Spring Rituals - A Visit to 12th Century England

Each year when the trees are in blossom and we get more sunny days than rainy ones, I get a very strong urge to get down on my knees and put my hands into the earth. The yearly spring gardening bug has bitten. This is when I dig out my gardening journal and note the dates when I saw the first crocus', the first snowdrops and when the first of the trees swell into bud.

My garden journal details almost 20 years of weather, the emergence of spring, the time of the first frost and winter dreams of what my garden would hold in the new year. When we lived in Vancouver we had a lovely yard with good drainage and I always had a great organic vegetable & flower garden. Here in New Westminster, our soil is good but it does not drain well and therefore gardening is usually a rather damp and wet affair, certainly not as pleasant as in our previous location. Since many of my planting and growing experiences here have not been as satisfactory most of our flower beds are now planted with perennials and only need tidying up every spring and fall. Getting my hands in the soil and planting has been relegated to a small herb garden on the side of our yard. The joy of this small plot reaches its peak when basil and cilantro are in season; there is nothing like having garden fresh herbs in a salad or pasta dish.


Another ritual that goes along with my urge to get my hands in the dirt is reading gardening books and the twenty Brother Cadfael Mystery books written by Ellis Peters. Brother Cadfael is a Welsh Benedictine monk who is a talented herbalist; I affectionately refer to him as a medieval CSI detective who also serves in roles such as coroner, diplomat and physician. His knowledge of herbs is extraordinary, something he learned in his prior life as a knight while on a crusade in the Holy Lands. My yard boasts plants from his herbarium and apothecary like the very poisonous and lethal Monk's Hood along with more mundane herbs like Borage, Mint, Poppies and Lavender. Just this past winter I found out there is a David Austen rose called Brother Cadfael and the next step is to go down to my local garden shop and get it ordered. Between the new rose and the book on Medieval Gardens I picked up at our local library I should have no problem in creating a new plan to turn my little bit of earth into more of a physic garden similar to the one Cadfael grows.


The past few days I have watched and enjoyed the PBS Cadfael series starring Derek Jacobi who does a fabulous job of portraying this insightful benedictine monk. Tonight however, my springtime ritual will start when I make myself a cup of tea, perhaps chamomile or mint, and sit down to devour the first book in the series, A Morbid Taste for Bones. If you need to get in touch with me at least you'll know where I am, visiting the town of Shrewsbury in the 12th century!

©2010 Salynne Wilde

Writing for Strangers

One of the things I learned at The Writers Union workshop was that if you are a blogger and you want your work to become popular you should be writing on topics that would be interesting to strangers. That's an interesting concept and it has caused me to ask myself just who have I been writing for and what the intent of this blog is.

After giving it some thought and reading my profile I've come to realize that I've been writing to please myself and if people find it interesting then that is an added bonus. Many of my friends have said they enjoy reading my posts because it's a great way for them to keep up with what is going on in my life. I really enjoy getting emails or hearing from a friend how one of my posts has inspired them to take action or do something that will make their life better.

The workshop really focused on how to promote yourself as an author, how to get your work out there and establish a reputation in the field. It is certainly my intent to set up a website for self promotion but I'm now working on how to meld my new business venture, a niche market greeting card company, with my book and other pieces of fiction that I intend to finish. When you combine those two things, this blog under my pen name and the writing and speaking that I do professionally as Susan Greig, most of which is related to special needs children, pediatric bereavement and grief and the philosophy of family centred care, I certainly will have to put my little grey cells to work on how to create myself into a "brand".

For the time being everything will stay as it has been and I will continue writing Wilde Tide for myself and for those of you who enjoy reading my ramblings.


Salynne/Susan

I AM a Self-Published Author

On Friday I was able to attend an excellent workshop sponsored by the Writers’ Union of Canada and Canadian Heritage entitled: Secure Footing in a Changing Literary Landscape.

This professional development symposium for writers was so inspiring for me that I have barely been able to sleep since attending. Deborah Windsor, the Union’s executive director, discussed authors’ contracts which was informative and helpful if you are considering going the route of getting a traditional press to publish your work. Information from authors Betsy Warland and Ross Laird outlined the huge changes in the literary industry. What really fired me up was the information they gave on the innovative digital and Internet opportunities that are out there for people to take advantage of. The world-wide web has spawned new pathways and creative venues for publishing and it means re-thinking what we are currently doing and how to take advantage of the constant barrage of new technology.

The entire publishing industry has been turned on its head and many of the long-established bastions of literary production are now publishing, not manuscripts that have been submitted in the traditional way, but books based on what people are reading on the Internet. A good example of this is the book/movie Julie/Julia; another case in point is Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman whose successful blog created such a stir that a traditional publishing company offered her a cookbook contract.

The most gratifying point for me was Ross' comments about self-publishing. He profiled several authors who have become very successful selling their own work and explained that the days of vanity publishing "shame" are now over. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, self publishing has been viewed as derogatory often implying that the author is only printing their book out of vanity and that the work would not be commercially successful enough for a traditional publishing house to take on. Curse the fellow who invented the term. Many companies, including the Writers Union of Canada now offer printing on demand and this is allowing authors, who have stories to share but who may not have been able to get a traditional press to look at their work, to become very successful. Did you know for example that if an author in Canada sells 5,000 books they are considered a best selling author? With the world wide market of the Internet available that it not such a difficult feat.

Those points all brought tears to my eyes. I wanted to stand up and shout the proclamation, "My name is Susan Greig and I AM a self-published author. I had four books sell in a bookstore & now my books sell all over the world on the Internet!" As detailed in my previous blog the Batten Disease Association approached me in 1995 and gave me funding so that I could self-publish my book, Forever Special Friends. To tell, the truth I've always been ashamed of this and have felt that I was somehow not a "real" author. I put in my profile that I was published but it felt like a lie. People from all over the world have sent me wonderful letters of appreciation for FSF all of which I have denigrated and discounted only because of the spectacles of shame that I have been peering through.

On Friday, Ross helped me throw away those lenses; I saw things in a new way and there will be no going back. I will proclaim off the roof tops and eventually a new website that Forever Special Friends is an amazing resource for families who are battling a disease that will take their children away from them. To think that we started out with a print run of 5,000 books and I have less than a thousand left. Within a few years I will be a best selling author! It may have taken me fifteen years to sell the first 4,200 books but I can guarantee the last 800 will fly off the shelves in comparison.

There are so many other things that I learned and have to work on but sharing them with you will have to wait for another posting. You can also look forward to some new announcements about my plans for my new author website and an up and coming entrepreneurial venture that I've been working on.

Cheers,

Salynne/Susan
©2009
(sorry no photos today--I cannot get them to upload-must be a problem with the site-will add later!)