Wildlife Rescue Series!

So I was up til 11:30 last night reading through the second page proofs of Gaia Wild. This is the stage where we’re not reading for content any more, but for mistakes — typos, dropped words, extra words, changes from the last round that have been missed, dropped folios, chapter-page number correlations … that sort of thing.

By the time the author is looking at second pages, changes should be minimal to nil. This is generally the last time an author sees his or her book. The publisher will then go through a couple more revisions in-house, correcting the minutiae. But as far as the author is concerned, this is it.

HOWEVER … that wasn’t the case last night. What I found were numerous “introduced errors” — mistakes made by a [probably exhausted, deadline-rushed] typesetter in the process of inputting the corrections from round one.

So it looks like we’ll go to round three. Sigh. It feels to me as though this book has been a long time coming — it was part of my original series proposal in the fall of 2003. So it’s been a five-year gestation period. Even elephants don’t carry their pregnancies that long–about 22 months, whereas this will be 60!

Funny though, it’s always worth all the work and struggle and mess-ups, all the detours and stalls and delays.

Sigh. Did I say that already? Sigh.

I WANT MY GAIA WILD!

Bark! Magazine for Kids!

Originally uploaded by Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series

Can you say “Dream Job” ???! Dear blog readers and Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series fans, I’m pleased as punch to announce that I am the new Humane Education Supervisor with the BC SPCA!

This means that I get to work with the Kids’ Club, in which there are almost 3,000 members now throughout British Columbia … AND I get to write and edit Bark! Magazine, which comes out four times a year and is filled with amazing facts and stories about all kinds of animals!

After seven and a half years of self-employment, I made the decision to return to the regular workforce once I realized that by this fall, I would have three books under my belt. You see, I’d heard from publishers and agents alike that once a series reaches three books, it begins to take on a life of its own.

I decided I could have a bit of a life of MY own once that happened. And here I am!

More Kids’ Club and Bark! news to come. AND … more Gaia Wild news soon, too! Stay tuned!

Steve & Di

Originally uploaded by Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series

However noble my intentions may be to change the world for animals through my books, the questions I get from readers — of all ages — come down to this: For the love of all things holy, when is Jane going to get a boyfriend?

Without spoiling the plot lines for anybody who hasn’t read either Flight or Fight or Crow Medicine yet, the specific questions run along these lines:

What really happened with Jake?
Is it my imagination, of is Daniel flirting with Jane?
I know he’s a lot older than Jane is, but wouldn’t Marcello be a good match?

and

What the heck is going on with Mike?

And so to all of you who’ve posed these questions, and to all of you who’ve wondered in silence … I have begun work on Gaia Wild, book 3 in Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series. And now that I have love in my life, I may just be generous enough to allow Jane a little more in hers.

Just don’t expect a smooth ride in book 3! The road is often bumpy, with many surprising twists and turns. But for Jane, the biggest surprise of all is that at the end of every rough patch and around every one of those corners, there’s more love than there was before.

And you get better at the ride.

Gaia Wild is scheduled for release this Fall 2008. I’ll keep you posted as I progress with the research and writing.

p.s. Hi Steve!

Asian elephant Maharani gave birth to a 140-kg (308 lb) female calf at the Calgary Zoo yesterday (Thursday, August 9). The little one has not yet been named.

This is Maharani’s second calf in three years. She gave birth in November of 2004 as well, but rejected the calf, and without the mother-child bond that is so necessary in high-level, highly social mammals, the calf failed to thrive, and soon died.
As a result, the zoo team sweated Maharani’s 22-month pregnancy this time around. The captive breeding program is part of a worldwide effort to save Asian elephants from extinction. Every birth is celebrated, and with every death, we fail a population that is disappearing to habitat encroachment and poaching.

The fear that Maharani may again fail to bond with her infant may be one reason the zoo is holding off naming the baby. Once we name something, we connect to it. And once we’re connected, any loss hurts all the more. But when you see a photo of this newborn elephant, bewildered by birth and struggling for life, you will feel connected, name or no name.

This elephant’s birth reminds me of another elephant born in captivity not so very long ago - April 26, 1970. Tina spent 34 years of her life in a small enclosure at the Greater Vancouver Zoo, much of it in a state of extreme boredom and loneliness and suffering serious foot problems because of the surfaces on which she stood. When it came to light that the Zoo was planning to sell her to a circus operator known to have abused his other animals, journalist Nicholas Read sparked a huge media campaign, bringing in Peter Fricker of the Vancouver Humane Society and Julie Woodyer of Zoocheck Canada, and leading to an enormous outcry from a public who had long held Tina in great affection. The result was a massive rescue effort that led to Tina’s journey to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, where she spent the last year of her life in the company of her own kind, in as much freedom as she had ever seen in her lifetime.

It took me less than a second — the time it takes to see a photograph, to absorb its content and process what that content means to me — to fall in love with Maharani’s new baby. I can even applaud the Calgary’s Zoo’s contribution to conservation efforts; wild animals don’t belong in zoos, but in so many cases now, zoos may have become their only hope for survival as a species.

But I can’t forget Tina, or how much she suffered (despite how much she was loved). We have Zoocheck to tell us how well our zoos are doing on the animal welfare front. But we don’t have the laws in place to enforce Zoocheck’s standards, should a zoo fail to meet them.

It is not enough to bring them into the world. We need to make the world a safer place to bring them into. We need to do more. We need to change the laws.

Go look at her photo, little whatever-her-name-will-be. Fall in love. And then find out what you can about the laws designed to protect her. We are her guardians.

I met with my publisher last week and handed him a synopsis for Gaia Wild. It’s with the editorial folks now, awaiting approval (or ???). R liked it; he thought it was the best one yet, the most cohesive and well thought out. Maybe because I actually told the whole story, ending included. In 2003, when all this began, my naivete combined with my background in marketing and sales led me to submit synopses that ended in cliffhangers. I’ve since learned that’s a no-no.
That said, I have no intention of publishing the ending of the book here and now; you get the cliffhanger version. Beyond that, though, we’re looking at ways (R and I) of using a social networking tool such as Facebook to do some advance promotion of the book. I read recently about Toronto author Michael Winter whose publisher, Penguin Canada, has set him up to publish daily on Facebook throughout the process of creating his new novel, The Architects are Here. Interested readers can subscribe to his posts through a special URL. They’re calling it a serialization of the novel, but that’s a misnomer (Charles Dickens serialized; Michael Winter will be promoting). Nevertheless, I think it’s a great idea and worth a try, and it sounds like fun. Stay tuned here for more information about the pseudo-serialization of Gaia Wild.

And meanwhile, a little about the story:

GAIA WILD

Jane can’t believe her eyes … there’s an elephant on Elfin Lake. Not just any elephant, either. It’s Gaia. And Jane knows her—from a long, long time ago.

It’s Jane Ray’s senior year, a whirlwind of new classes and teachers, final exams, graduation, and deciding what the heck to do with the rest of her life. After a summer vacation that got a little too life-and-death for her liking, Jane’s happy just to focus on school and her volunteer work at the Urban Wildlife Rescue Center. As for her lackluster social life, she’s decided it might be time to let her wild side take over … if she can only find it. I mean, really, Universe, would it be too much to ask for a boyfriend while I still have my youthful good looks?

Actually, the Universe has other plans ….

Gaia, a 35-year-old Indian elephant, is on loan from the Raincity Zoo to Animal Actors Inc. to see if she’s got what it takes to make it in the entertainment biz. If this commercial shoot on Elfin Lake goes well, Animal Actors Inc. will buy Gaia from the Zoo and put her to work in film and TV. If she acts up, however, the deal is off, and she goes back to the Zoo.

Timo Lausanne, owner of Raincity Zoo, cares about his animals, sure, but he’s a businessman first and foremost, and he’s got a bottom line to worry about. He’s losing sleep over the Animal Actors Inc. deal, hoping for Gaia’s sake and his own that everything goes smoothly. He’s heard some dodgy things about the company, but the sale will mean a longer life for the elephant, and a nice chunk of change and ongoing residuals for him. She’s old, frankly, at least as far as zoo attractions go, and she’s not that healthy. It’s not hard to conceal her foot infections during the shoot, but the head-swinging’s growing worse, her vet bills are getting ridiculous, and lately she’s been refusing to eat. Her handler, Raj, is starting to make noises about retiring her, but where? How? It’s not like there’s an old folks’ home for pachyderms anywhere in Vancouver. And no zoo in North America’s going to buy a lame, half-crazy, 35-year-old elephant. No, Timo’s made up his mind: if Animal Actors Inc. doesn’t take her, it’ll be time to put her down.

With the help of Flory’s research prowess, Jane learns that Gaia has spent 33 of her 35 years in a small yard at Raincity Zoo—thousands of miles from her true home, and mostly alone. Jane remembers meeting her as a little girl, when the Zoo offered elephant rides to their young visitors. She fell in love with the giant, gentle creature then, her tough, bristled hide and her wise, twinkling eyes. Was it possible that in all the intervening years, as Jane had grown, played, made friends, gone to school, Gaia had done nothing but walk around and around the perimeter of that small, barren enclosure?

Horrified at having forgotten Gaia all these years, and convinced the elephant is one of the reasons she loves animals so much now, Jane sets out to sabotage the Zoo’s deal with Animal Actors Inc. Posing as Production Assistants on set, Jane, Amy and Flory snoop around for any information that could put the kibosh on Gaia’s sale, but wind up with more than they bargained for: horrifying footage of Denny Arcola abusing his animal “employees.”

Their undercover op puts the girls in contact with Heath Marin, a cub reporter at the local paper who’s been sniffing around the shady entertainment company ever since it set up shop in Vancouver. Despite the fact that they almost blow his cover, Heath can’t help but develop a grudging liking for these gutsy girls—particularly the quiet one with the long, dark hair and flashing blue eyes. Jane would be thrilled with Heath’s attentions, if it weren’t for the fact that Mike MacGillivray has suddenly started sending her long, rambling (could they be romantic??) letters from Cortes Island, where he works on an organic farm. Going from zero guys to two, on top of senior year stress and an animal cruelty investigation, is too wild too fast!

With their incriminating evidence, and Heath’s help, Jane and her friends take Animal Actors Inc. down. Basking in her success—and Heath’s increased attentions—Jane doesn’t realize Gaia may have traded one death sentence for another. Now that the deal is off, Raincity Zoo is making preparations to euthanize the elephant. In the midst of Christmas exams, she gets a call from a mysterious stranger. Raj, Gaia’s handler, knows what’s in store. He’s seen that Jane cares about his beloved Gaia, but is she willing to come to her aid once again?

The race is on to find Gaia a new home, one that won’t care if she’s older and has health problems, one with the money to foot her vet bills and pay for her food, one where she’s free to wander outdoors or take shelter inside, to enjoy the company of others of her kind or spend time on her own. But does such a place exist?

As the search continues, Jane learns Gaia’s history from Raj, a history that includes the violent death of her herd, including her parents, at the hands of poachers in the ivory trade. She also learns that thanks to poaching and human encroachment on their territory, elephants in the wild have become an endangered species, deprived of land and water and the ancient pilgrimage sites of their ancestors. They are literally going mad, rampaging villages and even killing one another out of fear and stress. Jane is forced to confront the idea that a zoo—a place she has come to believe represents forced captivity and suffering—may for some animals be safer, better than the wild. That encounters with animals in zoos may even be the reason she and others like her fight so passionately to save and protect animals everywhere.

Jane’s weekly shifts at the Urban Wildlife Rescue Centre bring experiences that teach her about the essence of wildness, the connection human animals share with their wild brothers and sisters, and the disappearance of wild spaces and creatures in the wake of human greed and dominance. Jane wonders about what it means to be wild—and what would become of humans and other animals if the last trace of wildness were wiped out forever.

Amid the frantic search for a home for Gaia, Flory is voted Class Valedictorian, but at the last moment, cedes the podium to Jane, who gives an impromptu but impassioned speech about wildness—its preciousness, its vulnerability, its erosion—and what it means to be a wild animal on “Gaia,” planet Earth.

The night before her graduation dance, competition between Heath and Mike for Jane’s affections comes to a head, and Heath asks her to choose between them. For some reason, though, when Jane tries to reach Mike to find out where he stands, he’s incommunicado.

Who will Jane choose? Will the girls find a home for Gaia in time to save her life? And even if they do, is there really anywhere left on earth where she can truly be wild, and free?

-30-

There’s going to be a book.

For a long time, it’s just an idea, a collection of thoughts loosely tied by hopes and wishes and maybe even some words. Then you take a step, write something down, pull an idea out of the ether that makes that loosely tied collection make sense, and suddenly you know there will be a book.

After writing Flight or Fight — actually while writing Flight or Fight — I decided that if the writing process was always going to be that much of a struggle, I was going to have to find a new career. There was only one way to find out if it was always going to be that hard, however, and that was to try again. So I wrote Crow Medicine. And although I didn’t know much more the second time around than I did the first time, I did know I could finish a book. And that one small knowing was enough to make everything easier.

Oh, yeah, this is when I get on a big roll and then can’t get out of bed the next day. Oh, yeah, this is when I have so many ideas shunting around in my brain that I can’t get them down fast enough and feel like I’m going to explode. Oh, yeah, this is when I have to stop writing and stare out the window and wait for the characters to tell me what happens next.

There was a small but comforting sense of familiarity to the process of writing Crow Medicine that of course I didn’t have with Flight or Fight; F/F was not just the first book in the series, it was my first book ever. That familiarity, and the degree to which it made the whole process just a little easier, was enough to convince me that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to reconsider shoe sales as my true career path.

And now there will be a third. (Of course, my publisher expects there will be at least six, but to that I say, Easy, Pumpkin! One at a time!) The idea for Gaia Wild had its genesis in 2003, when I first came up with the concept for Jane Ray’s Wildlife Rescue Series. That was the year that Tina, an elephant who had spent most of her life in a small enclosure at the Greater Vancouver Zoo (formerly the Vancouver Game Farm, was finally freed and transported to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee — otherwise known as Heaven for elephants. I followed her story avidly; you see, I’d known her since I was five years old, and she was just a baby, bought by the zoo to give rides around a dirt ring to little kids like me. I was horrified to realize that in the 30+ intervening years, I had lived and learned and loved, and Tina had remained captive in that small, barren enclosure. The story of her release and rescue –spearheaded by the Vancouver Humane Society and Zoocheck Canada, and made possible by the Elephant Sanctuary — was the highlight of my year.

I wasn’t the only one who followed the story, or who kept following Tina by “elecam” after she made herself at home in Tennessee. It turned out thousands of Vancouverites and other Canadians had loved her as I had, and were thrilled to see her free. Or at least, as free as she could ever be after a lifetime in captivity.

As I constructed plot outlines for the first three books in my series, the third took shape around the story of Tina. And although I’ve set the first two books in a wildlife rescue hospital that would never admit an elephant as a patient, I think I’ve found a way to keep Jane, keep the Urban Wildlife Rescue Center, keep Cedar’s Ridge … and still have my elephant.

I promise I’ll share the synopsis here - or at least, a version of it (minus the ending!) - just as soon as my publisher has seen it. I owe him that, at least. So check back in a week or so.

This will be my first time writing a book and keeping a blog at the same time. I figure it will either be therapeutic to be able to talk about the process in the blog, or else a big distraction from actually getting the book finished. Time will tell ….

And though it seems an awfully long way off, it’s still worth saying — now that I know there will really be a book — Gaia Wild will be available in fall 2008!

:D

Excerpted from Paper Tigers
by Diane Haynes

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