I’m in the beautiful Okanagan, visiting the public libraries, and talking a lot about my wildlife books. Today, it feels especially fitting because it’s Earth Day, and it’s important to remember all the wonderful wild creatures with whom we share this planet.

As I was driving to my first talk of the day, I was able to look out over Okanagan Lake and see the sun reflected in the water. An eagle was circling overhead, and I felt happy to be able to ponder Earth Day as I made my way through the sage-brush covered hills.

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

For the next week, I’ll be on a library book tour in the sunny Okanagan. I’m looking forward to seeing the lakes and the sun, and chatting with elementary students in the area. 

Today, I spent the afternoon with my 4-month-old twin grandbabies, and felt that we were clearly in the throes of a win-win situation. 

It’s a beautiful day spring day and the sun is streaming through my office windows. This is the reward we rain-soaked Vancouverites get after months of slogging through puddles. 

I’ve had my nose to the grindstone, working on a proposal for a new book idea. I think I may have finished it tonight. Hooray! It’s for 32 page children’s nonfiction book (probably only a 2000 word manuscript), but the proposal and sample text turned out to be 13 typewritten pages long. Crazy! But it takes a lot of convincing these days to get a publisher to sign on to a book. 

For many years, I rose early and did my best writing of the day in the morning hours, but life seems to have have turned upside down. Now my most productive writing time is at night, when the house is quiet and the phone rarely rings. I used to marvel at the stories of so many writers who worked at night, and couldn’t imagine how they kept their eyes open, let alone found the right words for the page. Now, I’ve turned into one of those writers, busily working while everyone sleeps. Shh….

These days, I’ve been thinking a lot about how writers work, and how we perpetually inhabit multiple time zones: the past, present and future. To keep ourselves working, we must always be imagining and proposing new projects to our publishers (the future). We are also busily researching, writing and working hard on a current writing project (the present). And finally, we are enthusiastically promoting recently released books that appear new to our reading audience, but actually feel old to us — possibly written up to two years ago (the past). What’s it like straddling the time zones? Exciting, rewarding, hectic, and a little bit crazy. But that’s the nature of the job, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

I’m deep in research mode, which is one of my favourite parts of writing a book. These days I’m spending a lot of time “dreaming” about what my new book will look like, playing (in my mind) with different formats and voices, and digging into research in the various wonderful ways that the book requires. And fortunately for moi, this new book idea requires me (beyond reading books) to go on field trips, visit markets, watch things grow, and cook and eat delicious local food. I feel my waistline expanding as I type. 🙂

Here’s a photo of some of us from the Phoenix IRA (International Reading Association). Beginning from the left are three authors: Mary Casanova, Margriet Ruurs, and moi, and one of our most enthusiastic audience members, Monica Scarborough.