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Writers live and die by word counts. Everything is measured by number of words: how big is this book? What is the magazine’s preferred article length? How many words to I need to write per day to get me to the 20-30 pages (5,000 to 7,500 words) required by City of Ottawa Arts Funding Program by January 15?

Since returning from the Ontario Archives I’ve held myself to a target of 4 hours or 500 words(whichever comes first), 5 days a week. Sometimes this schedule feels a bit relentless, but overall I have to admit that it is quite comfortable. And the words add up, even though some days I don’t produce the quota because I spend all 4 hours researching.

I’m sitting at about 6,490 words now. That’s 20 double-spaced pages. This is what my process looks like:

1. I read over everything I have about a topic, then I write about it. I stuff my head full of information, say on Dennis’ 1860 survey, then I wander around the house thinking, what am I going to say about this? For awhile the answer is, “I don’t have a clue,” but then I take my own advice from the workshops I teach and pretend I’m telling the story out loud to my best friend: “Have I got a story for you!”

2. I write what I feel like writing. From my outline, I know the overall shape of this book: a chronological narrative of the road, from the first surveys to its current existence as part of Highway 11. Eventually I’ll write the whole story. But I started with the surveyors, because I was most interested in them, and I have great primary source material – their diaries and field notes – and because the 19th century is my favourite historical time period. But I’m already feeling the need to pull up from the detail and write an overview of the district. I’m also getting keen to focus on the settlers: who were they, how did they get here and how did the free grant lands work? If I write what I’m keen to write, the writing should be lively because my enthusiasm should show up on the page.

3. I create little “quilt pieces” of text that I sew together in a separate step. I tend to pick a topic and write a self-contained piece about that and worry about how it’s going to fit into the narrative later. This is something my writer friend Joan taught me years ago: writing is like quilting, where you first make these little squares, then you sew them all together later. So I have a number of quilt pieces so far, like: profiles of the surveyors and how they were connected, first-hand accounts of what the road was like in 1860-61, and a description of early Washago, where the road begins. (They kept some of the rattlesnakes in cages. Really.)

I did set out wanting to take more of a tortoise than a hare approach to this book. So far so good! Nothing yet has flipped me on my back and left me with my feet waving in the air.

I started to write the book last week. Yes, I’m out of the archives and onto the page! Starting with the surveyors’ stories, because that’s where I feel like starting.

You should see my office: piles of open books, propped up maps and pages from surveyor diaries cover my desk and the floor. I sit in the middle of it in front of my laptop, typing, then looking something up (where is Eldon?), typing then checking the Thesaurus (what’s another word for explore?), typing then googling (where is the mouth of the Muskoka river?) 

I worked for four hours today and I have almost the same word count as I had on Friday. 1,626 very rough words. That’s because I did a lot of rewriting, trying for the right blend of storytelling and data, and trying for the right pace. I want this book to be more story than data. By that I mean that I want to offer the facts in such a way that the reader almost doesn’t notice that she’s learning something. That’s how I like to learn – and write – about history.

I could tell you that Charles Unwin surveyed the 25 miles from Lake Couchiching to the Great Falls on the South Branch of the Muskoka River in 1856-57 and you’d learn something. But wouldn’t you rather know that nobody wanted to hire on with his survey team because he was paying less than anyone else in town and there was plenty of other construction work in Orillia for guys to do? So he had to write to his boss and, in beautiful 19th century style, “respectfully beg” to be able to pay his guys the going rate.

So now you’ve learned a little more about the management issues faced by the surveyors, the competitive labour market in Orillia in 1856, the tight rein the government had on the surveyors’ expenses, and also – I hope –  about business correspondence as it compares to today. (Fun idea: send your boss an email and sign off with, “I have the honour to be, Sir, your most humble servant.”)

This is how I like to learn about history: though story. This is how I like to write about history, even though it might take me half a day to find Unwin’s accounts and field notes on microfilm and then photocopy and type the relevant bits so I have a colourful paragraph or two to include in the book.

How about you? Don’t you wish your history teacher taught more in story style than with data?

Last week, Mr. Busy and I spent four glorious research days in Toronto. I say glorious because:

• I got to read the hand-written diaries and field notes of several Muskoka Road surveyors (and found out the black flies were just as horrific in Muskoka in the 1850s as they are today.)
  

• We got to go to surveyor David Gibson’s house, which still stands in North York and which in 1851 was a 5-hour horseback ride from Toronto.

• I found the only copy in Ontario of a guidebook called, “The Ferguson Highway: Beauty Spots and Points of Interest in Northern Ontario”, published in 1929. (This was at the Toronto Reference Library and yes, I’ll admit that only another researcher would understand my delight.)

We also went to see the new smash musical “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” which is FABULOUS, although way outside the scope of this blog.

What I want to tell you is this: I should have taken better care of my physical self. Four days of hunching over a microfilm reader has pinched all the muscles in my neck and upper back and aggravated my arthritis, which I have in every joint in my body. I know better – but got caught up in the research.

So aside from a trip to the gym immediately upon our return and a 9-1-1 call to my massage therapist, I have renewed my vow to maintain a healthy balance while writing this book. For me, a healthy balance means that every day of the week I:

1. Do work on the book, then

2. Do something physical, then

3. Do something else.

I think lack of balance is an occupational hazard for writers. The work is sedentary, and the nature of the material we work with – whether researching or creating a fictional world – is so seductive, we are prone to sitting at our desks, living happily in our heads, for way too long. It takes discipline to stand up and walk away from something that is so very interesting.

“Dedication, not discipline” it says on my whiteboard. I meant that as a reminder to myself to not get too intense about the project; to make sure I enjoy the process. But I’m thinking that in another context, discipline is not such a bad idea. A little discipline… a little dedication to staying balanced and physically healthy, is exactly what I need.

It is not going to cost me a lot of money to write this book. It will, however, cost me some money. I will have to go to the Ontario Archives in Toronto at least twice. I will have to travel to and around Muskoka. Parking alone in downtown Ottawa, where I spent time at the Archives and at the main branch of the library, cost $30 in one day. Some reference material will cost money to borrow, like the book I’ve ordered from the University of Guelph.

The money I make from writing magazine articles and running workshops doesn’t come close to covering the expenses I will incur in the writing of this book.

I’ve never applied for arts funding before, but I plan to do so this time. This is what arts funding is for. To help cover the cost of doing the business of making art, and to help pay for the daily living expenses of the artist while she’s working on a project.

The rules of the game are:

• I have to show that I am a professional writer, which is defined by the Ontario Arts Council as someone who “has developed skills through training and/or practice AND is recognized as such by artists working in the same artistic tradition, AND has a history of public presentation or publication AND seeks payment for his/her work AND actively practices his or her art.”
• I have to provide documentation of at least three “publishing credits”: books, stories or articles I’ve published and been paid for. My workshops (for which I am paid) may or may not count. My self-published book does not count.
• I have to provide between 20 and 40 pages of manuscript, depending on the funding program I apply to.
• If I receive a grant, I have to provide a report describing how much writing I was able to accomplish due to the receipt of the grant. 

Deadline for application to the City of Ottawa is January 17, and to the Ontario Arts Council is February 15, 2011.

Life just got a whole lot busier.