from unable to find a publisher to
winning the Pulitzer of comedy Terry
phallus has been there done that hi I’m
Rebecca Braden and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking
with this first-time author about his
book the best laid plans the Stephen
Leacock metal has been described as the
Pulitzer of comedy and you have wanted
on your first time out huh tell us about
that this novel was initially a
self-published novel I couldn’t find an
agent or a publisher and part of my the
exercise in building a profile for the
novel was to submit it to a couple of
awards and just on a lark I sent ten
copies up to the leak hoc committee in a
way just to make sure I’d have ten more
readers and I happen to be in this very
City montreal on business the day the
shortlist was announced I did a little
Google search for lily award and
there was one lonely news story from the
Orillia Pakatan times saying that the
shortlist had been announced I clicked
on the story I didn’t even have a chance
to read the story because my eyes went
to the photograph and it had the head of
the jury standing in front of his board
with five book covers and and head shots
of the authors and I saw the cover of my
novel there and once I regained
consciousness I started to celebrate
tell us about the struggle to write this
book and get it out there to readers I
am an engineer by training so I was
quite methodical and laying out the
novel because i didn’t really know how
to go about doing it so i outlined it I
had chapter notes and was quite
mechanical actually when you think about
it I decided I wanted to write a hundred
thousand word novel because that was a
300 page novel and there were two parts
in the story so I’ve part 1 and part 2
and then I’ll break it up into chapters
the actual writing when I had that
ground work already done I didn’t take
as long as I had expected took me about
10 months of evenings and weekends to
write it
and that’s when I started passing it
around to agents and publishers I wanted
a few rejection letters at least to put
on my wall I didn’t even get rejection
letters i just got silence it’s a very
tough time in Canadian fiction to try
and break in so I podcast the novel for
free chapter by chapter and apparently
people started listening and and their
responses were very gratifying do you
have any advice for aspiring writers or
at least words of consolation there are
opportunities there to explore some of
these new tools of getting your message
out that will take you beyond the
traditional route of just pounding the
pavement and trying to find an agent
luckily that that seems to have happen
and I I feel like the most fortunate
writer in the world that I haven’t
really paid my dues yet as a writer so I
think I’ve exhausted my lifetime
allocation of good fortune that I’m very
grateful
winning the Pulitzer of comedy Terry
phallus has been there done that hi I’m
Rebecca Braden and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking
with this first-time author about his
book the best laid plans the Stephen
Leacock metal has been described as the
Pulitzer of comedy and you have wanted
on your first time out huh tell us about
that this novel was initially a
self-published novel I couldn’t find an
agent or a publisher and part of my the
exercise in building a profile for the
novel was to submit it to a couple of
awards and just on a lark I sent ten
copies up to the leak hoc committee in a
way just to make sure I’d have ten more
readers and I happen to be in this very
City montreal on business the day the
shortlist was announced I did a little
Google search for lily award and
there was one lonely news story from the
Orillia Pakatan times saying that the
shortlist had been announced I clicked
on the story I didn’t even have a chance
to read the story because my eyes went
to the photograph and it had the head of
the jury standing in front of his board
with five book covers and and head shots
of the authors and I saw the cover of my
novel there and once I regained
consciousness I started to celebrate
tell us about the struggle to write this
book and get it out there to readers I
am an engineer by training so I was
quite methodical and laying out the
novel because i didn’t really know how
to go about doing it so i outlined it I
had chapter notes and was quite
mechanical actually when you think about
it I decided I wanted to write a hundred
thousand word novel because that was a
300 page novel and there were two parts
in the story so I’ve part 1 and part 2
and then I’ll break it up into chapters
the actual writing when I had that
ground work already done I didn’t take
as long as I had expected took me about
10 months of evenings and weekends to
write it
and that’s when I started passing it
around to agents and publishers I wanted
a few rejection letters at least to put
on my wall I didn’t even get rejection
letters i just got silence it’s a very
tough time in Canadian fiction to try
and break in so I podcast the novel for
free chapter by chapter and apparently
people started listening and and their
responses were very gratifying do you
have any advice for aspiring writers or
at least words of consolation there are
opportunities there to explore some of
these new tools of getting your message
out that will take you beyond the
traditional route of just pounding the
pavement and trying to find an agent
luckily that that seems to have happen
and I I feel like the most fortunate
writer in the world that I haven’t
really paid my dues yet as a writer so I
think I’ve exhausted my lifetime
allocation of good fortune that I’m very
grateful
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