My next novel

     Earlier this week I was talking to my publisher on the phone, inquiring when "Forty Mermaids" will be printed.  Apparently, he has several printing projects ahead of mine on the list.

    During the course of our conversation, he asked me the subject of my next novel.  At one point I'd thought that "Forty Mermaids" might be my last novel, on account of my age and other considerations, but the truth is that I'm working on yet another project, so I told him about it.

    A few years ago I started researching a novel set during the 1837 Rebellion in Upper Canada. Several novels exist on that theme, but  most of them center on  privileged young woman who boldly get involved with the uprising, and tended to be more Regency Romance than  historical novel about common people trying to influence the political situation under which they lived.  My central character is  a young woman, but definitely not privileged. She comes to the colony as a nursery maid for a wealthier family, and finds herself alone in a strange land, faced with finding a way to make ends meet.  

    Some of the story takes place on a settler's backwood farm, living under very basic and primitive conditions. After beginning work on the novel I gave it up because at the time,  didn't relish being in the company  a  young woman working her fingers to the bone in pioneer agriculture, so I turned to researching "Forty Mermaids" instead.

    Recently, I looked at my research notes and completed episodes and thought that I could face roughing it in the backwoods, because the political and class situation was so compelling. At that time, Upper and Lower Canada were ruled by British appointed governors and self-serving oligarchies, with no meaningful self-government. After the rebellions in both provinces,  Britain finally realized that the colonial administration wasn't working right, and sent out "Radical Jack", Lord Durham, whose Report set the Canadas on the path to the democracy we have today.

   Gradually a stronger plot grew in my mind, allowing me to write more chapters/episodes/incidents, and the story is taking shape.  It is far from finished, and who knows its destiny, or if it has one?  For now, it's a project that will take me through the air-conditioned indoor days of summer, when the temperatures outdoors are a forbidding 30 plus Celsius, and then in the snow-bound, cold days of winter. However cold and isolated I'll be, I will be much better off than Upper Canadian settlers trying to wrest a farm out of the wilderness.

    No matter how old one is, a writer writes.



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