An Ultra-Challenge for July

Of all the months, July is THE BEST. July is like hitting a bunch of green lights in a row. It’s better than the smell of crayons. It’s the Justin Timberlake of months.

I usually take the whole month off, rent a cabin surrounded by hills and trails, and just run. Last year, near Collingwood, I logged 347 miles on the Bruce Trail. The July before that, I covered 316 miles in the Haliburton Forest. The July before that I managed, well, only 272 miles, but that’s because I was running up and down mountains in France.

Running up “The Canigou” – near Perpignan, France

This July, I’ve set an even BIGGER challenge. In addition to running 12 miles per day, I’m determined to write my second novel.

WHAT??? In a month? Who does he think he is – Stephen King?

Actually, I don’t have to write it from scratch. I wrote a first draft a couple of years ago, but then I set it aside, so I could work on my other book, which is, you know, actually getting published.

This July is the first chance I’ve had to go back to work on that other writing project. It’s a big, messy, 60,000-word turd right now, but I’m excited about polishing it into a diamond.

So every day this July, in addition to burning 1000 calories on the trail, I’m hoping to produce 2000 words. Words that glitter like spun glass, words that gleam like dragonflies in sunshine, words that shimmer like cobwebbed trees in summery skies…

Okay, I’ll stop now.

This July, I’m also planning to: eat 30 salads, drink 30 cups of coffee, watch 30 sunsets, take 30 naps, and watch zero television shows.

Wish me luck!

The Man Who Forgot He Wrote a Book

Crazy story – about my talented friend Tim. A warning, though: Tim is successful at, like, everything. He’s an award-winning journalist. Plays violin like Nigel Kennedy. Bakes the most mouth-catering cakes.

These days, Tim spends most of his time writing children’s books. But it’s a career that almost never happened.

Here’s how it came about. A few years ago, Tim’s niece came up for a visit from Colorado. During her stay, she reminded Tim of a poem that he’d written many years before.

“What poem?” said Tim.

She reminded her Uncle of the poem he’d written for her as a gift, back when she was a little girl. A poem about a frog who is appalled to learn that that not all animals share his love of spiders and bugs.

Tim’s niece took the poem to school. Her elementary teacher loved it and read it aloud for the class.

The class, predictably, LOVED the poem. And so, for years, that teacher went on performing it. An entire generation of Colorado kids grew up on Tim’s poem about the frog – and Tim didn’t even know!

Not long after the niece went back home to Colorado, Tim was telling a group of us about this story. We were at a friend’s book launch, and a literary editor happened to be standing nearby. It’s a good thing Tim has a loud speaking voice because the editor overheard the story, and asked to see the poem. And presto! That poem got turned into a book.

The book sold a lot of copies. So Tim was asked to write a sequel. That one sold well too, so a third book was requested. It’s coming out in November, with a fourth book already in production.

And it all began from a poem that Tim forgot that he’d written!

What writer doesn’t have dreams like this? That at some point in our scribbly past, we wrote a brilliant poem, or short story, or novel, and forgot all about it? Lord knows we’ve got enough journals and floppy discs and thumb drives full of forgotten writing lying around… Surely, somewhere among all those literary droppings there’s gotta be something worth publishing, right?

Quite possibly.

As this wonderful story also attests.

The Three Most Amazing Things I Ever Saw

Thirteen years ago, I saw an incredible thing. A chipmunk swimming across a river.

I thought that chipmunk was so amazing, I put her in my novel. You can do that sort of thing if you’re lucky enough to write books.

The second most amazing thing I ever saw was a silver rainbow. What is a silver rainbow? GLAD YOU ASKED!

As you know, normal rainbows occur when the sun shines during a rainstorm. Silver rainbows are the same, only they happen at night. A full moon comes out from between the clouds, and throws its ghostly light through the curtain of rain.

I thought it was so beautiful and strange, I put that silver rainbow into my novel too. You can read all about it when the book comes out in September.

The third most amazing thing I ever saw was a tornado. Actually, I didn’t see the tornado. Like the silver rainbow, it came at night, when it was too dark to see much of anything. But I heard it alright.

I was visiting my family’s cabin, which overlooks a long, narrow lake in central Ontario. The whole family was there, and we were wide awake and terrified. The tornado raced up the lake with a papery sound. As it came closer, it began to scream. Finally, like a bulldozer, it crashed into the forest beside the cabin. The trees thrashed, yanking at their roots. Branches smashed against the windows like ice cubes in a blender.

I put that tornado into my novel too. I even drew a picture of it.