muskoka colonization road

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.

Award-winning writer Charlotte Gray (my idol – have I mentioned that?) says that “every research trip is a fishing trip.” I think this is true. But there are two styles of fishing: there’s casting a net, and there’s setting a line. I’m not sure if Charlotte said that or if I did, but in any case, last week I cast my net in the online catalogues of:

• the public libraries in Ottawa and Muskoka;
• Library and Archives Canada (LAC); and
• the Ontario Archives (OA) in Toronto…

 looking for anything they have on the Muskoka Road. Some of this I know from the article I wrote, but now I can indulge in more detail.

My focus until Christmas (as you, my loyal followers will know from earlier posts!) is on the surveyors of the road. But I know that I will find most of the information about the surveyors in the Ontario Archives in Toronto. In fact, most of the data I need for the entire book is in Toronto. Toronto is a five-hour drive and it doesn’t make much sense to make a separate trip there for every single topic in the book. So I’ve decided:

1. To order up everything I think I’ll need  for the book from the OA catalogue, drive to Toronto and look at all of it over a few days. (I know I’ll have to go back.)
2. Wait until early November to go to Toronto, when Mr. Busy can come with me. We’ll combine the research trip into a bit of a getaway. 
3. Meantime, order up  everything I think I’ll need from the public libraries and LAC, taking advantage of the time before the Toronto trip to review some local material.

 The search of local material has snagged all kinds of fascinating results! Like: A Guidebook Containing Information for Intending Settlers With Illustrations, published by the Government of Canada in 1886. And a photograph titled, “Dredge fleet at Muskoka Road, December 1916.” Neither of these have anything to do with the surveyors, of course. Plus, each one includes an interesting twist. The guidebook is only available through the University of Guelph library and they charge $12.00 plus $2.00 shipping to lend it out. The photograph is actually a glass negative, available for viewing only at LAC’s “preservation centre” in Gatineau, and only with prior arrangements with an archivist.

I ordered the guidebook and will talk about my need for arts funding in a later post. I’ve deferred arranging to look at the photograph until later.

This net-casting is dangerous work! I can easily drown in data. I can easily get sidetracked and lose sight of what I wanted to achieve as a first milestone. I have to force myself to file information that is not related to the first milestone and look at it later. (I should probably have delayed ordering the guidebook until after Christmas!) I need really, really good records and files, so that months from now I can cast my line directly to a piece of data that I already know exists, instead of casting my net all over again, trying to remember where I saw a particular reference that I now need.

To remind myself of this, here’s what I’ve added to my whiteboard:

There are two ways to plan out this project overall:

1. Figure out how I’m going to get from today to a finished manuscript a year from now.
2. Identify the first milestone, plan for achieving that, then adjust as needed. Identify the next milestone, then repeat until the manuscript is finished.

I’m choosing Option 2. Until I get into the research more, I can’t do a good job of planning the entire project. I’d prefer to get started and adjust as I go, of course keeping the end in mind.

So for now, I’m going to define the first milestone.

I’ve already decided that I want to start with the surveyors of the road. I think you should always start a project with something you find really enticing, and these guys – Gibson, Dennis et al – were fascinating people in their own right. They also pioneered some new surveying standards that literally laid out the province of Ontario. But imagine if you will – pulling a length of metal chain 66 feet long through virgin forest, based on a sighting taken by a “circumferentor.” Better send the axemen in first to hack down all the trees that are in the way!

I’d like to start with a short time-frame, between now and the end of December. That allows me to assess and re-adjust before I get too far along. So here’s a bit of book math:

Days available, Oct 12 to Dec 23, not including weekends =

53 days

X 50% (Remember, this project is to be “joy, not a job.” This gives me plenty of contingency!) =

26 days

So here it is – [insert all appropriate fanfare]:

My first Goal/Milestone: Complete research on 19th century and modern surveyors of the road and their methods. Draft one or two stories highlighting the experiences of early settlers.

A more detailed task list is here: Task List Towards the First Milestone

Off I go!

I need a project plan. I know this because I was a project manager for 20 years. Plus, I’m more of a planner than a “seat-of-the-pantser” by nature. I also want to enjoy the process of writing this book, maintain momentum while keeping in balance all the other things I’m doing in life, and meet my deadlines.

So today I started planning from the top down, with a big picture and some stakes in the ground.

Here is my overall goal: To write this book in balance with all the other aspects of my life.

The balance thing is vitally important to me. I teach writing workshops, write this weekly blog and other non-fiction articles. I own a house and a cottage and have two young-adult children still at home and a husband who works out of town 10 days a month. Just to name a few of the balls I’ll be juggling, while I try to maintain momentum on this project.

Momentum is also really important. I’ve learned that you can lose a lot of time by going away from a writing project, because you have to re-orient yourself when you return to it before you can be productive again. It will be easy for me to work daily when hubby (Mr. Busy) is out of town. When he’s here, we tend to hang out together, or travel a bit, or go for long lunches. Maybe some changes are in store? Regardless, I want to manage my time so the writing is a pleasure, not a pressure.

This is my overall timetable: 1 year.

Sounds like a long time, doesn’t it? I think so too, sometimes, until I remind myself that research is like a kitchen renovation. To estimate the time it will take, you start with the longest possible time you can imagine. Then you double that, and you might be close.

There are two key elements in the story that I want to tell: The Muskoka Road itself and the people who walked or lived along the road.

I am fascinated by road-building “technology” and how it changed over the century I’m writing about. (Imagine being a contractor facing a wall of eighty-foot-high white pines with an axe in your hand, and maybe you can see why.) And I want to tell the stories of the surveyors, the settlers and the entrepreneurs who made and used the road.

I’m using the whiteboard in my office to help me stay anchored in what is really important:

Hey, I’ve just found out that “Clio” is the muse of history and writing! Whoo hoo – I have a muse! I’ll look for a picture of her to add to the white board.