So You Speak Canadian, eh?

One of the things that excites me about having my novel published is that I’d been told by industry professionals that if I hoped to sell my book to an American publisher, I needed to move the setting from Canada to the United States. That was one hill I was prepared to die on. Keeping my story in Canada is important to me, and I refused to believe American readers are that narrow-minded! I’m glad to be proving these naysayers wrong. 

As I’ve been working with my editor Shari in Oregon (a nose-to-the-grindstone experience if ever I’ve had one), she sometimes points out words or expressions I’ve used that might be uniquely Canadian and together we wrestle through how to keep them without confusing non-Canadian readers. In most cases, they are no-brainers like “Grade Seven” instead of “Seventh Grade.”  But at one point, I referred to the RCMP and she asked if I could spell it out to ensure readers would know what that meant. 

I tried to explain how awkward it would sound for the character to say, “there are two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers at the door.” We just don’t speak that way. 

I tried to explain how we sometimes call them “Mounties” but that might cause even more confusion, especially since Mounties haven’t been “mounted” for about a hundred years.

In the end, I think I settled on simply “police,” but I’ll know for sure when the book comes out next January.

“Your characters say ‘eh’ a lot,” Shari noted. Then she caught herself. “Oh, duh. They’re Canadians. Never mind.”

“What?” I thought. I couldn’t remember using a single “eh.” I did a word search and “eh” came up exactly three times in an 80,000 word manuscript. Seems to me I actually underused it, eh?

Having married an American and having lived in the States for nearly ten years, having read American books and watched American movies, sometimes I don’t even remember which words are Canadian any more. At one point, my editor suggested I change some wording so that my character tells her little brother to “fetch” some apples from the cellar. I replied that I didn’t think we typically used “fetch” in that context. Later in the manuscript, I found two or three places where I had used the word “fetch” myself! So now I’m asking, do Canadians speak this way or do I just write this way due to American influences? I don’t know anymore.

 

A Google search led me to learn some uniquely Canadian words that were new to me. Maybe they’re new to you, too. Oh, we all know “double-double,” “toque,” “parkade,” “pencil crayon,” “loonie,” and “rink rat.”

But do you know what a “Whale’s Tail” is? I suspect it’s an east coast thing, but it’s a fried pastry known elsewhere as elephant ears or beaver’s tail. Did you know that “gandy” is a term for “pancake” in parts of our country, or  that “scoff and a scuff” means a meal followed by a dance?

I love that Canada has its own unique words, enjoys regional accents and dialects within our borders, and is home to a wide array of languages beyond the two official ones. I hope we always preserve our uniqueness and work hard to understand one another. Even when a fellow Canadian says, “Stay where you’re at and I’ll come where you’re to.”

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

Dad's Patience Remembered

Call me spoiled, but I owned my own car before I had a driver’s license. And what a sweet ride it was! A 1974 ogre-green Dodge Dart.

I was never one of those teenagers itching to get behind the wheel. My sixteenth birthday went by without much thought toward my license. Then my seventeenth came and went.

I guess Dad decided enough was enough. I attended a Christian boarding school 800 kilometers from home, and each time I had a break from school, Dad would make the round trip to fetch me home, then a second round trip to take me back a week or two later. When presented with a deal on the Dart, my parents saw it as an opportunity to save time and money in the long run. They bought the car. 

This one looks pretty close to the one I had, I think.

Now to convince Terrie she needed to learn to drive before it was time to return for Grade 12.

I passed the written test with no problem and received my learner’s permit. Mom let me drive the 25 kilometers home, but I think she had only one nerve left when we got there. 

Home alone a few days later, I decided to practice parallel parking in our spacious backyard. Dad had some brand new eaves troughs waiting to be installed and I decided they would work well to represent the cars I needed to park between. How I drew that conclusion when I couldn’t even see them from the driver’s seat is beyond me. Maybe I figured I’d feel them, like speed bumps. I laid the troughs along the ground and started maneuvering the car into place. 

Did you know a 1974 Dodge Dart will flatten a brand new eaves trough like long johns through the wringer? 

At least I learned one thing that day.

Dad calmly hammered his eaves trough back into shape, but it never looked the same.

The next time I climbed behind the Dart’s steering wheel, Dad rode shotgun and we were going all the way from Amaranth to Winnipeg to pick up Mom. I putzed along at about 65 kilometers an hour for the first while, Dad patiently telling me to take all the time I needed and accelerate when I felt comfortable doing so. Eventually I reached the speed limit and cars stopped whizzing around us. 

Naturally, I assumed we’d pull over and switch seats long before we got into city traffic. But to my surprise, Dad navigated me all the way to my aunt’s house in Winnipeg where Mom waited, no doubt wondering what was taking us so long. That trip gave me the confidence I needed to take my driving test and pass. I figured I was good to go. 

But Dad had one more lesson for me. Before he’d allow me to hit the highway on my own, he needed to know I could change a tire. First, he explained the process. Then he parked himself in his favorite lawn chair to watch the show, a cold drink in one hand and a fly swatter in the other. I had to change the tire from start to finish, all by myself.

I haven’t changed a tire since.

Ten years later, my father passed away. Dad’s concern for my safety and his patient teaching are memories I cherish. Given the option, I still avoid driving in general and parallel parking in particular. But I’ve maintained my maximum number of driver’s merit points for nearly 40 years, so Dad must have done something right.

I miss that guy. 

Happy Father’s Day.

...In Which I Discover the Fountain of Youth

I auditioned for the Prairie Players’ fall production of Arsenic and Old Lace and was assigned the role of Elaine. Elaine is 20 years my junior. There will be no living with me now.

Our director, Stephanie (bless her heart), seems to think I can pull it off. I knew I liked that girl. If I make a complete fool of myself, at least I won’t have as long to live with the humility as I would if I actually were 20 years younger.

Most thespians agree the best part of being involved in a play is the camaraderie with the cast and crew throughout the production. But did you know memorizing all those lines keeps actors young, too? It’s true.

The benefits to our brains of memorizing anything are well documented, including the improvement of brain function, neural plasticity, focus, and so on. Ever notice how easy it is for a child to learn a second language while adults struggle? It’s because the youthful plasticity of their brains makes it easy to chart new neuro pathways. Learning something new forces your brain to chart new paths and can help ward off dementia. The added benefits to your heart and spirit when you memorize scripture or meaningful poetry are greater still.

Regardless what you believe about the power of God’s word, memory training of any kind can stave off cognitive decline. According to a blog post on the Best Colleges Online site, “Memory-forming can become a healthy lifelong habit. Researchers from the National Institute on Health and Aging have found that adults who went through short bursts of memory training were better able to maintain higher cognitive functioning and everyday skills, even five years after going through the training. Practicing memorization allowed the elderly adults to delay typical cognitive decline by seven to 14 years. Students who start practicing memory training now can stay sharp in years to come.”

Having the ability to memorize a script for a play, yet being too lazy to memorize scripture, frequently leads me to “should” on myself. Shoulding on yourself is never a healthy practice. Either do the thing you think you should, or stop shoulding, I say. 

So a few weeks ago, after our youth pastor, Colton, invited the congregation to read Psalm 103 aloud together, I decided to try memorizing it verbatim. I printed it out and sticky-tacked it to the wall beside my bathroom mirror where I could work on it while fixing my hair and makeup each morning. Then I review it each night when the makeup comes off. By adding a line or two a day, it came surprisingly easy. And it’s a lovely improvement over my usual habit of rehearsing my grievances during this activity. Plus, it took no extra time out of my day!

Two weeks later, I recited the passage to my hubby. It worked so well, I decided to go to the beginning and tacked up Psalm 1 and 2. Two weeks after that, I recited both chapters. I’m now working on 3 and 4. At this rate, I could learn the entire book of Psalms between now and 2018. (I might have to take a break to learn Elaine’s lines.)

I’d sure like to make this a lifelong habit. You with me?

If I’m going to portray the youthful Elaine, I’m going to need all the help I can get. Now if I could just recall where I put that script.

A Little of This, a Little of That

Old Dog, New Trick

Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: I know how to make sound panels for a recording studio. 

Not that it was ever on my bucket list, but when Jed asked our church tech team for volunteers to help stretch fabric over wooden frames and stuff them with Rockwool insulation, I thought “why not?” I watched the how-to video Jed sent and it didn’t look like rocket science. 

Turns out I’m good at it. Or at least fast. I cranked out five of those puppies in the time it took the group of us to finish a dozen. (If my five are the first to fall apart, we’ll never know, since they’re all identical.) They now hang in a room at PAC which will be used to create videos to use on the church website or for Sunday services.

So if the writing gig doesn’t work out, I have another option up my sleeve: professional sound panel builder. Now that I’m of an age where the world is no longer my oyster, it’s a comfort to possess skills which I’m sure are in high demand around here.

An Update on the Book

Since I announced that my novel finally found a publisher, some of you have asked about the process.

Okay, maybe one of you asked. 

I’m happy to say the first half of my advance has been deposited and partly spent. I’ve survived  a conference call with my acquisitions editor, Erin, in New York City and my developmental editor, Shari, in Oregon. Erin oversees the whole project while Shari is currently working with the manuscript and must return it to me by June 6 with suggested improvements regarding plot, character, and overall story. Right now I’ve no idea how intense those revisions might be, but I suspect there’ll be no time for making sound panels, attending concerts, cutting grass, or any other such frivolity for the three weeks they give me to rewrite and return it. 

After that, we do one more quick back-and-forth before it goes on to a copy editor and a line editor who go over it with fine tooth combs. Then the marketing people do their thing with cover design and promotions, gearing up to release it in January. It’s quite the process and I’m finding it fascinating, exciting, and still pretty unbelievable.

Thanks for asking!

A Word for Teachers

I attended an excellent spring concert at WestparkSchool last week—my, but Portage is home to a lot of talented young people! I’ll never know where a music teacher begins to teach students a song when it’s strictly percussion—I think I counted over 25 drums, trash cans, and other things that can be beat upon—but it was thrilling to hear and see. Well done, Tyson Anderson! 

Teachers of all stripes, you amaze me. With June here, you are no doubt counting the days. If I can give you a word of encouragement to help you through your last month, it’s this: please don’t simply hang in there during this crazy time. Sometimes it takes only one comment from a respected teacher to change the course of a student’s life forever. Even if you have only 15 days left with your students, ask yourself how many life-giving comments can be uttered in the span of 15 days. Make them count. One day you will see the impact you made, and you’ll be glad you resisted the temptation to check out early. 

And whatever they pay you, it’s not enough. If I ruled the world, rock stars and teachers would trade salaries. God bless you!