Archive for September, 2007

In the past few days, I have seen or read the following:

• Bill Clinton and Martha Stewart talk earnestly about how the compact fluorescent light can save the planet;
• Nelson Mandela open a shopping mall in Soweto;
• Conrad Black tape a guest appearance on the Rick Mercer Report.

Do any of these events seem like the trivialization of former greatness, or am I just joining in on the triviality by even taking note?

In the spring of 2003 our daughter was on the verge of buying a house in Hamilton, Ont. The property was headed for a bidding war, so I advised her not to participate, and she didn’t. My reasoning was that I’d previously seen such ridiculous practices in overheated markets and believed such pressures wouldn’t last.

How wrong I was. Four years later, the foolishness continues - unless the number of open houses last weekend indicates a cooling off at last. All of which is to say: Where has David Dodge been? The governor of the Bank of Canada has suddenly decided to express concern about the inflated housing market. “What we’re seeing is house prices rising faster, probably at up to twice as fast as the rate of inflation,” he said yesterday after a speech in Vancouver. If Dodge been on the Titanic, he would have shouted “Iceberg” while clinging to flotsam and jetsam.

But for all that, what Dodge said next was more relevant. “We’re worried about that, and we’ll continue to worry about that.” Here’s the rub. The Bank of Canada sets interest rates but what it really does is manage the value of the C$. The fact that we’ve hit parity with the US$ is because Governor Dodge wanted that outcome. His fond hope is that parity will reduce the prices of imports in Canada and thereby tame inflation. So far, retailers are reluctant to comply. Meanwhile, the cost on our exports of this fight no one asked him to undertake has been horrific. More than 300,000 manufacturing jobs have evaporated in Canada and there are thousands more to come.

Governor Dodge will get his way. A year from now inflation will be in check and housing prices will be falling because we’ll be mired in a recession. Dodge, who has announced he will soon leave the post, will no longer be around. Someone else will have to clean up the mess. In this country, as we know all too well, that consists of waiting for the U.S. economy, which will also be recession, to get rolling again. Some legacy.

(P.S. Our daughter has long since bought a house.)

Rex Murphy is a most enjoyable radio host with whom to work. On Cross Country Checkup he honours every caller, giving each of them a full opportunity to state their case. He draws out the best in people and never cuts them off as do some shock jocks.

I spent the full two hours in studio with Rex yesterday trying to add some of my modest thoughts to the debate. The topic was the soaring loonie and the callers were a thoughtful, geographically diverse bunch from Victoria, B.C. to Truro, N.S. and north to Baffin Island. They included a long-haul truck driver whose shipments to the U.S. are shrinking, a female entrepreneur who can’t compete because Canadian book publishers have maintained high prices and a man who worries about Canadian productivity at any price because management at his place of employment has added too many redundant positions in the upper ranks.

Everyone was irate about laggardly Canadian retailers who have refused to drop prices on books, cards, autos and a host of other items even though the C$ is 60 per cent stronger than five years ago. The most surprising example was the caller who priced a new Bombardier 400cc ATV and found it’s $2,500 cheaper in the U.S. - even though the vehicle is made in Canada. When he called Bombardier to complain they told him the market was more competitive there. Buying new in the U.S. and bringing it home doesn’t work because that voids the three-year warranty. Gotcha.

I was frankly amazed to hear a consensus among callers that parity is no help unless you’re a snowbird with a pension that will go further this winter in the U.S. Indeed, Canadians know full well that parity has a negative economic impact because we have too many industries - including forestry, automotive and tourism - that are being devastated.

The final caller, David Ganong, head of a company that’s been making chocolates for four generations in St. Stephen, N.B., said it all. The rising dollar already caused layoffs a year ago. The only reason his firm has survived these last twelve months is that two or three competitors were forced to close so his market share grew. There are tens of thousands of such struggles going on across this country.

I said at the end of the show that I thought Canada had turned a corner last week. I fear that the street we’re on now may be dark and mean.

Tune in this Sunday September 23 to Cross Country Checkup on CBC Radio One when I’ll be appearing as an in-studio guest commentator along with host, the inimitable Rex Murphy. Topic this week is the soaring loonie.

In addition to numerous callers-in on this national open line show, other guests appearing by phone and on tape will include Tom D’Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Buzz Hargrove of the Canadian Auto Workers Union and Patricia Croft, chief economist at Phillips, Hager and North.

In the Eastern time zone, the show starts right after the 4 p.m. newscast and runs live in all time zones.

Here’s the link for more info.

The late, great Sandy Ross had a wonderful description about how to write a magazine story. Here it is: “When I sit down to write a magazine piece, I am not writing a long newspaper article, I am writing a short book.”

Following that advice makes the difference between a rambling article that has no apparent structure and guiding your reader through something that is coherent, organized and readable. So, a magazine profile might begin with an anecdote that captures the reader’s attention and establishes a particular characteristic of the person being profiled.

Next comes the “billboard” paragraph that answers the question: Why am I reading this story NOW? A few more paragraphs lay out themes, then there’s a line space, as if the writer took a deep breath, and a paragraph that begins: Amy Amstead Lovell was born in Estevan, Saskatchewan, in 1964. Biographical info follows as well as quotes from her Grade One teacher and best friend in public school. Whatever.

September, the first full chapter in Fantasy in Florence, is what happens after that deep breath. It opens with the back story, Sandy’s mother dying in 2000, Sandy going back to school and how the Florence opportunity came along.

Usually, you begin a book by getting your characters out on stage, since a book is like a three-act play, but in this case I thought I better set the stage first. That’s why there’s a description of our apartment (including our furniture rearranging), then the next circle out, a word picture of the city, followed by what Sandy and the other students will be doing.

OK, now, let’s plunge in and meet somebody. Antonio Belvedere, a waiter at Paoli, was my first sit-down interview. After we’d been served by him one night, I was curious to learn more about him and his profession, so I asked if he’d meet me and he agreed. He not only took me behind the scenes in his business, he became a friend. More important, that successful first step with Antonio propelled me to interview other residents of Florence, much in the same way as I built research for my previous non-fiction books.

The final scene in the chapter, our visit to the walled garden at the Palazzo Vivarelli Colonna, is there for two reasons. First, it is a gem of a place, undiscovered by most visitors. Second, our thoughts as we sat there underscore one of the book’s major themes. In this garden, which represents Florence and our new surroundings in general, we have a begun a journey of discovery not only about the world around, but also about the world within: ourselves.

The idea for my first book, The Moneyspinners, came from Peter C. Newman when he was editor and I was business editor of Maclean’s. Peter took me aside one day and suggested I write about the CEOs who run the Big Five Banks. I not only embraced the idea, I also followed his manic method of getting up at 4 a.m. to do so. After all, we both had day jobs.

After a few months I spoke to my mentor and said, “I’ve got sixty pages of the first chapter written and I can’t get it stopped.”

“Oh no,” Peter said, “you write the first chapter last. It’s the epilogue.”

The scales dropped from my eyes and I have followed his dictum ever since - with adaptations. Often what I’ll do is write the Introduction last. That’s because by then I can write 4,000 words in one fell swoop that sets out the themes and gets the characters out on stage just as if your book is a three-act play, which it is.

The other difficult early-stage decision is structure. How many chapters, how many words in each? Chronological or not? My non-fiction books run about 80,000 words or 270 double-spaced manuscript pages. Fiction can be shorter, say 60,000 words.
In the case of Fantasy in Florence, the form of the 70,000-word book - a personal journal - set the structure. I did a chapter for each month we were there. In this case, I wrote the Introduction first because I knew a major theme would be self-discovery and I wanted readers to plunge right in with us and feel the learning curve as we went along.

As a result, the book opens with us standing on the sidewalk outside our building and meeting our landlord for the first time. There’s a bit of backstory about renting the apartment on the Internet but the most important event in the Introduction was our participation in the parade celebrating Rificolona, the Festival of the Lanterns, on our second evening there.

We saw the group gathering from our window. Sandy suggested we go down to find out what was happening. Next thing we knew we were in the parade. That changed us. We did not immediately become local residents but we were no longer tourists, either. Ever after, we had no fear about plunging into any situation.

Lesson learned. As a writer you have to be an observer, but that doesn’t always mean hanging back. Sometimes the best way to see is to participate.

Our book gets a rave review in today’s Sunday Star along with some other fine travel books covering a wide range of destinations from Newfoundland to the Middle East.

Michael Hanlon is the very sort of writer you want reviewing your book. He was the respected editor of The Canadian, the weekend magazine that published so many fine writers, and was also a long-time high-profile reporter at the Toronto Star.

Now a freelancer living in Cobourg, Ontario, Hanlon regularly plays armchair traveller and selected our book for inclusion in this lengthy feature. Sandy’s illustrations draw particular praise and he calls our fantasy “well worth sharing.” Here’s a link to the entire piece.

I’ve never before written a book that elicited so much positive feedback as Fantasy in Florence. In the past, my non-fiction work has been about:

• entire industries such as banking and insurance;
• things that went bump in the night - the Confederation Life fiasco and the Sinc Stevens conflict of interest scandal;
• bios and business families - The Eatons, Martha Billes of Canadian Tire and Edgar Bronfman Jr., the man who couldn’t drink straight.

Fantasy in Florence is different. On the surface, it’s a journal about our time there, but it’s really about how to live and how to feel.

As a result, people don’t just comment, they enthuse. Here are a few examples, with the names represented only by initials because people weren’t speaking for attribution, as the journalists would say.

“Loved the book. Florence has always been a favorite city of mine and your book just made me love it that much more.” - JL

“A most enjoyable discovery of your time there and so very well illustrated. It brought back so many memories.” - HM

“This is a love story. I cried at the end.” - SK

Grazie mille.

People are forever tugging on my drinking arm at receptions and saying:? “I’ve always wanted to write a book. How do I go about it?” I used to have a long and complicated response but I could see their eyes glazing over at the two-minute mark.

So I devised a two-sentence answer. Here it is: “Write 500 words a day. At the end of a year you’ll have more than enough for a book.”

People look at me in disbelief, but it’s true. Writing a book is all about discipline. Those who say they plan to start when they go on holiday or reach retirement will never get launched. The only way to write a book is to get under way and keep at it until you’re finished.

For most of the dozen books I’ve written - whether it was The Eatons or Who Killed Confederation Life? - I’ve done a combination of research and interviews. Research can consist of secondary material (newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias, blogs) or primary material (archives, letters, authorized histories).

With interviews, my first step is to sit down and make a list of everyone I know who might be able to tell me something about the topic. Then I start phoning and arranging interviews. At the end of every interview, I always ask: “Who else should I talk to?” People usually are helpful, if only to get me off the line so they can get on with their lives.

If my subject is an individual, I hope that by the time I’ve done thirty interviews, he or she has heard about my project. By the time I’ve done sixty interviews, I hope they’re itching to talk to me when I call.

As soon as research and interviewing begins, so does the writing, if only to lay down the spine of the story. Such daily activity not only gets you in the habit but also shows you the holes that you need to fill.

Fantasy in Florence was a very different project than any I’d tackled before. Set up as a diary, I counted on events to present themselves, but I also created opportunities. In the days ahead, I will blog about the process of writing Fantasy in Florence in ways that I hope will illuminate interested writers and intrigue potential readers to buy the book.

If you do buy it and don’t like it, I hereby undertake to refund your money. Just send an email to me at rod@rodmcqueen.com and I’ll put a cheque in the mail. What could be better than a money-back guarantee?