DELEAU, Man. – After the kids are grown up, many farm couples scale back their workload to better savour their golden years.
Such a decision might free up time for gardening, community work, more trips to the coffee shop to chat with friends, travel, hobbies or grandchildren.
In the worst scenario, the start of retired life could mark a slow descent into a decade or two of going numb in front of the TV.
With all but her youngest of four sons having moved on with their lives away from the farm near Deleau, Man., and her husband, Jimmy, reducing their herd of cattle to 100 head, Doreen Winona Logeot, 52, decided to devote her new-found freedom to exploring the human condition through fictional characters.
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“I’ve always wanted to write,” said Logeot, who confesses to having a vivid imagination, and a fondness for themes encompassing the full range of worldly experience: good versus evil, love, loss and especially, redemption.
Before discovering writing, she started looking for a part-time job. She soon found that the only one available nearby was minding the local municipal garbage dump.
In a small town like Deleau, there weren’t many visitors, so she occupied the hours of boredom in her new career as the “dump lady” by thumbing through an endless procession of potboiler novels.
“One day I read a book and I said to myself, ‘I could write one better than that.’ And that’s how it started.”
Since then, she has researched, written and self-published New Beginnings, a work of historical fiction set in 1880s Brandon, as the first waves of settlers began arriving on the newly constructed Canadian Pacific Railway.
Amid a pitiless landscape of fast riches for some, and grinding poverty for others, the main characters meet and fall in love.
In the opening scene, Sam, a ruthless lender and land speculator, is shot by one of his many enemies, but survives the attack thanks to the doctoring ability of Sarah, a farm widow trapped in desperate circumstances.
He recovers and returns to Brandon and his luxurious boomtown home, but finds himself strangely obsessed with thoughts of her struggling alone on a desolate homestead.
To better knit the narrative into the time frame, there are also cameo appearances by real-life people such as General Rosser, for whom a street in Brandon was named, and famed raconteur and horse trader Beecham Trotter.
“Originally, I was going to write a novel that was set south of the border, because you know, as everyone thinks the excitement was all down there and never up here,” said Logeot.
“But from what I heard about local history around here, I found it so amazing that I started digging for more. There was no way I couldn’t bring the book here.”
Life in a rural setting is conducive to literary endeavours, she said, with plenty of peace and quiet to be had if one seeks it.
The process of writing was in many ways a highly enjoyable voyage of self-discovery, she added, but she often looks back in wonderment at the 309-page book.
“Sometimes I look at it and I find it hard to believe that I wrote it.”
Logeot decided to print and market the novel herself after she realized that the odds were slim of finding a publisher willing to take a chance on a first-time author writing about pioneer life on the Prairies.
A friend has stepped up to take on the marketing effort as Logeot mulls a second book, a sequel continuing where the first left off.
To generate buzz following the book’s September launch, the first two chapters were posted on her blog at the community discussion site www.ebrandon.ca. Now, copies of the novel can be found on the shelves in local bookstores, and interest in recent weeks has been picking up, she said.
“I’ve had a few people who haven’t picked up a book in years read it,” she said. “So far, I’ve had only good comments. Maybe the people who don’t like it are kind enough not to say anything.”.
If sales meet expectations, she may continue with a series set in the early days of the region.
