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While I was in the process of self-publishing More Precious Than Rubies, I generated other ideas for future books.

The “good friend” mentioned in my blogs of December and January was a former teacher and mentor of mine.  As far back as May 2012, I had considered writing about his life and his incredible effect on his high school students.

A lot transpired from 2012 to 2017 while I took on various writing projects.  I spent a lot of time collecting data for the memoir of my friend.  I had a lot of firsthand information since I travelled often with him.  Although he had selections of his poetry published in Canadian anthologies and wrote book reviews for literary magazines, he was never regarded as a well-known Canadian author.  Yet in 1973, he wrote a book entitled, The Neglected Genre:  The Short Story in Canada. 

In the early 70’s, he was an invaluable peer to up-and-coming and established writers such as Margaret Atwood, Irving Layton, Alden Nowlan, Joyce Carol Oates, and Miriam Waddington because he featured their poetry in anthologies.  He was a force in the Canadian industry at a time when Canadian literature was often being overlooked.

By 2017, I published a short book about his life and his influences.  When we travelled to San Miguel de Allende (see previous blogs), we regularly visited our favourite restaurant, El Pegaso.  The staff were used to seeing us at our corner table, soon to be labelled la oficina.  In August 2017, I visited the town and dropped off a copy of the book, Remembering Clare, to the owners of the restaurant.  They remembered us sitting together.  In fact, the back cover of the book shows a photograph of my friend’s reflection in one of the restaurant’s windows.

I also distributed the book to some of his colleagues from The Oxford Tradition, a programme set up for North American students to take courses at Oxford University in the summers.  My friend was chosen as one of the summer deans, an experience which he cherished until his unfortunate death on September 4, 2004.

Here’s to you, my friend.  May we meet again.

We’re after the same rainbow’s end

Waitin’ ‘round the bend

My huckleberry friend

• Moon River, Henry Mancini

Around the end of 2013, there was a special on David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things entitled Flight of the Butterflies, which featured Canadian icon, Gordon Pinsent.

I found it serendipitous that the programme followed the studies of Dr. Frederick Urquhart and his fascination with the migration of the monarch butterflies to Mexico.  Pinsent played the role of Urquhart and I sent his agent a copy of The Monarchs to pass on to Pinsent.  I included these words:

“I am sending you a book that I recently self-published.  It is mainly fictitious; however, I did use the butterfly migration as a catalyst for the events of the novel.

Since you have a connection to Flight of the Butterflies, I thought that sending you my novel is the least I could do for such a respected Canadian icon as yourself.”

Whether he received it or not is another thing.  I never heard anything back.

I wanted book reviewing companies to evaluate my newest foray into writing.  I sought the opinion of Blueink again (See blog from Nov. 8, 2025).  I received both positive comments such as “…offering a raw and sometimes painfully realistic book at how one paired-for-life couple handles their final years, months, and days together” and negative comments like, “One or two such scenes showing us the way cancer has made Robert’s life almost unlivable would be enough, but Coates revisits this theme so frequently and intensely that it overshadows the charming relationship between curmudgeonly Robert and his loyal, if frequently sarcastic, wife.”

I also received these upbeat words from the Clarion Review (See blog from Nov. 8, 2025):  “Coates flawlessly combines their spoken and unspoken reflections and points of view, and what begins in jest…gradually takes on a deeper meaning.”  The writer is referring to Robert and Sharon’s discussion about seeing the butterflies in Mexico.

In July 2014, I visited San Miguel de Allende and left one of my books at the Bed and Breakfast I normally stay at, the Villa Mirasol Hotel.  I also left one at the Biblioteca Pública, the library, which has one of the biggest bilingual collections of books in Mexico.

When I returned from Mexico, I discovered another review of my book, this time from Kirkus Reviews.  Again, I had to brace myself for some rather harsh words:  “…Robert and Sharon’s social ideologies are jammed into the narrative at perplexing intervals simply to make what come across as half-baked points.  Rants about…religion, and cultural differences between Mexico and Canada are unfocused and distracting.”

Jump ahead to Sept. 25, 2024.  I paid a little less than $300 for a promotion of TM in Goodreads.  Some very willing participants gave the book glowing reviews which were supposed to give me hope that people would read them and buy my book.

Alas, when I checked my royalties at iUniverse in December of 2024, I discovered that not a single, extra copy had sold.

Writers put out money to make money and rarely ever catch up.

Below is a picture of Friar Juan, one of the founders of San Miguel de Allende.

The “good friend” I referred to in my last blog died tragically in September of 2004.  It was a strange twist that added more poignancy to the novel which I had started thinking about in 2002.

The novel still involved the relationship between a couple in their early sixties but I changed the title to The Monarchs since the two make pilgrimages to Mexico, resembling the migration of Monarch butterflies.  The novel flows between the couple’s dreary existence in Canada and their more adventurous lifestyle in Mexico.  Regardless of their escape to the Mexican landscape and culture, they cannot deny that Robert, the husband, is dealing with cancer.

My pursuit of information concerning cancer became intense and I decided to make Robert so depressed from the affliction that he contemplates assisted death.  I sent a letter to the Hemlock Society which eventually had its name changed to End-of-Life Choices, asking if I could engage someone in conversation about the topic.  I never received anything back.  Even though I had cited the purpose of my novel, people in the organization might have suspected I was the one considering suicide.

Eventually, by March 27, 2005, I had completed the first draft of TM.  In April, I began to send out queries to publishing companies to see if they were interested in publishing it.  I approached about six companies, all of which turned down the prospect, and ran out of patience.  I put the book aside and focused on other projects.

In July 2012, my failure at getting my work published caused me to consider self-publishing TM  since I had done so with MPTR (see past blogs).  I wished to use iUniverse again (see blog from Sept. 7, 2025).  Also, I had an idea for what I wanted the front cover to look like and approached my niece about designing it.

Writing a novel takes time.  Writing one over a long period poses its challenges.  From the moment there was a germ of an idea in 2002 until 2012 when I sought iUniverse’s services, a lot had changed in the world.  When I began writing TM, George W. Bush was the American president.  There was a section in my book in which Robert and his wife, Sharon, discuss the U.S. presidency with some Republicans.  By 2012, the president was Barack Obama.  I revised this section.  This is what occurs often when writing a novel.  Political leaders change.  Technology changes.  World conflicts change.  And, of course, sometimes they don’t.

Below is the cover that my niece created.

My next venture into the world of self-publishing was inspired by a good friend who was going through some health struggles.

He and I travelled a lot together and I was usually the one to whom he confided when his pain was at its worst.

On a trip to San Miguel de Allende, one of our favourite travel spots, in December of 2002, he was not feeling well and he encouraged me to get out of the hotel room and walk around town. I saw that he wanted time to himself and did not want to keep me from enjoying the holiday.

As I investigated the ornate churches in town, I thought of an idea for a novel. It involved a man and woman in their early sixties who are inseparable, who travel a lot, and who are dealing with the husband’s cancer. The working title then was Mariposa and Corazon.

I wanted a big part of the novel to be set in San Miguel since it was a special place for my friend and me and since I knew so much about its history and traditions.

As with much of my writing, I either lost interest in the concept or was distracted by other writing projects.

In April of 2003, I was called for jury duty. Knowing that I would be put in a crowded room with other potential jurors as we waited to find out if we would be chosen, I took some paper with me to exercise my writing. My first drafts are always in pen. Strangely, the idea for Mariposa and Corazon arose again. I began to write it.

By the way, on my second day of “jury duty,” all of us potential jurors were sent home at 1:00 and told that we weren’t needed. And wouldn’t be contacted again for at least three years.

The best part of it: my interest in M and C had been reignited.

La Parroquia in San Miguel de Allende

I was anxious to expose the novel to the world.  I continued to correspond with iUniverse (see blog from Sept. 7, 2025, paragraph 5).  I paid that company more money in order to have the novel critiqued.  The reviews were honest, sometimes brutal.

The first review was from a company called Blueink which savaged MPTR with statements like “…there’s very little action in the plot, and the most critical scenes – including the story’s climax – happen entirely offstage” and “this story requires major revisions to reach the standards of quality, excitement, and expanded mythology that are already available in the traditional marketplace.”

Ouch!

Peter Dabbene from the Clarion Review presented a more upbeat review:  “Coates…captures the characters of Paul and Chad perfectly, with the budding independence and maturity appropriate to their age, as well as the uncertainty that accompanies a lack of experience” and “MPTR is an enjoyable, self-contained tale that will entertain young readers and bring an ancient myth to life.”

Kirkus Reviews offered a review that was somewhere in the middle of the other ones:  “The initial mysteries surrounding the new school principal set the stage for a page-turning story and will pique readers’ interest” and “An intriguing tale, but one hampered by uneven characterization and a disappointing ending.”

Reviews can be unkind to a person and I limped away from them, broken but unsurprised.  I knew from the moment that I finished MPTR that it lacked action.

On September 21, 2014, I attended another “Word on the Street” (see blog from Oct. 7, 2025).  There was a downpour that day, preventing people from circulating among the booths, one of which had been rented by me.  I ended up selling only four copies of MPTR.  I did talk to some people, including a man who found out I was a teacher and who said, “Oh, then you make good money.”  He decided not to purchase the book but I don’t think it had anything to do with my being a teacher.

On December 12, 2018, I attended the monthly meeting for Canscaip (“Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators, and Performers”).  It was their last one before Christmas and we writers were allowed to give an elevator pitch concerning our children’s books to see if anyone was interested in buying them as gifts.  I delivered a blurb about MPTR.  Sadly, no one bought it.  But I did get to practice my social media skills which were becoming necessary in the twenty-first century.

Every September in Toronto, there is an event entitled “Word on the Street” which brings together authors, bookstores, writing organizations, and magazine companies in an open-air venue.

For a little over $400, self-published authors can rent a booth and attempt to sell their books.

I tried my hand at this on September 22, 2013, bringing along copies of MPTR.  I sold a paltry nine copies although there were a number of people who took away bookmarks that advertised my novel.

I was still teaching in those days and one of the administrative assistants from a school I had worked in purchased the book to put in her school’s library.  I was touched by that but wonder if, by now, the book has been removed due to being outdated.

When we expose our books and our reasons for writing them to people, we can always assume that not everyone will support us.  When I explained to one man what MPTR was about, he went off on a tangent, talking how corrupt the world was, that the ice-caps were melting in the Arctic, that people were destroying the planet.  I didn’t see any connection between my book and his concerns and figured that he just needed someone to absorb his anger.  At one point, he said, “Nobody is listening,” to which I responded, “I am listening.”  And I was.

My book went “international” in July 2014 when I visited one of my favourite destinations, San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.  I brought along copies of the book and left one for my favourite waiter at my favourite restaurant so that he could give it to his son.  I took another to a used bookstore called “Garrison and Garrison” and left it for the owners to sell.  I didn’t want the money; just the recognition.  The person I spoke to was delighted and said that she always tried to flaunt books by local authors.  Since I visit SMA numerous times, we considered myself a “local” author.

Also in July, I paid to have my book reviewed by some prestigious book reviewers.  Some reviews were disappointing; some encouraging.  I will get to this in my next blog.

The front cover of my book:

More Precious Than Rubies was still unpublished in 2010. I wavered between feelings of optimism that it had merit and feelings of pessimism that it lacked cohesion and punch.

I signed up for a workshop at Humber College in which a group of aspiring writers submitted the first page of their novels and had it critiqued by the writing staff at the college. I was in a large room of fellow writers and our first pages were read out loud. The authors’ identities were withheld.

I cannot remember what was said about mine but I don’t recall the comments as being pleasing. One comment I do remember is that every sentence in a piece of fiction must mean something and must be integral in some way to the novel. For example, if one describes the weather as sultry, there has to be a reason that the sultriness is depicted. Does it have some bearing on the narrator’s mood? Something that makes him do an action because of that mood?

That comment has stuck with me for the past fifteen years. I try not to write sentences simply because they are filler or that I need a specific word count.

By July 2012, after numerous rejections to have More Precious traditionally published, I got impatient and sent it to iUniverse, an American company that self-publishes work. I spent $2500 which included a designer for the front cover, typesetting, and a team that would help me market the book. This included setting up a webpage for my writing. When I look back upon this endeavour, I believe I moved too quickly. Although the book is available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon, I have come nowhere near making the money I put into its production.

Not to be discouraged, I tried to market on my own. I reached out to a local Toronto newspaper called The Bulletin and had an article written in September 2012.

Here is a quotation taken directly from that article: “…Randy Coates has taught students from kindergarten to grade 8 over the past 20 years at various schools around the city. His daily observations inspired him to write.”

I also consulted the Customer Experience Manager, Reading at Indigo Books in Toronto’s Eaton Centre. She allowed me to sell hard copies of the novel there, a percentage of the profits going to Indigo. I did so on October 13, 2012, and sold eleven copies.

I meant some interesting people. There was one man who flicked pages of the book and asked questions about it. When I talked about Mr. Theisen being a reincarnation of a Norse God, he said he wouldn’t let his child read anything like this because reincarnation “is not Biblical. It’s a form of witchcraft.”

“Okay, thanks for looking,” I told him as he walked away.

Then there was the deaf, Italian woman who needed my pen and paper to communicate to me. She had been a graphic artist in Italy.

And then people ask writers where they get their ideas?

More Precious Than Rubies

My first real novel, after a couple of juvenile attempts at writing in my twenties, is entitled More Precious Than Rubies. You can read the blurb about it in my listed books.

The idea for it germinated in 2006. I wrote this in my journal:

“At the beginning of the school year, a sinister, mysterious new principal comes into the school. Why he replaces the former principal is not explained. He is the member of a diabolical group out to terrorize the world. The members have the power to take away peoples’ lives if others donate part of their lives to save the others.”

My own experience as an elementary teacher at the time contributed to the concept. I was forty-two during this period of my life. I considered myself late to the publishing business but young enough to get things done. There was still a lot of time. Surely, I would live another forty years.

I completed writing the novel on September 20, 2007. I was forty-three. I sent it out to a few publishing companies, branding it as a children’s fantasy novel. Fantasy was huge then.

I began to see how important revision is and how one begins to add things, take away things, alter events in a novel. My book soon became based upon the Norwegian myth in which Iduna keeps guard over an apple grove. The apples grant people youth and vitality and Thiassi wants them for himself. He seeks to gain possession of the grove through his evil ways.

My brain connected the myth with my novel. I called the principal Mr. Theisen and the book became a modern rendition of the myth.

By January 9, 2009, I had completed a second draft of the book. Originally entitled The Chosen Ones, it adopted its official title. I started to send it out to the publishing companies.

I was so naïve.

More about More in my next blog.

Jarrett Rusnak is a Canadian screenwriter who has been an accountant for North American movies and series.  He lives in my building and organizes a group of screenwriters who gather to critique each others’ work.  I am not a screenwriter but Jarrett knows how passionate I am about writing and that I have written a few novels, none of which have been traditionally published.  He invited me to join the group.

We are a small group and nobody holds back.  Our comments to each other are delivered with honest but friendly remarks.  When we believe that a person’s story needs tweaking, we say so, often backing ourselves up with suggestions about how they can improve their work.

Recently, I wrote a novel about a school shooting, from which I submitted the first 20 pages to our group.  I was impressed by the amount of comments that people gave me and that guided me in revising my draft.  For those of you starting out in the writing field, you must have a stony resilience.  Be prepared to take criticism; be prepared to know that you might be creating a complete makeover of what you have previously written.  My writing has been rejected countless times and yet I still love to write.  If one can do that, then they are a true writer.

At last night’s meeting, Jarrett shared with the rest of us some notes about a recent screenwriting workshop he had attended.  The one note that stuck out the most for me is that your leading characters must have an objective:  what do they want to do?  What do they want to accomplish?  And this objective has to be big.  It can’t be as simple as Protagonist A wants to find his lost cat.  There must be an objective that may even be life-changing.  The objective isn’t easily achievable and is impeded by events and antagonists in the story.  The author must be specific about what the objective is and what the consequences are if the objective is not attained.

Having conflict in a story is vital.  If an objective is reached too easily or without conflict, then the reader will get bored and soon lose interest in your work.

Interestingly, while Jarrett explained these things to the group, I told him that these very observations were raised in a webinar that I attended a week ago.  The American writer, Jeanne Lyet Gassman, who happens to be a novelist like myself, repeated what Jarrett had heard at his workshop.  One of the comments I remember her saying is that a book is “complete if the protagonist reaches a goal or doesn’t quite but still learns from their journey.”  Also, “solutions should always have a consequence.”

Jarrett and I have discussed the differences between screenwriting and novel writing but, as you can see, there are many similarities between the two.  What we should all strive for is good writing.  Writing that grips the reader from page one.  Writing that is not chichéed.  Writing that has conflict.

In a month, I will present to the group my newest revision of the novel about the school shooting.  I anticipate more suggestions about how I can make it better.  Be prepared, everyone.  Writing is not easy. 

Screenwriter Jarrett Rusnak

It has been almost ten years since I wrote a blog.

Thanks to Faheem Khan at Tritrix Inc., I have a new, improved website in which I can entertain people and, at best, give them an insight about writing. Whether you are a seasoned writer or one who is new at the craft, I hope that you find my blogs interesting and perhaps even educational.

A little about myself:

I can remember, at the age of ten, fifty years ago but who’s counting?, I was lured by the sirens of writing and I have never looked back. People have different hobbies and sometimes we can’t always understand them because they don’t appeal to us. Well, writing was mine. My parents weren’t huge readers but they were proud of me and they watched me write, proud that I was being inventive, creative. They gave me my space and I loved them for that.

Over the years, I have had periods when words have shot out of me onto the page. I’ve also had my fallow periods and days when I wonder if the effort is worth it. The answer: certainly. When I wrote something I considered “garbage,” I would throw it out. This is no longer the case. For you aspiring writers, here is my first bit of advice. Don’t throw out anything. Put it aside. Let the seed germinate. It will come back to you. I’ve lost count of the times that I have dug out an old story/poem/novel, continued it and completed it.

I have never been traditionally published. I have had my share of honourable mentions in story-writing contests but there is nothing else beyond those.

I was quite pleased when, 20 years ago, I was informed by a member of the Toronto Star newspaper that my story was in the top 40 of about 2,000 entries in The Toronto Star Short Story Contest. I still deem that as the best story I’ve ever written and have revised it three times, making it more powerful each time. My second bit of advice to you writers: put your finished products aside and when you feel the need, revisit them and revise them. This could be a week after you wrote the first draft. Could be a month, a year, ten years.

I was also thrilled to have three of my stories (in different years) given honourable mentions in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Contest.

I try to fit in one or two hours a day writing. Easy for me to say since I am retired. Currently, I am working on a novel about a zombie apocalypse, laced with some humour.

Please join me here in my journey in the world of writing.