I'm moderately talented in a number of ways yet I have never ever managed to be first in competitive endeavours, been runner-up many times and the only time I was adjudged to be a winner I had to share the position with another competitor (quite unfairly I thought). Now the question arises - 'do I subconsciously want to avoid the pressure of being a winner'?, or, am I such a nice guy that I can't help saying "no, no, no, you go first!", or, do the judges, adjudicators, referees and the like all lack good judgement?
Despite what I said about being moderately talented I am in reality quite modest. I prefer to listen rather than talk and, unlike most people, I never give unwanted opinions. These are two character traits that will inevitably leave one submerged in obscurity. But there is one thing I desperately want to achieve. I have written a Novel and I would like everyone to read it. I refer to it as a novel because while it is ninety eight percent factual there is a two percent margin for writer's creativity. Thus, being scrupulously honest, I must refer to my work as fiction since the fact has been contaminated with a minute measure of entertaining additive. I don't have the reputation or celebrity to command a captive audience so I am left searching for other ways to deliver my work to the eyes and minds of the general public. I thought about offering my manuscript to a creative writing school with the challenge to 'in training' writers to polish and perfect it so that Oprah might consider including it in her library of 'must read' books. My most recent idea is to blog it. What do you think? If I were to publish one chapter per week, in less than one year the entire book would be available for the world to scrutinize and who knows - it might become a Blog Buster Story. It would not make me rich but it would make me very happy.
So here's the pitch, I'd like everyone who reads the blog to send the link to their email contacts in the knowledge that I will be eternally grateful to you for having done so. Chapter one will commence October 3rd 2010.
Prologue
It has often been said that Kelowna is Canada’s best-kept secret. Located
approximately at the mid point of the Okanagan Valley, Kelowna has
become a haven for retired people to enjoy their sunset years in tranquility
and a haven for tourists to relax on a no-hurry vacation.
For the first while, after arriving in Kelowna, it seemed that almost everyone
I met came from somewhere else. The large population of retired people are
perhaps less restricted by weather conditions than anywhere else in this great
country, and, there are enough Golf Courses to keep alive their hopes of one
day winning a Masters tournament. They do not have to suffer the wind
lashed rain of coastal regions nor the frigid winter blizzards of the prairies.
Long warm summers and cool refreshing winters make living very tolerable.
The Okanagan Valley, which runs north to south for a few hundred
kilometres, is a richly fertile terrain and ideally suited for growing fruit
crops, and the length and breadth of the valley, is spotted with orchards and
vineyards. Tributaries cascading from the surrounding mountains feed a
multitude of lakes. For people who have lived their lives in the hustle and
bustle of an urban jungle, this must surely feel like paradise found.
However, it would seem that paradise is not without its perils. The notion
that we become wiser and more knowledgeable as we get older is, I believe,
valid. Yet I think true knowledge and true wisdom can only be gained
through experience, and that in the absence of experience knowledge is
reduced to theory and wisdom is reduced to supposition. When the lesser
masquerades as the greater we become vulnerable.
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