More Precious Than Rubies was still unpublished in 2010.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?
