for comedic effect in a writers’ workshop that this person attended.

A writer spends a lot of time and effort on their words. They are our products, and we strive to give our very best to our readers. When someone else takes them as their own, it leaves you feeling violated, as though someone came into your home and stole a prized possession.

I suppose I could be somewhat forgiving if this was someone who was just starting out in the business and didn’t know any better. The person in question is anything but. She is even on the board of a National writers’ organization, albeit, one that several of us left a number of years ago because of some ethics problems with a couple of the board members who were there back then. I think I will keep ignoring their membership drive emails, and recommend to others that they do the same.

When I told the person that I was disappointed by her use of my material without credit, she sent a message that basically said, she hadn’t done it intentionally. Sorry, but that is just unadulterated bull byproduct. She did, in fact, intentionally use my material as her own. She said, "I thought it was so funny, that I worked it into this story."

She clearly just doen't get it. I'm not sure on what planet it's OK to "work" another writer's material into your story. It doesn't take work to steal from another.

Intentional or not, she cannot say that she didn’t know that it was mine. She sent me a note a few weeks before mentioning this specific example of my material. That sounds to me like she intentionally used the material because she "thought it was so funny."

I’ve chosen not to identify the person publicly. I have received eighteen emails from people who were quite able to identify her themselves, all expressing surprise that she would lift my material for her personal gain. It would also seem that she has more than just me angry about it. A lawyer suggested that I sue her. Another writer suggested that I should send the evidence to every outlet that has published her to let them know what kind of person they are dealing with.

A dear friend, who is a Christian minister and a counselor, said, “What would you do if she broke into your house and took your computer? Call the cops, or write her a nice email? As a "woman of the cloth" I can tell you that to "love your neighbour" is never to shield them from the natural consequences of their behaviour.”

My friend Raul Ramos-Sanchez, a fantastic writer said it best, “I'm astonished that some "writers" are so enamored of the limelight they are willing to bask in it even when the material that puts them there is not their own.”

I must say that, if anything good has come from this, is it the gratifying feeling I have gotten from all of the messages of support.

A mutual friend says she feels badly about this and thinks I hate her now. Hate is a pretty strong word. I have certainly lost respect for her and my inbox tells me that I am not alone in that. I am also sorry that I agreed to write a foreword for her book. I even feel a bit of pity for her, because she felt the need to take something of mine rather than go to the trouble of coming up with something of her own.

I’m not going to write to every outlet that has carried her article. I think that if she has any integrity left, she should do that herself. By a couple of the emails I got, they are bound to find out anyway. I’m not going to sue her. I think the court of public opinion among other writers is passing a much stronger sentence.

So, my monitor is still in one piece. That's a good thing. I think I need it to see how to remove any reference to this person from my computer.

Five Books Near The Top Of Kindle Best Sellers Lists - How Did That Happen?!?

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:54:00 +0000

My son repeatedly encouraged me to put my back list on Kindle. Late last year I finally agreed to give it a try. I thought it might sell a couple of copies a month, and would keep him happy.

As I predicted, the first few months saw a few sales, but nothing to get overly excited about. Then the numbers started growing. July doubled June. August tripled July. September tripled August. October doubled September. I am now selling in the thousands of copies each month.

As most of you know, I write both short humor essays and comedic novels. My collections of essays are all stories that go their start in my syndicated newspaper column that ran in American and Canadian newspapers from 1994 - 2007. My novels include a darkly comedic mystery called Crossbow (think Fargo without the wood chipper) and a family relationship comedy, The Plight Before Christmas.

So how did that happen? Let's look at some of the reasons for their Kindle success, and what you need to do to spur on your own sales:

I keep the Kindle prices at $0.99 each. Oh sure, it was a bit of a gut wrenching decision to keep them priced that low, and to accept the lower return on a per book basis, but in the end the quantity of sales is far outpacing any reduction in royalty.
While I have spent years building my platform and reputation, with three major book awards in Canada, and thousands of publication credits to my name, it all went out the window with the switch to Kindle editions. I had to find a way to reach the readers who have embraced the new technology. I have talked to dozens of people to get their opinions about what they want to see on their Kindles, and determined that there was in deed a market for my material.
I have marketed my books at every opportunity. That includes the usual avenues of Facebook and Twitter. It also includes everything from sitting around a pool at a resort in Belize where I counted almost 20 kindles in the hands of the other guests (in a resort with only 30 units), press releases, radio interviews, online interviews, and direct mail to contacts that I thought would be interested in the books. I spend several hours each day just working on book marketing.
Repetition is vital. It's often been said that it takes up to 7 marketing contacts before a sale is made. Don't just tell your Facebook friends and fans about your new book, once. Tell them several times, but spread it out so that the frequency does not become annoying.
Yes, it helped a lot that I had a platform before I started marketing on Kindle. The same could be said about my traditional books before the first one of those came out in 1999. If you do not have a platform now, start building one by getting your name out there as often as you can. Attend writer's conferences, festivals, and even local critique groups to make yourself known.
Treat your readers well. If you receive fan mail (or hate mail) answer it promptly and politely. Don't argue if they tell you they don't like your book, thank them for their opinion, and listen to what they are saying, because they may not be the only ones with those opinions. When people buy the paperback version of The Plight Before Christmas, they can request a free signed custom bookplate for their book(s). If a book club is reading one of my books I will attend their follow-up meeting either in person, or by video connection. Just letting people know that you do those sorts of things gives them a positive impression about you and your work.
Make sure you have an Amazon Author Central page. It is the easiest way to direct your potential readers to your books. If you don't have one, go to https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/landing and get one!
Create a Facebook page for your book. It may not have a lot of people signed up, but it gives you a chance to interact with people who have read (and enjoyed) your book.
Always be on the lookout for a marketing opportunity. When I teach book marketing at writers conferences I always get the deer-in-the-headlight looks when I tell them that they will have to do a lot of marketing. Believe it. The really hard work starts after you have typed 'The end.'
Read Carolyn Howard-Johnson's book The Frugal Book Promoter. It will give you far more ideas than I have the time to give you here.

So yes, in January I sold just 3 Kindle editions. Ten months later, my October sales were in the thousands. Five of my books are near the top of the Kindle Best Sellers in Parenting & Family Humor list. Two are on the Christmas lists. It takes work, but anything worthwhile does. You need to decide for yourself if your book is worthwhile. Hopefully the answer to that comes easily to you.

Best Sellers in Parenting & Family Humor

The best items in Parenting & Family Humor based on Amazon customer purchases. (Learn more)

When My Mind Wanders It Brings Back Souvenirs

Gordon Kirkland

4.8 out of 5 stars (4)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$0.99

_______________________________

12.

I Think I'm Having One Of Those Decades

Gordon Kirkland

5.0 out of 5 stars (1)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$0.99

_______________________________

14.

I May Be Big But I Didn't Cause That Solar Eclipse

Gordon Kirkland

5.0 out of 5 stars (1)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$0.99

_______________________________

15.

Holly Jolly Frivolity

Gordon Kirkland

5.0 out of 5 stars (2)

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$0.99

_______________________________

30.

The Plight Before Christmas

Gordon Kirkland

Auto-delivered wirelessly

$0.99

Did Tiny Tim Go Through This?

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:39:00 +0000

It’s been over twenty years since I broke my spine in a serious golfing accident. I was on my way to the golf course when someone decided that finding a tape on the floor of his car was more important that watching to see if I had stopped in traffic. My handicap hasn’t been the same since. After four years in a wheelchair, I learned how to “walk” using forearm crutches. Those crutches have led to some interesting Christmas shopping experiences over the years.

I live on the west coast of Canada. The weather office tells me that this area has only a 7% chance of having a white Christmas, so I might as well sing about dreaming of a dry Christmas.

I'm dreaming of a dry Christmas

Just like the Arizona kind

With no puddles to watch for

On the wet mall floor

That crutches always seem to find

You see, all of this rain makes walking with crutches a very exciting pastime. Mine seem to have a mind of their own when they are wet, or hit water on a tile or terrazzo shopping mall floor. They each want to go in diametrically opposing directions from the other, and also from the direction I thought I was going.

I’m not a big fan of shopping malls at the best of times, but mixing a combination of over stressed Christmas shoppers, with trying to walk on forearm crutches can be downright suicidal. Every time I have gotten the courage to venture into a store lately I've had some sort of experience involving other shoppers and my crutches. After the initial shock, the only thing to do is laugh at them. If I didn’t, I’d end up like one of those disgruntled postal workers who wipe down their semi-automatic pistols with your Christmas cards.

As I walked down the aisle of a mall one day just before Christmas a few years ago, I suddenly came to the realization that I was no longer supported by my left hand crutch. The woman who knocked it out from under me as she hurried past was clearly well into the Christmas spirit (and possibly spirits.) She was wearing Christmas tree earrings and a Santa Claus button on her coat. The jolly old elf’s nose was a tiny blinking red light.

I tried to balance myself with one crutch, and the railing overlooking a twenty foot drop down to Santa’s lap on the lower level. I thought that the child getting her picture taken would have me plummeting into the top of the photo. It would certainly be a memorable holiday image.

The woman who had set the whole process in motion turned around, and showing a clear concern for my welfare said, “Why the @#$% don’t you watch where you’re going?”

I pointed out to her that my head didn’t spin around like something out of a horror movie, so I wasn’t able to tell that she was on a collision course with my crutch, until she hit it. It’s almost the same thing I told the man who drove into the back of my car when he wondered why I didn’t move out of his way.

Another shopper recently hit one of my crutches with a shopping cart. She told me that she wouldn’t have hit “that thing” if I wasn’t holding it beside me.

I said, “Well, ma’am, if I put them between my lags, I tend to fall over. If I don’t bring them at all…I…well… I tend to fall over.”

I guess I shouldn’t worry about that, because I am actually quite good at falling. In fact, I haven’t missed the ground once in all these years.

One day, I decided to take a short cut through the women’s clothing section of a large department store. I stopped for a moment to let the aisle clear ahead of me. A woman walked by on her way to the nearby changing room.

She told her four or five-year-old, “Wait right here until I come out and don’t move. I’ll be just behind that door.”

When she emerged several minutes later, her little angel was still standing there with his hand clutching one of my crutches in a death grip. I told her that I had tried to get him to let go of it several times but every time I asked, he always quickly turned his head away and said nothing.

When she asked him why, he said, with perfect reasoning, “You told me to never do anything a stranger asks.”

So I have to wonder. When Tiny Tim wandered through the streets of Victorian London, did anyone ever kick his crutch out from under him, or I am I the only one having a “Dickens of a time?”

If I Keep This Up I Might Get Organized

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:35:00 +0000

A lot has been going on lately, so you haven't seen a lot of blogging going on from the offices of Gordon Kirkland and At Large Publishing. I am going to try to change that in the coming weeks, as I will be doing a number of things with this blog. For example:

I will be writing a number of new essays to be included in a new book scheduled for sometime in the first quarter of 2012.
I plan to use this blog to comment on the publishing industry in its current state of flux.
I will be giving advice to other writers as momentary flashes of brilliance (or something that might pass for it) bounce to the surface inside my head.
I will keep you posted on upcoming appearances, and fill you on on them as they occur.

So What Has Been Going On Around Here?

Well for one thing, from mid-May until very recently I have been dealing with some health issues that are part of the wonderful world of being a paraplegic. For a good part of the summer I was walking around with an intravenous pump strapped to my chest feeding some killer antibiotics into my system.

The pump came off in time for Diane and I to get away for a week to Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands, where we did a lot of snorkeling, sailing and most importantly relaxing.

But that's not why you read this blog is it? You are hear to find out about my writing, and hopefully how my experiences can help you with yours.

I didn't release a new book in 2010. As a result, I had two nearing completion and ready for launching in 2011.

April saw the launch of Crossbow, my darkly comedic mystery novel. (Think Fargo without a wood chipper.) This was the book I started during the taping of the TV series The Three Day Novel. A lot of work went into rewriting what I wrote on the set, and turning it into a full length novel.

On September 24th, I released The Plight Before Christmas, a comedy about a family experiencing a wide array of calamities and disasters leading up to a holiday season in the early 1960's. Basically, it is the story of what can happen when Murphy's Law takes over and runs amuck through the holidays.

Much of my time in the office has been spent on the marketing of these two books. Book Marketing has changed significantly since my earlier books were released. I don't have to spend weeks touring all over the continent anymore. I've been doing online interviews, and promoting through social networking. It's a lot easier, cheaper, and surprisingly, just about as time consuming! I'll be doing several local appearances in the weeks, and I will keep you all up to date on that.

In the next posting I will let you know about the directions we will be taking here in the coming weeks and months.

Thankfully

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:15:00 +0000

I was born on the second Monday in October, although my birthday falls on a Wednesday this year. For my American readers, the second Monday in October is Thanksgiving in Canada. My mother used to joke that she missed out on one turkey and got another.

At least I think she was joking.

Many people associate Thanksgiving with their religious beliefs. I am not a religious person; far from it. Still, I can be thankful, but who to, and for what?

I am thankful to and for my wife. Diane makes my life easier and a lot more fun. We have laughed through good times and less than good times for 40 years. We've sure showed all those people who said it wouldn't last.

I am thankful to and for my sons, Mike and Brad. Mike pushed and cajoled me into putting my books on Kindle, which has revitalized them. Brad is off doing his PhD in England, and I can live vicariously through his studies.

I am thankful to and for my assistance dog, Tara. I would be looking at the world from a wheelchair if she hadn't come into my life 10 years ago. Now she reminds me of when it's time to stop for a break and smell the dog biscuits.

I am thankful to and for the circle of friends who have stood by me in good times and bad.

While I hold no religious beliefs, I am thankful to have friends from a variety of religions - Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddists, and the Christians who don't hate everyone who doesn't share their beliefs give me a greater understanding for the need for peaceful coexistence.

I am thankful for my gay and lesbian friends, who show me strength, courage, and most importantly, the power of love in all forms. I am glad they include me as a hetrosexual ally in their struggle for acceptance.

I am thankful for and my fellow writers, Bruce, Ridley, Tracy, Gayle, Dave, Nancy, and so many more who inspire (and often make me jealous) by their skills.

I am thankful to and for whoever it was that invented the Kindle, a small electronic device that has radically changed my income as a writer.

I am thankful to and for my readers; those who buy my books because they know my work, and those who buy them despite not knowing me, but who are willing to give my books a shot.

It may come as a shock, but I am even thankful to and for becoming a paraplegic 21 years ago. Oh sure, there are a lot of negatives about that part of my life, but without it I would not have had the opportunity to write the 8 books and over a thousand articles and feature columns that bear my name. Knowing what I know today, if I could go back and somehow prevent the accident, or decide to stay the way I am, I would choose the latter.

So on this second Monday in October, I am thankful to and for a lot in my life.

And if you are reading this, let me just say, "Thanks!"

Back In One Piece

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:54:00 +0000

Diane and I just returned from a week of sailing, snorkeling, and relaxing on Peter Island in the British Virgins. The sailing was incredible, aboard an 81' monohull sailboat we chartered for an evening cruise and an all-day sailing and snorkeling trip.

The only moment of sheer panic came when I was getting off the boat back at the resort. With one leg and crutch on the dock and one leg and crutch on the boat, the gap between boat and dock began to widen significantly. I won't lie. I was very worried about the potential damage to my testiculars.

Now it's back to work on the sequel to Crossbow. I have managed to plot out most of the chapters, now to actually develop the story around the plot points.

I am really pleased with the growth in sales of my books so far this year. My March Kindle format sales alone beat my sales for all of 2010 in paperback. The July sales were 432% higher than that! Thank you to all of you who are buying the books. If you'd like to order books visit the Gordon Kirkland page on Amazon.

Gordon Kirkland Thanks Pitt Meadows Asst. Fire Chief Brad Perrie

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Press Release

Gordon Kirkland Thanks Pitt Meadows Asst. Fire Chief Brad Perrie

When award-winning author Gordon Kirkland was writing his new novel, Crossbow, he turned to Pitt Meadows Assistant Fire Chief Brad Perrie for some assistance when he was writing a scene involving a burning building.

“It’s one of the nice things about living in a small community,” said Kirkland. “When an author gets stuck, he knows he can turn to someone close by for help.

“It’s important,” he continued. “When you are writing a novel, you don’t want someone reading it who knows about something like fires and firefighting to say that what you have written is not the way things happen in reality. It’s something I learned from my friend, bestselling mystery author Ridley Pearson. His fact checking for one of his books has created a method for crime solving that has been used by the Seattle Police Department to close the books on two homicides.”

“Brad Perrie was a great help, and very willing to give me his time to answer my questions,” Kirkland added. “I really want to thank him for that.

Kirkland today presented Perrie with one of the first copies of Crossbow, in which he thanks him for the help in the acknowledgements at the front of the book. Wanting to do a little more, Kirkland came up with a unique way to show his appreciation. He gave the fire chief in the book the name Perry Bradley.

Crossbow is available from Amazon. For more information, visit Kirkland’s website at www.gordonkirkland.com.

- 30 -

New Book A Change of Direction for Gordon Kirkland

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:24:00 +0000

The following is the text of a press release going out tonight:

Award-winning Canadian author and humorist Gordon Kirkland’s seventh book was released today (April 12, 2011). He has taken his innate sense of humor and combined it with a love for a good mystery to create Crossbow. The resulting novel is best described as marriage between Fargo and the darker passages of the Old Testament.

Someone is killing the residents of a small Kansas town. Although the victims appear to have been randomly chosen, the killer has, in fact, decided that they must die for biblical transgressions he believes they have committed. Among the first to be slain is the County Sherriff, leaving two deputies to try to solve the case before the killer can achieve his ultimate goal of wiping what he sees as "Gomorrah on the high prairie" off the map, once and for all.

The deputies are far from seasoned police professionals. Dave Simmons, the senior of the two, is doing his best to improve by learning new police techniques. He'd like to bring geographic profiling to the department, but a serious impediment to that goal is his propensity to get lost whenever he gets behind the wheel of his police cruiser. Chuck Wilson the other deputy would like to be a police dog handler. Unfortunately, the County cannot afford a properly trained police dog, so he is trying to make do with Duke, his own Springer Spaniel, a dog with an intelligence quotient just slightly lower than the average head of cabbage.

Added to the mix is a missing romance author who arrived in town to interview the first murder victim just before his death, an ambitious small town newspaper reporter who gets her leads across the pillow from the junior deputy, and the grieving father of one of the victims. Just as it seems that the case has been solved, the deputies learn that the killer was not acting alone, and that other, seemingly upstanding citizens of the town, had set the whole process in motion. As the evidence unfolds it becomes obvious that the case is going to hit the deputies much closer to home than they could have imagined.

Crossbow was started during the taping of the Canadian television series, The 3-Day Novel, in which Kirkland and 11 other writers were given the challenge of each completing a novel in 72 hours. He managed to write a 30,000-word first draft during the taping of the series, with less than a total of five hours of sleep, thanks in part to the children’s bunk beds the participants were provided. All the while, the cast were constantly followed by a camera crew filming everything from the writing process, to personal hygiene activities. The series aired in the fall of 2009.

Several years earlier, celebrated mystery novelist Ridley Pearson encouraged Kirkland to try his hand at fiction after the success their mutual friend Dave Barry had with Big Trouble. Kirkland’s other writing kept the idea on the back burner for several years. Pearson says, "Not only is Gordon accomplished in his field, but he is funny! I don't know if you have ever tried being funny on paper, but it is one of life's miracles. Gordon should probably be sainted. But don't take my word for it; just read him."

Kirkland is joining other independent authors in an initiative established by fellow author J. A. Konrath. If at any time in the next two months the e-book version of Crossbow is rated among Amazon’s top 500 books for their Kindle e-reader, he will donate $500 to First Books, a non-profit organization that provides access to new books for children in need. To date, First Book has distributed more than 80 million books and educational resources to programs and schools serving children from low-income families throughout the United States and Canada.

For more information about Crossbow or any of Kirkland’s other books, visit www.gordonkirkland.com.

Don't Listen To The Naysayers

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 23:08:00 +0000

In 1996, I attended my very first writers conference. I had been writing my syndicated newspaper column for about two years at that point, and it had made the leap from a couple of Canadian newspapers and into the US market. I was doing guest appearances on radio talk shows, and even stores like Barnes & Noble were inviting me to do readings of my columns at their stores, despite not having a book to promote yet.

I went to the conference sure that I could get a publishing deal for a collection of my humor columns. Sitting in the large hotel ballroom, I listened to a group of agents telling the audience what they were looking for. Virtually every one of them commented that they liked to see authors who had already developed their own platform. In eager anticipation, I went to the microphone and described my column, and asked how I would best move into the book market.

One of the agents took the microphone, looked down from the stage, and said, “You'd have to be some sort of an idiot to think any of us up here would be interested in something like that.”

Well, I certainly felt like an idiot at that moment. I went home and looked at the books on the shelves that lined my office. Apparently Erma Bombeck was an idiot. Lewis Grizzard was an idiot. Garrison Keillor was an idiot. Dave Barry was... well OK, Dave and I both agree that, while we may not be complete idiots, we are maturity impaired.

For two more years, I shopped that book idea around to publishers in both Canada and the United States. Finally a friend mentioned a publisher located in a small seaside community on the British Columbia coast. I will forever be grateful to Howard White, the owner of Harbour Publishing for taking that first chance with me. Justice Is Blind – And Her Dog Just Peed In My Cornflakes was released in May of 1999.

In 2000, when it received the Stephen Leacock Award of Merit for Humour, I took a copy of the book and sent it to that agent. I pointed out that I may still be some kind of an idiot, but at least now I was a best-selling, award-winning idiot, and she was still a pompous ass.

Now, as I prepare for the launch of my 7th book, I am glad I chose to ignore that woman. I hope anyone else who has encountered her and her overinflated ego, didn't let her get to the them either.

New Book Jitters

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 21:35:00 +0000

Crossbow will hit the stands soon. I have to admit that I'm more than a little nervous about this new book. It's done and I'm just waiting for the galley proof to give it one last go over before it goes to press and whatever the word is for going to Kindle. (Lights the kindling?)

I've written 6 books, so I am used to playing the waiting game as the time gets closer to the launch. All of those other books have been collections of nonfiction humor essays that got their start in my newspaper column, so they had already stood the test of readers comments. This time it's a novel, a totally new medium for me.

I started writing this story while taping the TV series The 3-Day Novel. I was locked in a big-box bookstore in Edmonton, Alberta from midnight Friday August 31, to midnight Monday September 3, 2007. I, along with 11 other writers, had to create a full novel bringing nothing with me but a single page of notes. In 72 hours you aren't going to write a full length novel, the point was to write a solid beginning middle and ending to a story. In my case that was roughly 28,000 words with very little sleep.

The network did provide us with beds during the weekend, but I spent very little time in mine. There were 3 reasons for this:

I wanted to spend as much time as possible writing my story.
I did not want to see myself on the TV series sleeping, because according to my wife, there is a slight chance that I might snore... loudly.
I am 6'4" and weigh roughly the same as the front four of the Green Bay Packers, and the beds they gave us were IKEA children's bunk beds. I've had more room in a seat on a Continental airliner.

On more than one occasion, sleep deprivation resulted in me having conversations with my fictional characters, and arguing about the direction of the story. It;s somewhat disconcerting to lose an argument with a fictional character.

Aside from the intrusions by the store's customers during opening hours, the ever present TV cameras, a panel of three judges interrupted us in a regular basis to take part in speed writing challenges on the topic of their choosing and exciting, must see TV like spelling bees. They also judged our final product.

One of the judges, Minister Faust, and I got along quite well, and have since become good friends. He said reading the story was like taking an intensive course in plot development. The other two judges... not so much. One chewed me a new bodily opening when she didn't like the topic of the piece I wrote during one of her challenges. I knew at that moment that I wouldn't be winning the event. The third judge didn't understand a literary device I used at the end of the story.

Still, it was a good experience, partially because I finally tried my hand at fiction, something my friend Ridley Pearson had suggested I do back in 1999 after our mutual friend Dave Barry had written his novel, Big Trouble. It was also a good experience writing with the other cast members, several of whom I remain in contact with frequently.

I took several months to plot out the full story. I left the weekend with approximately 28,000 words, and needed to bring it to roughly 75,000 words to turn it into a complete story. I've spent close to 2 years trying to find a home for it. As I said in a previous post, all to frequently I've heard from agents who said basically the same thing, "It's a fantastic story and you are a wonderful writer... but." The concept of a mystery novel with more than a liberal dose of humor is apparently outside their realm of experience.

The Canadian publishers I approached all said they were not interested in the story because I didn't set it in Canada. The characters in the book, especially my protagonist, simply would not have worked as Canadians. The one Canadian character in the book didn't matter to them, because she was working in the USA.

So now we are down to the final days before the story is released to the reading public, and as I said at the outset, I'm more than a little bit nervous about it.

Hard Times At The Bookstore

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:29:00 +0000

The insolvency of Borders in the United States has created quite a ripple effect throughout the publishing world. I certainly wouldn't want to be working at some of their creditors these days. Penguin alone has lost $41.5 million in the process.

It's been interesting listening to what my fellow authors have had to say about this situation. The same people who were decrying the impact Borders and Barnes and Noble (and Chapters in Canada) were having on the independent booksellers, are now wringing their hands over the demise of Borders.

Yes it is bad for us. As authors, our incomes are based on a percentage (a surprisingly small percentage) of what publishers get for selling our books to bookstores. The loss of one chain the size of Borders can put a publisher under, leaving writers without royalties. A friend of mine lost a great deal when Stoddard went under a few years ago (thanks in a very real part to the actions of big box booksellers.) If your publisher is out of business, you aren't going to see any royalties, even if your books get shipped off to remainders stores to satisfy the creditors further up the food chain.

Today I learned about one of my favorite small chains. Joseph-Beth Bookstores had stores in Ohio and Kentucky. They've been under Chapter 11 protection since last fall, and now it doesn't look like the creditors are willing to wait for them to reorganize. I always loved doing an author appearance at their stores. Their subsidiary, Davis-Kidd, had stores in Nashville and Memphis. These stores had very knowledgeable staff, and they did great pre-appearance promotion for the authors who came to their stores. I was lucky enough to visit them on four separate book tours.

Many people are pointing at the ebook readers as the cause of the demise of stores like this. They may be right, but only partially. The economy over the last three years hasn't helped the retail industry, especially those that are selling what might be described as discretionary purchases. When someone is worried about paying the mortgage or car payment, something has to give. Five-dollar cups of coffee, dining out, and, yes, books and magazines, all take second place to the 'non-discretionary' expenses. Not so coincidentally to all of this, ebook readers took off during this period.

I have to admit that I was worried about my career as an author. I had been shopping two projects to agents and publishers for the last two years. I kept hearing the same basic response: "It's a great story and you're a wonderful writer, but..." The "buts" were usually that publishers were looking for the latest vampire/witch/zombie novel, or that bookstores were afraid to stock books by people whose names weren't King, Patterson, or Grisham.

There is a certain amount of truth in it. Vampires, witches and zombies are big sellers these days. Unfortunately for me, I do not write about vampires, witches or zombies. Stephen King could put out a book of Bangor Maine telephone numbers and the damn thing would sell.

But people are still reading books, and they are still reading books that are not about vampires, witches, and zombies. They are even reading books that weren't written by Stephen King. What has changed is where they are buying them. Online book sales have exploded over the past 10 years. Amazon is now the biggest bookseller in the world, and amazingly, they don't just sell books about vampires, witches and zombies, and they carry books by authors whose names are not King, Patterson or Grisham.

They've even sold a lot by a guy named Kirkland.

A few months ago I decided to take the manuscripts for the four books that I still hold the electronic rights to and put them onto Amazon's Kindle platform. It's brought new life back to these books. In the first month, I made more royalties than I had in the previous year for the oldest one.

A number of friends of mine have decided to try publishing their books themselves, eliminating the publishers and agents. They are pricing their Kindle versions at an unheard of price of 99 cents. They've found that what they lose in lower per book royalties at that price, they more than make up for with the quantity of books they are selling.

So in the next couple of weeks, I will, through my own imprint, publish Crossbow, one of the titles that agents and publishers like, but were unwilling to take on (no vampires.) It will be available as a paperback, for those who still like the feel of a non-electronic book in their hands, and as a Kindle edition.

Hopefully, it's an experiment that will work well.

A New Book Is Coming... read a preview

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:58:00 +0000

With the general state of disarray in the publishing industry and in retail book selling, we have decided to move forward on my next publishing project using the services of CreateSpace, an Amazon.com company. We will also be making a Kindle version available for those of you who have moved on to that format.

Crossbow is best described as marriage between Fargo and the darker passages of the Old Testament.

Someone is killing the residents of a small Kansas town. Although the victims appear to have been randomly chosen, the killer has, in fact, decided that they must die for biblical transgressions he believes they have committed. Among the first to be slain is the County sheriff, leaving two deputies to try to solve the case before the killer can achieve his ultimate goal of wiping what he sees as “Gomorrah on the high prairie” off the map, once and for all.

The deputies are far from seasoned police professionals. Dave Simmons, the senior of the two, is doing his best to improve by learning new police techniques. He’d like to bring geographic profiling to the department, but a serious impediment to that goal is his propensity to get lost whenever he gets behind the wheel of his police cruiser. Chuck Wilson the other deputy would like to be a police dog handler. Unfortunately, the County cannot afford a properly trained police dog, so he is trying to make do with Duke, his own Springer Spaniel, a dog with an intelligence quotient just slightly lower than the average head of cabbage.

Added to the mix is a missing romance author who arrived in town to interview the first murder victim just before his death, an ambitious small town newspaper reporter who gets her leads across the pillow from the junior deputy, and the grieving father of one of the victims. Just as it seems that the case has been solved with an explosive conclusion, the deputies learn that the killer was not acting alone, and that other, seemingly upstanding citizens of the town, had set the whole process in motion. As the evidence unfolds it becomes obvious that the case is going to hit the deputies much closer to home than they could have imagined.

Crossbow was started during the taping of the Canadian television series, The 3-Day Novel, in which I and 11 other writers were given the challenge of each completing a novel in 72 hours. All the while, the cast were constantly followed by a camera crew filming everything from the writing process, to personal hygiene activities.

Celebrated mystery novelist Ridley Pearson encouraged me to try his hand at fiction after the success their mutual friend Dave Barry had with Big Trouble. It took several years for the idea to fester away in my head, but when I was cast for the TV series, it seemed like a good opportunity to give it a try. Pearson says, "Not only is Gordon accomplished in his field, but he is funny! I don't know if you have ever tried being funny on paper, but it is one of life's miracles. Gordon should probably be sainted. But don't take my word for it; just read him."

I would encourage those of you who are interested (the others I will just beg and plead) to visit the preview site for the new book. You can read the first three chapters of the book there, give it a star rating, and/or make comments. Please visit https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1078466 to see the preview.

The book will be available for ordering in the next couple of weeks.

A Holly Jolly Sampler

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:58:00 +0000

As I said earlier this week, we have just launched my book, Holly Jolly Frivolity in a Kindle version for all of you technically up to date sorts. The following is a sample of what is inside the book:

The Ghosts Of My Christmases Past Haunt Me Still

The sounds of Christmas are once again in the air, just like they have been since the stores started their Christmas advertising back in September. Usually, as soon as the back to school sales are over and my sons are no longer spending the long lazy days of summer having long lazy days of computer games, the stores start sneaking in hints about Christmas. This year when I took the boys shopping for their back to school supplies in one of the warehouse wholesale stores, they had Christmas cards and decorations already on the shelves and it wasn’t even the middle of August. Prime time television advertising starts to include ads for toys. By Thanksgiving (the Canadian one in October) we are in full Christmas advertising overload.

I went out and cut some holly branches the other day to spruce up Christmas a bit. Living on the West Coast there is only about a 7% chance that we will have a white Christmas, so some added greenery for the season is as much as I can hope for.

I’m not sure why holly has become a traditional Christmas symbol, although now that I have mentioned that little bit of ignorance on my part, I’m sure I will get a shipload of mail explaining it to me. Did red and green become the official Christmas colors because of holly’s green leaves and red berries, or did holly become a tradition because it fit with the official colors? Not that it matters really. It’s just nice to live in a place where I can go out my front door and clip holly from the bush at the corner.

As long as my neighbor who owns the bush doesn’t see me doing it.

The house is ablaze with electricity sucking lights that I put up in November with fear and take down in January with trepidation. Hanging upside down like a bat, over the eaves, 20 feet above the rose bushes, in the rain, trying to hang a row of lights, certainly puts me in the Christmas spirit ... Not! I feel even more good will when I plug them in and find, even though I checked them first, that several of them are not lit. I usually try to get off by explaining to my sons that the blanks are necessary because I have spelled Merry Christmas in Morse code. Unfortunately my wife, the career girl guide, can read Morse code and gleefully gives her translation to the boys. Apparently it says, “Your father doesn’t have all his bulbs screwed in right.”

I once read of a man who tied himself to the back bumper of his car parked behind the house so that he wouldn't fall off the roof while he tried to string the lights. Unfortunately, just as he was trying to get the wire through the last hook, his wife came out and turned him into Lonny the Human Box Kite as she sped off to the store.

By early November we get our first injection of Christmas music. It brings back times when we walked in a winter wonderland, didn't have our two front teeth or found our mothers having an extra-marital affair with a jolly old elf. We remember the anticipation of waiting for the sound of Rudolph leading the team to your roof. By Christmas Day we will all be so fed up with Bing, and Nat, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir that the meager thought of putting on Christmas songs while carving the turkey will ruin our appetites.

There are a few Christmas songs that bring back memories of more fateful Christmases past. I still break into a cold sweat every time I hear them on the radio.

"The Holly and the Ivy" takes me back to the Christmas when I was seven. It was the first year that my parents felt that my boredom tolerance could handle being taken to church at midnight. Each windowsill was decorated with sprigs of holly and ivy. My parents made sure that I was seated at the far end of the pew from the aisle. Looking back this was probably to prevent me from escaping. In doing so, they put me right beside a window ledge laden with holly leaves and berries.

As we stood through a long prayer intoned by a priest who talked so slowly he made Jimmy Stewart sound like Alvin of the Chipmunks, I decided to investigate the holly that was on the windowsill beside me. It was the real thing, thick, dark and heavy leaves. But as seven year olds will do, I investigated just a little too much and it fell to the seat of the pew in front of me. The rest of my family had their eyes closed either in prayer or asleep on their feet. Since they didn't see me do it, and I couldn't reach it to put it back, my attention span quickly took me to some other pursuit.

Only my much, much older sister saw what had happened. Neither of us could reach the branch to put it back where it belonged, so it stayed on the seat, and I went back to trying to alleviate my boredom by counting the knotholes in the wood siding.

There wasn’t much else for me to do. I couldn’t see the front of the church because the monstrous backside of Mrs. McCardle, an incredibly obese parishioner, obstructed my view.

The church was overcrowded and hot. Mrs. McCardle had removed her coat and was wearing a red Christmas satin dress that had seen a few too many Christmases. It was strained tight at every seam in her vain attempt to prove that it still fit. They were stretched almost to their breaking point by the sheer volume of humanity they were surrounding. If they had failed, the sudden release of compressed flesh might have been disastrous.

Now that I think about it, I bet my much, much older sister could have reached that holly branch, but she was also much smarter and more worldly than I, so she must have been able to foresee the entertainment potential created by the combination of that holly branch and the large specimen of humanity standing directly in front of it.

The prayer finally came to an end, and the congregation sat back down. The sharp pointed holly leaves received little or no resistance from the tight satin dress as the woman planted her ample buttocks directly onto the branch.

The next few seconds are etched indelibly in my mind, and probably in the minds of many others who were there that night. When the dried, pointed holly leaves impaled Mrs. McCardle’s bum, the church was filled with what seemed to be a multitude of not very heavenly voices. The word "Holy" boomed forth from her mouth. The word that followed however was not one you would normally expect to hear in a church.

Undoubtedly those holly leaves had given her a Christmas goose that she wouldn’t soon forget.

It’s “Oh Christmas Tree” that truly makes me shudder. My most vivid Christmas memory gets replayed in my mind every time I hear that song.

Over the years I have tried all kinds of Christmas tree stands. All of them proclaim themselves to be the best stand ever. The strength of that claim is directly proportional to the price tag. No matter how great the stand is supposed to be, I still end up with trees that lean several degrees off vertical. Even if I were to drill a hole in the floor, insert the tree and pour in a foot of concrete and I would still have to tie the top of the tree to 2 walls to prevent it from tipping.

The tree of 1985 though, was special. Despite its obvious shortcomings it will live on in family history throughout the coming generations.

The economy had hit hard that year and we were trying to cut costs wherever we could. We went to a discount tree lot offering trees from $5.99. The "trees", it turned out, were branches cut from giant fir trees. The trunks had gone off to become newsprint and Christmas cards. Someone had gotten the bright idea to sell the smaller branches as Christmas trees.

We brought our tree home. We could only hope that the boys, who were 3 and 5 at the time, would not remember what it looked like as they grew older. Unfortunately it has become indelible in all our minds.

I started the process of erecting the tree in the previous season’s rendition of "the best stand you'll ever own." I turned the holding bolts until they would turn no more. None of them had reached wood. The tree just wobbled between them. In my calm quiet manner, that has since seen my wife take the children for a long drive while I wrestle with the tree, I started hammered blocks of wood around the bottom of its trunk.

I took my youngest son, Brad, to his preschool Christmas pageant the next morning. The tree was still standing which was a good sign, but I decided to add another guy wire to the wall when we returned.

My wife was unable to attend. She has always had some psychic ability that warns her that she should be somewhere else when it is most advantageous to be somewhere else.

The children were to present a special Christmas song and dance routine written by their teacher, followed by a chorus of “Oh Cwithmath Twee” and “We With You a Mewwy Cwithmath” to close the pageant. As they sang their first number they all put on their pretend coats and hats. They put their pretend axe over their shoulder and walked across the stage to find their “Cwithmath twee.” They chopped down the tree. They put their pretend axe over one shoulder and the trunk of their tree over the other and walked back across the stage home. So far so good.

They all got down on their knees and put their tree its stand. They stood up and put the lights around it.

Brad was still on his knees.

They put on the ornaments.

Brad was still on his knees.

The put the star on top.

Brad was still on his knees.

As the rest of the children began to put pretend presents under their pretend trees, Brad, still on his knees, turned to the audience and said, in a voice that carried throughout the room, and to all the ships at sea, the words that haunt me to this day.

"I can't get this freaking twee in this freaking stand!!!"

Well, the word he used wasn’t really ‘freaking’ but another notorious word that sounds a little like ‘freaking.’

I thought that perhaps if I looked around the room pretending to see if I can figure out whose son he was, the other parents in that church basement would bypass me in their search for “that boy's” parents. All I wanted from the Santa, who was holding himself up with the wall in the corner Ho-Ho-Hoing loudly, was a bit of simple anonymity.

But Nooooooooooooo!

I had brought his brother Mike along. He stood up on his chair and loudly asked me, "Is Brad going to get in trouble for saying that?

“He really shouldn't have said, freaking tree”, should he, Dad?”

He didn’t use the word “freaking” either, rather he quoted his brother’s word to the letter and at the same volume.

“Are you going to tell Mom that he said, freaking tree’ Dad?”

Why did you call our tree “the freaking tree”, Dad?

Mom said you shouldn't have said, “freaking tree’, Dad.

She says it’s not a word to be repeated. Brad sure repeated it didn't he, Dad? Why do you have your head between your knees, Dad?"

When my wife returned home that night Mike had the story of the afternoon’s events, with appropriate emphasis on the words his brother had said, retold before she could get her coat off. After a few gasps and a stifled laugh, she gave me one of those looks that told me on which one of Santa’s lists I could find my name.

Just my freaking luck.

So here we go again. The radio will play “Oh Christmas Tree” and “The Holly and the Ivy” for the two hundredth time to remind me of the rather unique language that haunts my Christmases past; my tree will be hung from the ceiling with care; and, I can only hope the lights outside will last until Boxing Day.

Merry Christmas to all and to all good lights.

I'm Kindled But Not Kindling

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 05:38:00 +0000

A couple of months ago my son Mike offered to kindle me. It seemed like an odd suggestion. I had no real desire to be set on fire. I recall Dave Barry's son lighting an ear wax removing candle in Dave's ear, and that was about as incendiary as anyone should ever become. Becoming kindling was quite out of the question.

Apparently. I was wrong, something I am quite an expert at being.

Mike was simply offering to take some of my books and make them available through Amazon for people who own the electronic reader that Amazon sells.

So, just in time for Christmas, there is a Kindle version of my holiday book, Holly Jolly Frivolity. It's $2.99 at http://www.amazon.com/Holly-Jolly-Frivolity-ebook/dp/B004EYUCYC/

You can order it without worrying about me bursting into flames...

I hope.

It's Snowing Somewhere It Shouldn't... Here!

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 23:00:00 +0000

When I first started writing my column, it ran in just one newspaper. I knew that I had to find just the right topic to strike a chord across the country in order to get it into more papers. One day, early in 1996, we had a snowstorm. Snow in Vancouver is about as common as braincells in a former Alaskan Governor, so it made for some good fodder, and since we like to point out to our brethren in the east, that our flowers are already blooming in January, our snowbound misery was something they could enjoy. Here is the column from way back then:

Disaster Strikes Vancouver / Many Left Without Access To Cappuccino

Hopefully, by the time you read this we should be recovering from this ordeal. A natural disaster struck the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, on January 20th, so horrific you may want to shelter your children and keep them from reading this column. Their little hearts could break at the thought of our suffering.

We're often told about the potential for earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. From time to time we're given a shake reminding us of what happens in San Francisco. Mount St. Helens is just three hours drive from here and the next volcano in the chain is Mount Baker which dominates the view from my place.

For the first several years I lived on the coast I thought tsunami was something disgusting in a sushi bar. It turns out that it isn't nearly so bad. It's just a tidal wave.

This latest disaster is much more common than all of those. It occurs every few years in January or February. When it does Vancouverites panic and go into severe shock. It's a disaster so paralyzing that you, in the rest of Canada, who don't really understand the sheer willpower and strength of character it takes to survive such an ordeal, may be moved to tears.

It snowed.

It was just terrible. You'll be amazed that we have survived to tell of it when you learn, depending on where you live in the area, that we got, (brace yourself), between 2 and 6 inches.

I've lived on the coast for 14 years. Even so, I am still amazed at what happens when a snowstorm or freezing rain hits the city. Simply put, the collective population looses 75 points of their IQ's. This is particularly well shown by two groups, drivers and municipal government employees.

On the January day that we flew out of Ottawa in 1982, the temperature dropped to -38°C, and the wind-chill pushed it down colder than an Ottawa Senators power play. When we landed in Vancouver that night, it was a bit cool for here too ... +12°C.

A couple of weeks later, my clock radio came on in the morning darkness. The newscaster was reading a litany of school closures due to the overnight snow. Picturing the huge snowdrifts we were used to, I peeked through the curtains and could still see the green grass of my lawn poking up through the snow.

Over the years, I have become acclimatized to the weather. I'm cold if the temperature dips blow 8oC. So I am as traumatized as the rest of the region this week.

Even reasonable drivers, and I've heard that there might be one or two of them out there, look at a snow covered road the way Mario Andretti looks at the Indianapolis 500 track. They share the thought that the only way to drive is to floor the accelerator. Both their speedometers climb to the upper limits. The difference is that Andretti actually moves.

In one snowstorm, I watched a driver's panic stricken face as he skidded sideways, out of control down a hill toward a busy intersection. Somehow, he has come to symbolize Vancouver drivers facing snowy roads for me. The reason this one case stands out so clearly above all the other panic stricken drivers is because he was driving the truck that was supposed to be putting sand and salt on the road.

We had a big snowfall last year on Valentines Day, so you can clearly see why we are so shocked to have snow again this year. Major streets were not plowed during the overnight storm last year. The City Engineer for Vancouver was on the radio the next morning announcing, with some sense of pride, that they had plows on the road by 4:00 am, just 12 hours after the snowfall started. And how many plows did one of the largest cities in Canada get out on the roads?

Fourteen.

The preferred method of snow removal here, is to sit drinking double double latte mocha cappuccino expressos and wait until it rains. Part of the explanation for the city's collective panic at the sight of snow, is the thought that they might not be able to get to a coffee shop to get their daily fix. Similarly, part of the explanation for their lead footed, tire spinning, go nowhere fast driving, is that they have had too many fixes before they got behind the wheel.

I just know you will have pity for me because of the great personal loss this disaster may have caused. The blossoms on my crocuses may not have survived.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Kirkland) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:43:00 +0000

For those of you who are shocked to see ads with a holiday theme before you hear your first strains of "Trick or Treat!" here is an excerpt from my book, Holly Jolly Frivolity:

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like…

I surrender. I just can’t fight it anymore.

It’s only the beginning of September. Most stores are still holding back to school sales. (Mind you, they started those back in June just as the kids were getting out for the summer.) Halloween is still nearly two months away but without a doubt, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Actually it isn’t beginning. It’s begun. I was in a store on August sixth that had two aisles roped off to allow for the restocking of the shelves with Christmas decorations, gift wrap, and cards.

Like I said, I surrender.

I suppose it’s what retailers want to happen. They run the risk of overselling the Christmas shopping season and numbing people to the fact that there are less than one hundred and twenty shopping days until December twenty-fifth. It pays off for them if they can make us surrender. We might actually start spending money on Christmas wrap now.

It’s all part of a devious plan to sell more. Most retailers know that the majority of their customers are like me. If I buy Christmas cards or wrapping paper this week, they know that I will forget where I put them by the time I need them. Therefore, I will go out again sometime around Christmas Eve and buy more.

Our little town has been used for the filming of several made for television Christmas movies. In general, these shows are shot in June and July. In order to accommodate the film crews, the town puts up its Christmas decorations during the filming. The warm feeling you might get from seeing Christmas decorations go up is somehow lost when the temperature is causing perspiration to trickle down your spine.

Twice this summer my wife’s office has been the scene of a Christmas film shoot. Cameras, lights and other equipment made getting to and from her door difficult. The actual filming was taking place in a restaurant next door. Even so, Diane got to play a major role in the success of the film. Late in the day the property manager rushed into her office and begged to borrow a telephone. He didn’t want to make a call. He wanted to borrow a telephone.

Diane may not be in the movies, but her telephone will be.

I was involved with the production of one of these films several years ago. On a hot July day we needed a snow filled laneway in the downtown core of Vancouver. Dump trucks hauled tons of snow down from the mountains, and it was topped off with a layer of instant mashed potatoes. (I always wondered if there was a good use for instant mashed potatoes and knew that it didn’t involve serving them with roast beef.)

At the same time, the city was hosting a large environmental convention. Ecologists, biologists, botanists and several other 'ists' were meeting at the convention center a couple of blocks from our location. One of the delegates happened to walk down the street just as we were getting ready for the scene. Large fans were blowing the instant mashed potatoes around the laneway in a make-believe blizzard. The man looked into the lane and his chin dropped.

As he passed me I said, “Really messes up your global warming theory, doesn’t it…”

He walked away muttering something to himself about crazy Canadians needing to see snowstorms in the middle of summer.

But at least our instant mashed potato snowdrifts were biodegradable.

It’s usually the middle of October before we start to see ads for toys during prime time. Newspaper deliverers can rest until sometime in November before the advertising inserts start to outweigh the actual newspapers. Still, now that the kids are back in school, we have to know we are on that fast downward slope toward December 25th and all it brings with it.

But between now and then, have yourself a merry little Grandparents Day, Rosh Hosanna, Yom Kippur, Canadian Thanksgiving, Columbus Day, Mother-in-Laws Day, Halloween, Veterans Day (Remembrance Day in Canada), American Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Winter Solstice.

After all that, we might be ready for Christmas.