5 Things I Learned in My 30 Second Meeting of Canada’s Greatest Know It All

A few of my mom’s relatives came out to visit the other week. At one point, most of us decided to enjoy the sunshine and wind and to go for a bit of a walk (9 of us–10 if you count the dog). We wandered down the strip of land my parents own by the tracks, reached the end, slipped over the tracks and down the embankment and into the far end of the hamlet. South of the ball diamond and over the abandoned old teeter totters (which seemingly still work just fine) we went.

Where to next?

Out came the smart phones as we decided to see if there were any geocaches near by. And lo and behold, there was one we hadn’t found only a few hundred meters away.

My aunt, who was up the road from us a way, as our strange, disjointed meanderings broke the group apart when the phones came out. A black pickup stopped beside her and I saw her pointing to the fishing dam with one of her sister’s walking poles. When she caught up with us she giggled, saying, “I gave him directions to the fishing dam and told him good luck.”

“It’s okay, I have a 4×4,” the man had said.

“No,” she replied. “You are getting your directions from me!” (She lives about 3000kms away.)

Meanwhile, my husband was just about jumping out of his skin. “Was that the guy from Canada’s Greatest Know it All? He was on Canada’s Greatest Know it all!!! I’m sure that was him!”

However, nobody else had seen the Discovery Channel show and couldn’t verify whether or not this really was a contestant from Canada’s Greatest Know It All. (Even I wasn’t much help. I’d caught bits of the show over my husband’s shoulder, but I hadn’t gotten a good glimpse of the driver when he’d passed us on his way to the dam.)

But I knew that the dam wasn’t all that time-consuming as a destination at this time of the year and that if he’d asked for directions heading there he certainly wouldn’t take the back roads out of the dam. He was sure to come back the way he’d come.

And he did.

My other aunt offered to lie in the road so my husband could get a good look at the driver and verify if it was indeed this local celebrity. We didn’t need to fear that though, with us all milling about in the road, he slowed, his window rolled down. He had more questions. Was it free camping down at the dam?

“Yes,” I replied and then pointed in the direction of the free sewer dump saying that it was free as well.

My husband, practically bouncing beside me (and very unlike his usual quiet self) asked him, “Were you on TV? Were you on Canada’s Greatest Know It All?”

The man gave a little smile and said that yes, that was him.

My husband, who had yet to finish watching the season online, asked, “Did you win? I missed the last episode.”

The man paused, then said, “You know, I don’t remember.”

My husband, whipping out his phone asked, “Can I take a picture of you for my daughter?” (Read that: for him so he could show the kids at school (where he works) and pretty much anyone else who might be dazzled by this awesome brush with fame. Although our daughter is a fan of the show as well and had stayed behind to hang with Grandma–due to the general leg pulling that happens in our family, visual evidence is always a plus when telling a story such as this one.)

The man said sure and suddenly I’m holding the phone as my husband (usually a shy guy) is standing beside the man’s open window, smiling, thumbs up.

I can’t see the screen on the phone in the sunshine and the cab is backlit as I’m looking into the sun, but I think I sort of get a picture. I explain I can’t see the picture, but that I think I got it.

The man pops out of his truck saying how we’re not going to get a good picture shooting into the cab as well as into the sun. (It’s true.) Before I know it, he’s out on the road beside my husband, smiling, thumbs up. (His wife and dog, meanwhile, are being very patient with us.)

I take the picture.

5 Things I Learned From My Quick Meeting of Canada’s Greatest Know It All (CGKIA):

1. You Can’t Know It All

Even with the title “Canada’s Greatest Know It All” you can’t know it all. (Yes, he won.) How do you think CGKIA got to know so much? By asking. And listening. As writers, we need to stop and ask. Even if we become ‘huge’ it still pays to stop and ask a local. Or unlocal, as the case may be.

2. Be Modest

There is no point being so full of yourself that you can’t stop and ask for directions. Pride gets in the way of living and doing what you really want. If he’d been boastful about his title, my husband would not have been nearly so pumped having met him. If CGKIA had been prideful and big-headed, he wouldn’t have discovered one of the area’s best kept camping secrets–or at least he would have spent a lot more time and gas in discovering it. Make it easy on yourself–if you don’t know, ask.

3. Don’t Spoil the Ending

In the case of CGKIA, he didn’t reveal whether he’d won or not to my husband. It would have spoiled the end of the show for my husband who was obviously a fan. For writers–if you meet a reader on the street, don’t reveal the ending of your book. Say you can’t remember. We’ll know you’re lying, but we’ll love you for it. (Plus, this added to Mr. Celebrity’s modest demeanor–always refreshing.)

4. Be a Good Sport

I was so impressed with how CGKIA jumped right out of his truck so my husband could get a good shot of the two of them together. That was pretty awesome. As writers, there may come a time when people stop us to ask for our autograph or to sign their books. Be gracious. Be a good sport. What is 2 minutes out of our day to make a fan feel unbelievable? That’s what’s going to help our personal brand and image. Right there. Easy.

5. Six Degrees of Separation

While watching the show, CGKIA, my husband told my daughter that her mom (me) probably knew someone who knew someone who knew CGKIA because he lived close to where I grew up. Since we bumped into CGKIA right there on the road leading out of the town I grew up in… I’d say that the degrees of separation can pretty darn small these days.

For me, this is some pretty serious food for thought. As writers, when we become famous and are pumping out bestsellers like we’re an unspayed stray, keep in mind how connected we are to all these perfect strangers. Someone is going to know someone who tweeted with us. Or served us dinner in a diner (yeah, we’re still going to eat in diners), or gave us directions. How should we behave? Sure, writers aren’t often recognized on the street, but still. It is worth thinking about. In today’s world we’re going to be connected to fans in ways previous generations of writers never imagined.

How about you? Have you had a brush with celebrity? Has it given you food for thought?

I’m Big In England

Okay, maybe not ‘big’ per se…

Maybe not *this* big...

However, my query hook has made it into the Guardian’s Book Blog. (The Guardian is a Jolly Big newspaper in Lovely Ol’ England.)

“From “VI Warshawski meets Lucy and Ethel” to The Price, in which “two elves decide to defect from their kingdom and make new lives in a neighbouring land”, or The 15 Date Rule (“for astrophysicist Allie, falling in love is as easy as identifying the planet Venus”), it’s an eclectic mix of submissions, and Bransford has collected an impressive response rate from wannabe agents.”

The 15 Date Rule! That’s me! Something I wrote is being quoted in a BIG newspaper across the world! How freaking cool is that!!? It gives me a shot of hope when only a few days ago I felt a bit like a crash test dummy that had finally rounded that ‘last’ corner and slammed into the proverbial brick wall and was left to slide down, a mortifying tangle of limbs and bruises.

Thanks Guardian and thanks Nathan. This made my day. Oh heck, my week!

The Oprah Machine

From Publishers Lunch February 29^th, 2008:

“Following Oprah’s enthusiastic endorsement Eckhart Tolle’s A NEW EARTH has added another 3.45 million copies in print, “the record for the most copies ever shipped by Penguin Group USA in a four-week period.” That’s on top of an initial shipment of 776,000 copies in advance of the Oprah announcement. BN buyer Jules Herbert says “for the first four weeks on sale [it] is our bestselling Oprah’s Book Club title.” The publisher says over 500,000 people have registered for the 10-week webinar that begins next Monday night.”

The Oprah machine never ceases to amaze me. She says something is great and all these people blindly follow her. She would make a great cult leader. Or maybe she already is. After all, she is charismatic, has people giving her money (Angel Network), taking her word as truth and more. Lately, I haven’t been able to watch her show because she has these amazing people on and then cuts them off and talks over them and puts words in their mouths or interrupts to talk about herself and her experiences when she initiated the subject—or a related one—which was supposed to be about her guest and what they do. Why does she even bother to have guests on her show? She could just ask herself questions. Plus the vast amounts of product placement and commercials and self promotion turns me off. There is no longer any content outside of Oprah and her products.

While I commend Oprah for encouraging North America to become more literate and is helping authors out by placing her little book club sticker on their books and instantly launching books onto bestseller lists, I also feel uncomfortable. Mostly because she has this great pulling power. Her current pick is about changing your life and leading with purpose, which is good. Many people are searching for purpose—myself included—yet there is something about this that doesn’t quite jive. Maybe it is her commercialism. Maybe it is the fact that she is a celebrity who can no longer bear the thought of sharing a bar of soap with another person. In other words, who is she to tell us how to live? She thinks we should all be spanx wearing, purposeful life driven consumers. If we are busy trying to emulate her and be all purposeful and enlightened yet trying to buy, buy, buy, what is going to happen? I think we are going to actually push ourselves further away from who we are truly supposed to be.

At the end of the Oprah day, we are going to be less the vision that she is trying to lure us towards, because in the end, Oprah just wants us to consume what she’s peddling.

Celebrity Look Alike

I tried the My Heritage Celebrity look alike thing online. Is it a good thing if it thinks you look like Donny Osmond and Justin Timberlake? On the flip side, it says that I also look like some females. Specifically, Lindsay Lohan and Marcia Cross and tee, hee, Monica Lewinsky too. My friend looks like Darwin. Which, actually, he kind of does. I think it is the beard though.

Oh the wonderful things you can do on the web when you are procrastinating writing a synopsis. Or rather editing it down into a few, concise and witty few pages. No pressure here. Just trying to hook people with it. Eeeeeeee…

Maybe I should go play Lego some more…

Hang on, my husband is out of town and the Internet is still working. Woah. That is cool.