Follow my Journey
I invite you to follow me on my current Path to Publishing:
“From Draft to Launch”
It is decided! 2023 will be my publishing year. Another memoir is under way, available on the market in the fall of this year.
Until then I invite you to share each milestone of this path with me. Starting in January, each month see posts telling the story of my Publishing Path. Starting with finishing the final draft, publisher assessment and evaluation, different levels of editing, layout, cover design, image implementation, copyrights, pricing, we, finally, will reach production and launch.
The Path to Publishing can be rugged and difficult at times and smooth and straight forward at others. Some weeks will show blissful progress, while others can be hobbled with hurdles.
But it all will lead to the goal: Publication of my newest Memoir.
Join me on my Journey and experience each step and and each success towards that goal.
To “up” the fun, I will put out a book-related question in each month, collect all answers, and draw the winner who will receive a free copy of this memoir.
Stay connected, follow me and have fun on this exciting path.
Images
March Winner of February’s Challenge
In February my question to you was: “What is the dog’s name, that came with us on our first winter on the trapline”
The correct answer to this challenge is: Smokie.
The correct answer to this challenge is: Smokie.
This time quite a few answers were right, so I pulled one name out of the “challenge hat”
The winner of the February challenge and draw is: Kathy Elliot.
Congratulations, Kathy, and thanks to all who took part in this fun game.
Congratulations, Kathy, and thanks to all who took part in this fun game.
Keep following me on My Journey!
March Milestone: Images
In my mind words are the bones of any written work. Sentences, paragraphs and chapters, the combining structure holding each bone where it belongs and where it works best with all other bones. If everything – words, sentences, paragraphs, and finally the chapters – are set in their best place, the story unfolds in its most engaging manner.
But what about images?
They are the blood, life, and sun of most works. They have the power to illuminate the stage, showing each act in its most vital light, revealing more secrets of the story than any word ever could.
I usually enjoy working with images for a new publication. I like sorting them, shoving them around on my office desk, grouping and regrouping them, and finally selecting the ones that will go into the book.
The process, often done after the final drafts is finished, is like a fresh walk down memory lane. The story comes alive with details that evoke smells, feelings, and thoughts.
As this memoir deals with an adventure of 30 years past, I had mainly slides to work with. In those days slides were the way to go and my office shelves sport boxes over labelled boxes housing hundreds of slim frames with the slide inside.
Once the selection was made, I handed the slides over to the local Printing Centre to be scanned and converted into electronic files. Specific requirements about size, DPI, and colour palette images needed to be followed.
After I received them back, I now had to decide where in the manuscript the images should be placed. Each location needed a special tag. Then the images had to be renamed in chronological order and in accordance with the tags I had placed into the manuscript.
The first snag.
While looking at the pictures repeatedly, finding their best placements in the text, I suddenly realized there was something wrong with some of them. On closer inspection, I saw some images got scanned mirror-inverted.
What now?
Apparently, lack of attention had led to some slides being scanned correctly, some mirror-inverted and with some, I could not even tell, such as landscapes, or where my dog and I were pulling toboggans through mountains of snow.
Should I leave them?
Who besides Rainer, my partner on the trapline, would even notice?
In the end, I decided in favour of the truth, as always.
I found a free online program that helped me flip the images in question to their right orientation. These images were of very high resolution. Their big file size made the process crash repeatedly while working with my unstable Internet.
In the end, I left a few images the way they were, not quite sure if they were inverted or not. Such as one inside a cabin showing how Rainer skinned a wolverine pelt.
Satisfied with my work and my decisions, I named the images accordingly to their tags in the text and uploaded them all to the Author Account Centre of my publisher.
That is when I realized that in this specific picture, Rainer was skinning with his left hand.
Oh well.
March Challenge
The March Question is two-fold:
1. “Which workshop is required for being eligible to obtain a trapping concession?”
and
1. “Which workshop is required for being eligible to obtain a trapping concession?”
and
2. “What is the exception to this requirement?”
Send your answers to author@elisabethweigand.com and enter the draw.
The following month each winner is announced on Facebook.
The following month each winner is announced on Facebook.
Stay tuned, come back, and see more posts about My Journey.
The finished Draft
February
Post 1: The Winner of January’s Challenge
In January my question to you was: “What is this memoir about?”
The correct answer to this challenge is: A memoir about life on our remote fly-in trapline.
The correct answer to this challenge is: A memoir about life on our remote fly-in trapline.
While many answers were right, that I, again, will retell a story about describing my love and intimacy to this country, to the outdoors and to Yukon’s backcountry.
The theme of the memoir is more concrete: Trapline-Life.
The theme of the memoir is more concrete: Trapline-Life.
But there were those who guessed right.
The winner of the January challenge and draw is: Ulrike Levins. Congratulations and I will happily sign a copy in the falle, once the book is published.
Thanks to all who took part in this fun exercise and followed me on My Journey!
Post 2: Finished Draft is Uploaded
Two years of writing and, rewriting, of remembering and maybe not remembering correctly. After hundreds of hours of amending, changing, and improving. Through uncountable days of doubts, despair, determination;
Finally, the manuscript is finished.
But that’s not true. No manuscript is ever really finished. One just has to find the courage to stop, to find an end that is logical, appropriate, hopefully satisfying.
The courage to say, this is it and send it off.
I am still reeling from how hard it was. The decision to stop and give it away. It’s not that I did this for the first time. It’s not that I hadn’t read through it a million times, and more. It’s not that I hadn’t given it to Beta Readers and faithfully tried to implement their feedback.I did all that. But still, I could not let it go. After one full day and a sleepless night, I agonized. Walked endlessly through a snowy forest, returned to my desk, looked at the laptop. And never punched the send-button.Until I finally did.Which sent me into another fretful night. Was it too soon? I could have still…, should have….When in the crisp morning hours, with the young light touching the tips of spruces, a bunch of grosbeaks fluttering at the window, my dog’s wet nose taps encouragingly at my elbow. As if she knew!And I felt OK.With my publisher chosen, a contract signed, and the manuscript uploaded, I am truly on my Publishing Path.
Post 3: February’s Challenge
The attached image shows the dog that accompanied Rainer and me on the first winter we spent on our trapline. He was not as young as on the photo when we went, (nor was I) But by that time he was well versed in flying with me. Had he not travelled with me anywhere I I was going in those days: on all horseback and canoe trips, on every walk or hike, to town and to all my friends.
And then way up to the trapline.
The February Question is: “What is his Name?“
Send your answers to author@elisabethweigand.com and enter the draw.
The following month each winner is announced on Facebook.
The following month each winner is announced on Facebook.
Stay tuned, come back, and see more posts about My Journey.
A new Memoir
January
Post 1: A new Memoir
The decision is made.
2023 will be my Publishing Year.
Another colourful fragment of my life’s kaleidoscope will be transformed into a book. I have written another memoir with Frozen Rivers the unconfirmed title.
After two years of mind mapping, writing, rewriting and revisions, the draft is going to my publisher in February.
By fall, I expect the book to be on the market.
Until then, I invite you to follow me on this journey.
From Draft to Launch
Once a month I will describe the stages of this journey and hopefully you will join me, sharing and enjoying each step.
With each post, you get the chance to win a copy of this book by answering a challenge.
This month’s challenge to you is the questions: “What is this memoir about?”
Send your answers to author@elisabethweigand.com and enter the draw.
The following month each winner is announced on Facebook.
Stay tuned, come back, and see more posts about My Journey.