To find out more about her and her books: DianeScottLewis
To find out more about her and her books: DianeScottLewis
https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/
I
took a few writing courses and began my published, writing career (as
opposed to my unpublished writing career) with a short story titled A Hawk's Reluctant Flight, in a small
magazine called Western People. With that on my short resume, I
had travel and historical articles accepted by other magazines, one
of which didn't pay anything to the author. Then I took another writing course
and one of the speakers was Grant Kennedy owner of Lone Pine Publishing in
Edmonton, Alberta.
At the time Alberta was divided into tourist zones and I had been thinking about doing a book on what there was to see and do in each zone. I sent a query letter to Lone Pine Publishing and the senior editor responded with a phone call. We set up a time for me to go to the city and meet with her and Grant Kennedy.
I outlined my idea and Grant said yes it
was a good one but he thought that the books should be more on the people and
culture of each zone. He liked his idea and I liked mine so we decided we
couldn't work together. As I stood to leave I said. "Well, at least as I
research the zones I will see all the backroads of Alberta." He replied.
"I've always want to do a book on the backroads of Alberta." I sat
back down and that was how I began my backroads series. Over the next ten years
I travelled through and wrote two books on Alberta, four books on British
Columbia and one on the Yukon and Alaska.
My favourite books to read have
always been mystery novels and after much thought I decided to write
one. Since one of the mantras of writing is to write what you know I made my main character a travel writer. She
was headed to southern Alberta to do research for a magazine and was drawn
into the mystery of a skeleton found in a septic tank. When I was finished I
sent it out to a few publishers. One wrote back that they liked it but my
travel background was coming out and I had too much travel information in it. I
was asked to remove some. So I did and resent my manuscript. Again, I was asked
to cut back on the travel info. Again I did. The third time I was told that
this was a mystery and I should stick with the mystery and leave out the travel
stuff. I wrote back and said that the main character is a travel writer and is
working on an article. She is not going to drop that and concentrate on the
mystery. So needless to say we parted ways.
I sent out the
manuscript again and another publisher said they were interested in publishing
it. They had one stipulation and that was that I should add
in more travel information.
I sent the second
novel of what I was calling my Travelling Detective Series to the same
publisher. After about a five month wait I received a letter that told me the
publishing house had been bought out by another one and that my manuscript and
all my information had been sent to them. I waited a few months the emailed the
new publisher to find out what was happening. A couple of days later I
received an email stating that they had no record of my manuscript. My heart
sunk. But a few days after that I received an email from another editor at the
publishing house that they had found my manuscript and they wanted to
publish it.
However, in the time between that email
and the publishing date for my novel, the publishing house was sold again.
The new owner was going to honour my contracts, but in the future wasn't going
to publish mysteries. I knew there was no use sending my third manuscript to
that publisher and after checking around I sent it to Books We Love. They
immediately accepted it and e-published it. After two years of talking
with my former publisher I was able to get the rights to my first two novels of
the series and now all three are published with Books We Love Ltd. as a boxed
set.
https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/
Over my writing career I have written non fiction travel books, and mystery, historical, and holiday romance novels. One year, after taking a two day, play writing course, I wrote a stage play. I entered my play in the Fringe held in the small town where I lived. It was accepted and then came the hard part: finding actors and props, producing, and directing it.
I needed a male and a female lead actor and I asked two people who had been in plays in our local theatre before. They agreed and I gave them each a copy of the play. We met and had a run through with us discussing how we each saw the characters. Their interpretation of their character's actions and attitude were sometimes different from mine, but, other than a few places where I felt a certain delivery was needed, I let them decide how to play the part. Through our many rehearsals with the props, which my husband, Mike, was in charge of, the characters evolved and took shape as we discovered better ways for them move, react, and relate.
I also needed actors for a party scene and I approached people I knew and/or worked with in my quest. Even though I told them that they would only be on stage for less than five minutes, that all they had to do was listen to the male actor beak off about how good he was, and that they had no lines, many gave a flat no, explaining that they could never get up on stage in front of an audience. Some agreed so I gave them the times of our next two rehearsals. Most of them never showed up. I kept asking people: my cats' vet, the owner of a new store in town, the person who donated some props. But I only had the same two people show up for any of the rehearsals and it looked like Mike and I would be making our acting debut. I was beginning to worry. Maybe I would have to drag up some of the audience members.
On the evening of the first presentation, two of the three who had attended rehearsals, two actors in another play and I made up the attendees of the party. For the Saturday matinee the partiers were, one of my three regulars along with two members of my dragon boat team, the two actors from the other play, a theatre volunteer, and myself.
One thing I did learn was that for something like the Fringe where plays are being presented one after the other, having a lot of props is not a good idea. Because I was showing a story instead of telling a story, I had over forty props, some large ones being: fridge, stove, desk, computer, sewing machine, two chairs, table; smaller ones being: duster, broom, envelope, paper, boxes, material, pens, wine bottle and glasses, and many more. The play after me had only two tables, two chairs, a laundry basket and some beer bottles. Another play I watched had some tea cups and teddy bears.
On the first evening there were going to be four separate plays, mine being the first. That was perfect because it gave us time to set up our scene. However, at the end, we had to get our props off stage so that the next play could set theirs up before their showing. Our actors became stage hands and things disappeared in a hurry. The same happened on Saturday afternoon.
The important thing I learned was that while I had written the words, I was at the mercy of the actors to show up for the rehearsals, learn their lines, and speak those words on stage. My female lead was off book (I did get to know some of the lingo) quickly, but the male lead found it harder to remember his lines. He also missed some of the rehearsals.
Putting on a stage play isn't like making a movie. You don't get to go back and redo a scene. When asked, the way I put it is, opening night did not go as rehearsed. To be honest, it wasn't even close. The male character kept forgetting his lines or changing them which threw the female character off, as well as the lighting guy and Mike who had to operate a smoke machine.
The Saturday afternoon presentation went better. He still missed many of his lines but the audience laughed when they were supposed to and they understood, and laughed at, the twisted ending. I was elated and hearing that laughter made the whole process worthwhile. And I do believe I will try another play for next year, but I will keep the props to a minimum and have the actors tell the story instead of show the story.
While there were many mishaps and problems getting my play to the stage, the most memorable is about our wine bottle. We needed a wine bottle for the opening scene, so I rinsed one out and filled it with water. We used it for our first on stage rehearsal and left it along with our other props for our full dress rehearsal the next evening. When I went to find it for that rehearsal, it was gone. We searched everywhere and couldn’t find it, so we used a beer bottle in its place. We laughed and hoped that the person hadn't decided to take it as a hostess gift to some fancy dinner. I found another wine bottle for our opening night. At the end of the evening I discovered our first bottle by the back door, empty. That person must have thought it was the weakest, worst tasting wine ever made.