Gary Hurtubise

Welcome to my World(s)

Category: Gary Hurtubise (Page 1 of 3)

Social Media Self-Promotion

April 25, 2021 / / 1 Comment

If I were a superhero, with the ability to soar through the sky (bad knees, so nope), the strength of Hercules (going to physio for tennis elbow, so that’s out too), and a gift for precognition (never would have predicted this as one of my powers, tbh…), I’d – of course – have to have a tragic flaw.  And I know exactly what it would be.

Gary’s Achille’s heel: self-promotion on social media.

Wait. No need to even be that specific. My weakness is social media, plain and simple.

Now, I’m not a troglodyte (I assert to myself regularly), but I am in that particular age bracket that straddles two eras: pre-social media and… well, social media.

I was in university when UNIX-based emailing was just beginning, and I was all over that like a cheap suit.

But after that, something… stalled. 

My path, and the evolution of social media diverged.

Social Media – I Missed the Memo

            MySpace came along in 2003 (I know, cuz I looked it up), then Facebook in 2006 (ditto).  But I missed the boat.  Actually, no – I never even knew there was a boat to begin with. 

I only grew peripherally aware of the existence of these and other platforms as years went by. Had you asked me back then, “Gary, what’s this Facebook thing?” I’d have given you a belligerent stare, then stopped returning your telephone calls to my land line.

How Not to Be a Luddite

            Perhaps not surprisingly, being a teacher of high school students has helped keep me ‘connected’ (I use that term very loosely) to our evolving virtual world.  Via sometimes-confusing, peripheral indoctrination, I have managed to catch on to the ‘what’, if not entirely the ‘why’ of apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, and most recently TikTok.

            Choosing to become an author has also drawn me forward out of the Meghalayan Era.  I force-fed myself WordPress a few years back, to create this website, and even ventured onto LinkedIn and Twitter, finally delving into Wix for my ghostwriting site.

Using Social Media Effectively

            So that brings us to the present.  I get social media now, I do.  At least the ‘what’ and the ‘why’.

            But the ‘how’?  Ugh.

            My first book (under a pseudonym) came out last week. Yay!  What could I have done better throughout that process? The marketing.  The self-promotion.  The ‘how’ to use social media to forward my career.

            And that’s where I am right now.  I could be writing the next chapter of my current science-fiction manuscript right now. Instead, I’m fretting over how many times per day to tweet… not to mention what I should tweet about (seriously – who honestly cares what my thoughts are regarding the Florida woman hit by a flying turtle the other day??).

(for the record, I haven’t lost any sleep over it yet.)

            I know I’m not the only one worrying about this stuff.  Thank goodness for posts like this one from NY Book Editors. Social media self promotion doesn’t have to be a dirty word (phrase?), nor does it have to be that onerous.

            So, take five minutes (and a deep breath) and do your requisite daily tweeting. Then get right back to the fun stuff (writing)! 😉

~CONSTRUCTION UPDATE~

My standing desk is here, as promised. If my books wrote themselves as easily as this desk built itself, I’d have a dozen published novels under my belt…!

In any case, here are the pics. Check my previous posts here and here that detail the evolution of my desk project.

Desk assembled and stained.
Polyurethane coats on, and set up in my second-office (aka bedroom).

I’m a writer… now own it!

March 11, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I was in the dentist chair the other week, for the first time since the pandemic began.  I had a new hygienist, and she was doing the normal, get-to-know-you routine before shoving her hands in my mouth.

dentist making oral examine of patient with uv light equipment
Photo by Evelina Zhu on Pexels.com

One of her first questions was, “what do you do?”

Without thinking, I uttered, “Oh, I’m just a writer.”

Just.

JUST?

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’ve taken a hiatus from teaching to focus entirely on my writing.  Up until that very moment – reclined in the squeaky faux-leather dentist chair as I was – when people asked me what I did, “physics teacher” rolled off my tongue quite easily.  It was a no brainer.

Now that I’ve been away from teaching for over a year, though, it feels less legit to use that automated response.  What am I doing nowadays?  Well, I’m writing.  Actually.  Seriously.

So why the ‘just’?

Oh.  OH. I think I know.

I bet I harbour internalized shame about being a writer, don’t I?

The thought of being a writer is still a secret thrill – like something I can’t believe I’m getting away with, rather than doing a JOB, because… well, because I’m an adult, and adults to JOB’s, right?

I decided to check if I could quantify my shame, to determine if it did indeed exist.

A few Google searches later, I had some options.

First, I tried a ‘guilt and shame’ test… not exactly what I was looking for, but it was worth a try.  It turns out I have a shame level of only 28%, which didn’t help explain where the ‘just’ had come from at all.

Moving forward, I tried something called the ‘Rosenberg self-esteem assessment’.  Turns out I’m quite full of myself, so that was no help either.

I then found myself caught in the weeds reading about the links between guilt, shame and motivation, but clicked back and re-focused my efforts.

Pushing forward, I followed a link to The American Psychological Association, where I read about the TOSCA-3, or ‘Test of Self-Conscious Affect (3rd version)’.  This sounded like the real thing.  Sadly, it wasn’t available for me to try.  Unlike those online tests that revealed secrets about your psyche based on what type of ice cream you like best, the TOSCA-3 was reserved for professional psychological analysis.  I clicked back.

After a bit more searching, I finally came across a seemingly legitimate quiz that dealt with internalized shame.  This would put the whole issue to rest for me, I was sure.

Seven-and-a-half minutes of probing, inner-reflective questions later, the results were in:

You are a procrastinator.

(ok, that was my conclusion, not the quiz’s)

It was time to get back to writing.

It was time for me to… just do it.

Just write.

And that’s what I’m doing – I’m just writing… and you know what?

It’s awesome. 😊

~CONSTRUCTION UPDATE~

My standing desk is coming along!  (see the design here, in my previous post)

All the pieces are cut, and sanding is underway.

Pieces cut – awaiting sanding and assembly.

 The smell of spring is in the air! With the warmer temperatures, I’ll be able to take the work out onto the driveway.  I’ll pre-finish all the pieces, assemble it, then stain and seal it.

In my next post, I’ll feature the final product in action!

Sneaking Back to Writing

January 27, 2021 / / 3 Comments
Don’t mind me as I creep back to being a writer…

Do you think anyone will notice me quietly getting back at it?

I saw the date on my last post here and cringed. But s$*% happens in life, right? At first, it was ghostwriting that started to draw me away from my fiction writing – who could complain about that? But then it was the virus, followed by our decision to have the kids do virtual-schooling from home.

Before I knew it, through the whirlwind (or doldrums, depending on your perspective) that was the new paradigm, I’d completely lost my grasp on the one thing that was keeping me sane… my writing.

In an effort to re-establish a writing routine in this new world of ours, I’ve brushed off this site and my ghostwriting website, and I’ve tossed a new manuscript into the wind, to see if it produces any fruit.

I’m also going to build a standing desk that I will put in a room with a door, since my present writing area is within 10 feet of two noisy school children and their virtual classmates.

…here’s the back of the napkin sketch… next post will have the finished product!

It always looks good on paper.

Ok, keeping this post short and sweet – it’s time to build up those writing chops again!

Talk soon – stay safe!

Autumn – Season of New Beginnings

September 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments
New beginnings start here! (image by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay)

            “Uhh… Gary?”  I can hear you saying.  “Don’t you mean spring?  Isn’t fall when everything dies or goes to sleep?  As in the season of endings?”

            “Pshaw!”  I say to you.  “Don’t pester me with your pedantic prattle!  I’m the blogger, and I declare that autumn reigns supreme as the season of new beginnings!”

Autumn and Writing

            So, I love autumn.  Always have.  There’s a je-ne-sais-quoi to the air during the months of September and October (sorry, November – by the time you’re in full swing, we’re pretty much just waiting for winter), that energizes me.

            I find myself reaching for my Aran sweater, lured outside by the siren call of the nippy air, cloudy skies, and forests of orange, yellow and red.  My mouth waters for hearty soups.  I binge on scary movies…

Could there be a more beautiful sight? (image also by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay)

            …and this particular autumn, I get to call myself a full-time writer!!

            Yep.  I’ve taken a leave of my senses absence from teaching this fall to dedicate myself 100% to writing.

He’s a Full-time Writer?

            Now, immediately upon reading this, you’ve probably fallen into one of three categories:

1.         You go, girl!  Follow your dreams!

2.         You quit your day job?!  What about the kids?!

3.         Silence.

            To those of you in the first category – dankeschön.  Your support and confidence are noted.

            To those of you in the second category – yeah, I get you.  I thought for a long time that I could do both – keep the security of a steady pay cheque, but still squeeze-in a side-gig doing what I most wanted to do.  It was the smart thing to do.  But it got me nowhere.  (other than increasingly frustrated and bitter.)

(without getting into details here, hubby and I mitigated the financial risks of this by planning ahead.  Because, yes, it would have been monumentally stupid to jump in without some sort of security net… but I’ll leave this for another post).

The ‘Right Time’ to Follow a Dream

            And to those of you in the third category… I know what you’re thinking.  Because I was you.

            You’ve got what I have.  You know, that ‘other thing’ you’d rather be doing.  The one that only gets talked of after the second bottle of red wine is open, when the kids are in bed, over that long weekend while at the cottage, sitting by the fire or out by the water…

Who wouldn’t want to think of their dreams in a place like this?
(Image by NickyPe from Pixabay)

            You’ve been there too.

            But the next morning, you pop an acetaminophen, tidy up, pack, throw the kids in the car, and head home.  Cuz there’s work tomorrow, and stuff needs doing.  And there’ll be time for your dreams… later?

            later.

            When does ‘later’ become ‘too late’?  I didn’t want to find out.  So I held my breath and took a leap.

            Where did I land?

            I guess we’ll all find out in a future post.

            In the interim – get out there and let autumn inspire you!

Wow – yet another awesome image by Johannes Plenio!
Thank you Johannes, for your inspirational artwork in this post!

Reading *and* Writing?

July 12, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Does reading *really* help you write?

            No doubt, you’ve heard this before: one of the most important things a writer should do is read a lot. 

            Great.  Fantastic advice, and easy to follow too, since how many writers don’t like reading?  (I don’t know the actual number; I think its approximately most-to-all.)

            “But wait,” you cry (and yes, I can hear you, fellow-part-time-writer and I’m nodding along with you), “…how do I find time to read if I should be using every spare moment to write?!”

            or, vice versa:

            “…how will I ever become a writer if I’m expected to read every new book that comes out in my genre?!”

            Well, good question.

Writing without reading

            As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I’m currently splitting my writing time between what I WANT to do (write my own fiction!), and what I NEED to do (write other people’s stuff while getting paid well to do it).

            (Alas, recently, it’s been more of the latter and not enough of the former. A writing career with zero income is no career, sadly, so I do as I must.)

            Since focusing on my ghostwriting, I’ve learned that I CAN write without reading! At first, things went well – I was busy gathering clients, writing and editing for them, and getting paid (not quite so) well for it (yet)…

            As this went on, though, I started to feel different.  Writing for other people became like staring at a plain white wall, stuffing myself with dry, unsalted crackers.  I could do it.  I like crackers!  And I’m used to staring off at nothing while stuffing food in my face (but that’s a whole other issue I won’t be tackling today).

sitting at a table, facing a blank wall, eating tasteless crackers...
writing, writing, writing other people’s stuff…

            But cracker after cracker after cracker, and nothing but a blank surface to stare at… it numbed me after a while. There’s a blankness now – a rote-ness – to my writing.  And it’s not good.

Reading without writing

            Before I decided to become a writer, I was a Reader (intentional capitalization).  Boy, could I read.  I was voracious.  My visits to the library would be the equivalent of a 1-hour strength session at the gym, with all the squatting to read titles on the bottom shelves, and the lifting of the dozen-or-more books I’d lug around as I perused the shelves…

A typical trip to the library…

            (that work-out reference is for you, Trevor!)

            Now that I consider myself a writer, however, reading has changed for me.

            I’m sure many of you fellow-writers are familiar with this: we now read with a critic’s eye.  And it can ruin a good book.

            …Ok, maybe I should say it can ruin a bad book, but one that wouldn’t have been ruined back before you were a writer.

Every book now subject to my critic’s eye…

            What tops my critic’s eye, though, is that I now grow anxious each and every time I sit down to read.  I’m anxious to be in front of my keyboard; anxious to be writing my own story.  Great twists in a novel no longer simply satisfy me – they inspire me.  And if I don’t drop everything and get my inspirations down, I’ve lost them forever.

Reading *and* Writing!

            Writing without reading is mind-numbing.  Reading without writing causes anxiety. 

            What do we do as budding writers?  Well, we do both, of course.  Just like they told us.  But here’s the real reason why we should:

            Writing drains you.  It’s like you’ve got a reservoir of ideas up there, and you squeeze them all out through your fingers when you write.  What comes out at first is pure magic, but by the time you’ve been draining that pot for a while, all that’s left is the dry-cracker dregs.

            Reading fills you up.  You read and you read and you read, and you’re brimming to overflowing with what you’ve read.  Your reading bladder is full-to-bursting, and you gotta… well, you gotta let it out.

you gotta let it out!

            So, you write, until you’re back to nothing but dry crackers.

            Then you read again, to the bursting point.

Rinse and repeat.

Tweaking My Writing Routine + DIY MFA

January 23, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Happy 2019!

It’s been a while since I wrote my last post.  For good reason, though: I’ve been busy writing!

Update on my Writing

            Darksea is still getting shopped around at smaller presses, my next novel’s word count is slowly growing, I finished and submitted another short story, and I’m re-tweaking two other shorts for re-submission.

            Additionally, I’m continuing to write articles for Gay Parent Magazine, and my foray into the world of Ghostwriting is slowly producing fruit.

            All told, I couldn’t shouldn’t be happier with how things are progressing, writing-wise.  (See what I did there?)

            There’s always room for tweaking a routine.

Tiny Habits

I tried something called Tiny Habits in the fall, which resulted in a… well, tiny improvement in my daily writing schedule (tiny, but one that has had an effect on my writing habits every day since then!).  Tiny Habits, created by Stanford Professor BJ Fogg, is fun, easy, and free to try.  I highly recommend it – a ‘session’ only takes five days.  You really have nothing to lose by doing so.

Chunking Tasks Throughout the Day

            With more room for improvement, I enlisted hubby’s help to set aside chunks of my day for specific writing tasks (previous to this, our calendar simply said: “Gary – Writing”, which was far too vague for this expert procrastinator + excuse-finder).

            So now, my Monday to Sunday schedule looks a little something like:

  • 5:30 – 7:00 am             –           Fiction Writing;
  • 9:30 – 11:00 am           –           Ghost Writing;
  • 7:30 – 9:00 pm             –           Extra Writing.

(with one of my Ghost Writing sessions being set aside for “writing administration”)

            That’s been working pretty well so far…

            …which brings us to DIY MFA!

DIY MFA

I’d seen adverts for Gabriela Pereira’s program for some time, and it had caught my interest several times.  In a nutshell, this do-it-yourself Masters-of-fine-arts is a “system or framework for your writing life that will help you create a customized educational plan that works for you.”  Gabriela states that, when you boil the MFA right down, you find a universal formula consisting of three elements:

            writing + reading + community = MFA

            I’m on day 2 of the program, so I don’t have a lot to offer beyond that description at this point.  One element of the program, however, is regular prompts to write, which I will be following*, with regular posts here, over the next month or so.

*I said it, so I’d better do it now, eh?

            …Here goes!

Motivation + Habit = Success at Writing!

September 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I’ll start my 21st post with some (more) words of wisdom from author David Farland, whose #WritingTips I always look forward to in my inbox:

Motivation vs. Habit

On the door at my gym, someone hung a sign that says, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit keeps you going.”

I began working out regularly over 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve dropped about 75 pounds, and I’ve run or walked something in neighborhood of 22,000 miles. I can’t even imagine how much I’ve lifted in weights. But think about it, if someone had said to me, “Hey, Dave, why don’t you go run 22,000 miles?” it would have taken an awful lot of motivation to get me going.

However, it only took a tiny bit of habit.

Writing is much the same way. A lot of us try hard to get motivated to write a novel. But writing a novel is a lengthy process. Being motivated doesn’t help much, but developing good writing habits helps a lot.

I learned long ago that exercise is hard when you’re starting out. If you run three days, you’ll want to quit at the end of them. That’s when muscle aches and fatigue are the strongest. But if you run for a week, you’ll begin to notice that you feel better on the days that you’ve run. Soon, the day won’t feel complete without some exercise.

Writing is much the same. Jumping into a project is hard. Working on a novel for one day doesn’t really get you very far into it. But if you try making it a habit—if you bundle all of that motivation up and say to yourself, “I’m going to write for one hour a day this week,” you’ll find at the end of the week that you just don’t really feel that your day is complete if you haven’t spent some time engaged in creative recreation.

With my writing workshops, I generally hold them for a week. I try to motivate my students to write daily during that time, if only for a couple of hours. The goal in part is to teach the writers and get them to develop new skills, but just as importantly, I’m trying to get them into the habit of writing.

Quite often it works. I’ve gotten many letters from writers where the writer has said, “Hey, Dave, I got into the habit of writing at your workshop last year, and I’ve just finished my first/second/third/fourth novel!” Whenever I see that, I always feel as if the mission has been accomplished.

So here’s the key to become a writer: Use your motivation to create a writing habit. Long after you have run out of motivation, you’ll still be writing.

As usual with David’s words of wisdom, I find myself unable to express those ideas any better than him.

Full admission: I’ve fallen out of the *habit* of writing fiction daily.

I have plenty of motivation – heaps and heaps of it!

…Translating that into a habit, though (as David describes) is very hard, especially when you let everything else in your life take precedence. For me, this includes the other side of my quest towards authorship: ghostwriting.

I had an epiphany about this time last year.  It went something like this:

If I wanted to be a full-time writer (one who could feed himself, and his family), I’d need an alternate source of writing income. More specifically, it had to be something that I was already comfortable doing. I dallied in the realm of B2B (business-to-business) writing for a while, but realized that it induced ZERO passion for me. The switch to ghostwriting came about at the end of a course I took with Ed Gandia, who is one of the best-known B2B writers and coaches in the field. Ed got me in touch with Derek Lewis, the best-known writer in *his* field (business ghostwriting), and my goal of becoming a ghostwriter took off from there.

A year-in, and I feel like I’ve got a good amount of momentum going with my ghostwriting business (you can check it out at my other website, LiteraryGhost.com)… and now, it’s time to get back into the *habit* of writing fiction. Every Day. Even if it’s only a couple hundred words.  🙂

 

Offer of Publication: I reject you!

October 3, 2017 / / 2 Comments

(or, 5 reasons why that offer might just not <gulp> be for you)

 

So I’ve been a bit quiet for the last few months, mainly because I didn’t know how to address the topic of this post.  Let’s set the scenario, work through the list, then we’ll debrief afterwards, shall we?

Situation: your manuscript, which you’ve been shopping around for going-on two years, finally has an offer of publication!  Yay!  But what’s that you say?  You aren’t immediately sending a reply with the subject heading: “Yes, Yes, Yes!!!”?!?

Well… why not?

(now here’s the list)

5 Reasons Why You Might Reject That Offer of Publication

5.       Your book will only be available via POD (Print-On-Demand).

Whoops – you’ll be published, but not in the traditional sense.  No books to show for your work.  That being said, if your offer of publication comes from a small-press publisher, I get the sense that this is pretty much how things operate nowadays.  And considering how many people are reading their books via e-readers, it’s really no wonder.

 

4.       You’ll have to do all the marketing for your book, yourself.

If you do not already possess, like, ten thousand friends on <enter social media platform here>, and have a faithful following on Amazon or Goodreads, this could mean the death of your book before it even breathes its first papery breath.  Marketing?  Isn’t that the publisher’s responsibility?  Well… again – in today’s market, I’m learning that most publishers are expecting authors to shoulder at least a portion of their own marketing.

 

3.       No advance (what? no money up front?!)

Nope.  Yet again, unless you are offered a deal with one of the large houses, the likelihood of seeing money before your book is published is very low.  In fact, if you decide to work with a hybrid publishing agency, you’ll be giving them money, and not the other way around!

Hey – let’s say you did get with one of the big publishers.  You’re still only looking at $5000.  Yep, that’s it.  Long gone are the days of $400 000 advances (believe it or not, this is what Stephen King got for his first book, back in the 1970’s!)…

 

2.       You’re afraid that the publisher’s brand is not a good fit with how you want to be perceived as a writer.

You write country-western-actions, but the publisher is known more for cozy-mysteries.  Will that ‘typecast’ you as a cozy-mystery writer for the rest of your career?  If you’re a seasoned author already, probably not (though people might scratch their heads when reading the spine of your next book).  But as a not-yet-published author?  I think this is a very relevant concern.

 

1.        The ‘suggested’ changes to your story that are conditional upon publication make you feel: _______ (fill-in: sad, mad, uncomfortable, scared, confused, etc.).

You’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears into this baby (ie: manuscript) – whether it’s your first or your fifth.  When some stranger tells you your baby is cute, but could be much cuter if you rearrange her face, change her clothes, and re-attach her arms and legs in different positions… hmmm.  That’s hard to swallow.

 

 

And there you have it.  Five reasons why you might say: “thanks, but no thanks”.

Wait!  Before you decide to say those words, realize that the state of publishing today is very different than, say, pre-internet days.  Paper-versions of books are ever so slowly slipping away.  Authors are being asked to shoulder more and more of the burden and responsibility for their books, for less and less money.  Writing is now more a labour of love, rather than labour for cash.  And if you ain’t lovin’ it, regardless of the hassle, you’re probably wasting your time.

Ok.  So, are any of the above reasons legitimate excuses to walk away from an offer of publication?

Numbers 5, 4, and 3 are, in my opinion, simply the realities of the publishing game as of 2017.  You don’t have to like it; just suck it up (if being published is what you truly want).

Numbers 1 & 2, though, are legitimate reasons to hesitate before signing on the dotted line.  You are trying to develop your brand here (especially with your first novel!!).  If your story no longer reflects the vision you had for it, or is presented on a platform that doesn’t fit with your goals, you are doing yourself a disfavour, and could end up damaging your chances for that second book (or any books after that).

And if you haven’t guessed by now, yes – I’ve chosen to reject an offer of publication of my novel “Darksea”.

“Why,” you ask?

Well… see above.  That’s all I’m gonna say.  😛

 

Ok.  That was a bit of a heavy post.  I’ll try to keep things lighter with my next one!

Don’t dismay!  Keep submitting those queries!!

Top 5 Highlights of the Limestone Genre Expo

June 5, 2017 / / 2 Comments

I came away from the 3rd annual Limestone Genre Expo this past weekend with plenty of inspiration (for not only writing ideas, but the business of writing too), some great new connections in the sci-fi / fantasy world, and a load of new books to boot!

Here I am, looking pensive with my arms crossed, listening to the panelists at this weekend’s Limestone Genre Expo!

Top 5 Highlights of the Weekend:

  1.   Panel on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation in Speculative Fiction

Some interesting insight into the state of LGBTQI in science fiction and fantasy by a panel of diverse authors.  Probably the panel I appreciated the most of all the bunch.

  1.   Building Your Readership workshop, with Eve Langlois

I thought a two hour workshop would drag on – especially first thing Sunday morning, but Eve – New York Times bestselling author of ‘romance with a humorous twist’ – is a funny, engaging speaker with a lot of great advice on marketing yourself as an author.  I could have listened to her talk all day.

  1.   World Building workshop with Alyssa Cooper

Alyssa is an author from right here in Kingston, and demonstrates writing wisdom beyond her years.  She truly impressed me during the ‘Fantastic Tales’ panel on Saturday, and so I was ready for an interesting workshop with her on Sunday – she did not disappoint.  Plus I got to flesh out one of my novel ideas in the process!

  1.   Pitch Session with MLR Press Editor in Charge, Kris Jacen

My first ever pitch session, for which I was woefully under-prepared L.  However, Kris was gentle, and asked the right questions to keep me ‘pitching’ in the right direction.  And what do you know – she asked for the full manuscript of Darksea?!?!  Must have been my overwhelming charm and panache.

…and:

  1.   Meeting Tanya Huff!

CanCon 2017 here I come!

            Ok, so if you know me, you know that I don’t get celebrity crushes (except for Patrick Stewart, of course), but meeting Tanya – knowing that she’d chosen my short story to win the genre expo writing contest – had me in a bit of a state.  I quickly introduced myself to her on Saturday, but only built up enough courage to approach her again Sunday afternoon, to ask her a few things about ‘the business’ of writing.  What a relief to find that she is approachable, grounded – not to mention that she very graciously offered to introduce me to some movers-and-shakers at this fall’s Sci-fi / Fantasy convention in Ottawa, CanCon (yep – it’s already on the calendar!).

            Big props to Liz Strange, Delina MacDonald, Marlene Smith and all the volunteers for running such a fun expo.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s!

 

Limestone Genre Expo 2017… and contest winner!

June 3, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I’m off to Kingston’s third annual 2017 Limestone Genre Expo this weekend – two days of geeking out with like-minded folk, where there’ll be over sixty authors, panel discussions, workshops, readings, pitch sessions, vendors, and chances to rub shoulders with editors and publishers (all while shipping the husband and kids up to the in-laws… what could be better! 😉 ).

This year, the Expo featured a short story contest – 1500 words in the style of either: Sherlock Holmes, Victorian Era Romance, or Steampunk (I chose the latter).  The stories were judged by authors attending the expo – Tanya Huff among them!

  …and guess who won the contest?

(it was me.)

Receiving winning certificate from Limestone Genre Expo organizers Marlene (L) and Delina (R).

I was gifted with a nice certificate during a short ceremony at Kingston City Hall, during the kick-off talk of last week’s Sherlock Holmes festival, plus my story (entitled Cataraqui Crisis) will be featured on the Expo website.

And now I get to attend the expo this weekend with a unique way of introducing myself (Trevor suggested I call myself the “Queen of the Expo”, but I think I might not).

 

« Older posts

© 2024 Gary Hurtubise

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑