Skateboard haiku challenge

In honour of poetry month, I’ve been asked to start off the skateboard haiku challenge over at the blog of Darby Speaks.

I haven’t had a lot of time for writing anything this month, as I’m busy preparing for a trip to Japan. I leave in a few days. Once there, I’ll be talking about my books and Canada to five different groups, plus touring around and doing research for a possible future book. I hope I wont be too distracted and full of new ideas to start back in on finishing off my current novel when I get home again.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to post photos while I’m away, but I’ll try to at least post a few updates.

In the mean time, the cherry blossoms are finally out here (about a month behind)! I’ve got to enjoy them while I can, as they’ll already be finished in Japan.

Guess who’s the mystery guest

To find out what this is about, check out author kc dyer’s blog and Darby Speaks, the blog of her new time-travelling character.

Small town, big park

I’m always on the look out for interesting graffiti and bits of creative colour in the city. This past weekend I was at a family reunion in the small BC interior city of Vernon and came across this skateboard park.

When I was a teenager there was no such thing as a skateboard park or a skateboard store (at least not outside of California). My boyfriend and his friends were possibly the first skateboarders in our town. They had to special-order their boards through the local bicycle shop, build their own 1/4 pipe out of plywood, then haul it around town on the back of an old pickup truck until they found an empty parking lot in which to set up (luckily most grocery stores were closed on Sundays back then, and Safeway had a loading ramp that you could use to get up good speed).