We hit a blog milestone this week!

Notes from Paradise 500,000 page views!   

Thanks to all our faithful readers, we hit a half-million page views on our blog this week!  Woohoo! 

It is amazing how a weekly email that we started sending to twelve people in 2009 has grown to a weekly blog with anywhere from four to eight thousand readers a week. (Some articles interest people more than others.)

June 2009, we started writing weekly emails

When we started in June of 2009, it was to keep family members up to date on our newest adventure, our life in Mexico. The email list grew as family members asked if they could add their friends, and then those people wanted to add their friends. By September of 2011, the email list had grown to 500 names.

When our neighbour started her blog, Isla Mujeres News, a translation of local news in June of 2011, she suggested that we switch over from a weekly email to a blog. 

July 2014 Sunset cool down for islanders

So we did, we created a blog page.  However, many of our readers objected, saying they didn’t want to search the internet to find the articles. They enjoyed having a personal copy sent to their inbox. From September 2011 to June 2014, we posted the weekly blog and also sent it via email to our readers. It was a lot more work, but it kept everyone happy and interested.

Then in 2014, Google labelled our emails as that dreaded word – spam.  They shut down our list, refusing to deliver the weekly articles to our readers. By our estimation, we had sent out around seventy-five thousand individual emails over the five years, but never to anyone who hadn’t asked to be included in the list.  

Great Horned Owl who rode in ambulance

In the meantime, we also created two more blogs targeted to specific stories that interested us: European Adventure and Animals and Other Family Members. As you can probably guess by the titles, these are not Isla Mujeres-based stories, one being about our travels in Europe and the other funny stories about pets and wild creatures we have befriended. 

About eighteen months ago, Tony Richardson, editor of the popular online Mexico News Daily, started re-posting our blog articles. 

In his publication, our stories are reaching a wider audience, some having been shared thousands of times. Pretty heady stuff for two amateur scribblers. 

Insider's Guide to the Best of Mexico - FREE!

Several of our articles have been included in two online anthologies: Insider’s Guide to The Best of Mexico and the second Insider’s Guide. 

The collection of feel-good stories about Mexico is the brain-child of well-known novelist Carmen Amato. Check her Amazon page for a complete listing of her works. Our current favourites are the police procedurals featuring Detective Emilia Cruz in Acapulco. 

July 2014, Diego and I toasting arrival of books

In between the weekly blog articles, island friend Diego Medina and I created a bilingual book for children, The Adventures of Thomas the Cat / Las Aventuras de Tomas el Gato. Diego and I won a silver award at the International Latino Book Awards in Los Angeles for best bilingual picture book. The sequel is underway. The Adventures of Thomas the Cat

But wait, there’s more!  In 2016, I wrote and self-published my first novel, Treasure Isla. Treasure Isla is a fun beach read, an adventure set on Isla Mujeres. The e-book sales on Amazon are doing well, prompting me to write the sequel, Trouble Isla. Trouble Isla will be launched in late August of this year.

Treasure Isla and soon Trouble Isla

All of this creativity started with a weekly email to a few friends and family members. We have discovered we like to paint pictures with words. 

Most of all, we like to entertain people and provide a bit of information mixed in with light humor. 

Thank you all again for your interest in our offbeat stories. 

Cheers 

Lynda, Lawrie, and Sparky

Isla Mujeres Mystery series

In celebration of a talented local artist, Diego Medina

Mayor Cesar Poot praises Diego Medina

Recently, Cesar Edmundo Poot Perez, the Secretario General of Isla Mujeres, spoke about the need for students to use their imagination, to aspire to unique professions, and to dream of new ideas. 

He also spoke of how proud he was of Diego Medina, a local artist and my collaborator on our first children's book, The Adventures of Thomas the Cat – Las Aventuras de Tomas el Gato.

Yadira Velazquez on far left, Danaee and Freddy on right

Diego's family tree has very deep roots on Isla Mujeres, reaching down through many generations of ancestors. Current family members include one sister, Danaee, parents Freddy Medina and Yadira Velázquez, aunties, uncles, cousins, and two sets of grandparents, most of whom live and work on the island. Diego comes from a very supportive environment, a family that values education. As a group, they were delighted to celebrate his success at our book launch on Tuesday, July 8^th. The event was organized by Rubén Pérez and staff under the sponsorship of the Direccion Municipal de Cultura.

McFaddens, Flynns, and Merandis - donated books

The agenda for the evening was to include donating our books to island schools and kindergartens. New island home-owners Maureen and Randy McFadden from Cedar Park, Texas, kicked off the idea by offering to donate ten books to the local schools. Then their good friends Colleen and Ken Flynn from Austin, Texas, who are also building a home on Isla, supplemented the donation with another ten books. Not to be outdone, a third couple – Alison and Tom Merandi said, “We're in for ten books as well!”

Some of the local students who attended the event

In the meantime, the Medina Family was busy organizing their donation of ten books, plus city employees Adriana Trejo Glez, Miriam Trejo León, and Víctor Osorio Magaña contributed another fifteen books! The municipal staff and school principals now have a total of 55 books to distribute amongst island and mainland schools. However, the city staff have a secret desire to distribute one book to each of the Cancun schools as well. It's a subtle bit of bragging about the success of one of their own students.

Freddy and his sister Mauri Medina

In the end, the book distribution portion of the event was postponed to the evening of Sunday, July 13^th. This is the last full week of school before the summer break, and most of the school principals were unable to attend as they rushed to finish off year-end details.

Direccion Municipal de Cultura book launch was doubly important to the Medina family members and supportive friends. Mauri Medina, sister to Freddy Medina, and Diego's auntie, translated the original story, The Adventures of Thomas the Cat – Las Aventuras de Tomas el Gato, from English to Spanish. 


The Medina family has double-bragging rights for the book!

Meanwhile, Diego and I have begun working on the sequel, involving a few more of the silly, four-footed characters that inhabit our little piece of paradise. We'll keep you posted!

Hasta Luego
Lynda, Lawrie, Sparky, and Thomas the Cat

Murder. Mayhem. Revenge. Romance.

Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

Death in the Vineyards Mysteries

The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky

The Adventures of Thomas the Cat begins!

Hernando didn't make the cut this time!

Whispered sounds sifted across the sand. Something very large was headed his way. A bright light swept across the beach, momentarily blinding him.

“You should write a children's book,” said our island friend Caroline Beebe after she read Hernando's Story in our weekly blog of March 29^th, 2013. It's a whimsical story about a hermit crab who lives near our house.

Thomas the Cat in my rowboat

Caroline, Harriet Lowe, and I met for lunch at Qubano's on Hidalgo Avenue in early April of 2013. They convinced me to seriously consider the idea. Back home, I talked it over with Lawrie, and he said, “Great idea!”

And so the adventure began.

Hernando and I worked together for a couple of weeks, trying to turn his story into a book, but in the end, I had to tell him, “I'm sorry, Hernando, you just aren't adventurous enough to be the central figure in your own book,” and I turned my attention to my very handsome cat, Thomas.

Thomas was extremely pleased about the project. He reminded me to include the part about how he liked to ride in my rowboat on Okanagan Lake, while we searched for pirates.

Diego, making changes to the illustrations.

As Thomas and I worked on his book, I soon realized I needed a talented illustrator to really bring the story to life. Lawrie suggested our friend Diego Medina, who was training to be a computer animator at the university in Valladolid. Diego agreed. Little did Diego know how many hours and days would be required to create the characters, stroke by stroke, hair by hair. Two cats, two dogs, two people. Over 30 illustrations.

Next, we solicited assistance from Diego's aunt, Mauri Medina, to help with the translation from English to Spanish, making the story bilingual. Some sections were too lengthy when translated, so Diego and I amended, revised and re-worked the story. Then I enlisted the assistance of Christy Dix of On Target Language Services to re-check the wording for us, adding her revisions and corrections.

I need a crown please!

With each revision, Thomas supervised, pointing out the important parts that he wanted in the book. Chica, our little female cat, looked over the pages. She decided she wanted a crown and to be called Princess Chica. Diego gave her a crown, and we changed her name. The two beach dogs, Odd and Missy, spoke up and added their comments. Missy thought that she should have been the princess. Diego mollified her with a flower behind one ear. Odd-the-Dog reminded us that he had one blue eye and one brown eye. “Yes, we know. See? That's what the illustration shows.”

While Diego was finalizing the illustrations, it was my job to find a printer. First, I tried various printing companies in Mexico, but the printing prices were more than we could possibly charge for a children's book. The high price is dictated by the necessity to import the paper for printing, whereas in the USA or Canada, the paper is produced locally. Next, I tried printing companies in the USA and Canada, but by the time I paid for shipping and importing, the prices were still too high for a small order.

Humf!  I should have been the princess.

Finally, I decided to try having it printed in China. There are literally thousands of printing companies in China, and choosing one that would give us a good price and good service was a bit nerve-racking. Over the next three months, I corresponded with various companies, obtaining quotes, answering a myriad of questions: Size? How many pages? How many copies? What weight of paper? Type of cover? Full-colour or not? Shipping by air or by sea? Insurance? Which port? Questions, questions, questions; all the while crossing my fingers that I was dealing with the real representatives of the various companies and not an internet scammer.

March - the sample book arrives.

In February, we were finally ready to send the final – we thought – document via the internet to Gold Printing Company in Shenzhen, China. As it turns out, we had a few adjustments to make, and with a fourteen-hour time difference, every adjustment took three to four days to complete. And then came the leap of faith. Send money! A 30% deposit was required to continue the order. Two weeks later, we received a full-colour, hard-cover sample of what the finished product would look like.

Wow! We were so pleased.

Then came the really big leap of faith – send the balance of the money. Gulp!

June 2nd in Manzanillo Mexico

On May 6^th, the shipment left Shenzhen bound for the west coast of Mexico. Through the internet, we were able to loosely track the ship as it meandered from China, to Korea, and across the Pacific Ocean to the USA, dodging a category 5 hurricane and an earthquake off the coast of Mexico, before arriving in Manzanillo on June 2nd.

Lawrie and I loaded 420kg of books

Annie, my invaluable contact at Gold Printing Company, put me in touch with both the shipping company and customs brokers in Manzanillo to continue the process. We still had a few more expenses to pay for - unpacking the container, importation, documents, and putting the books onto a truck. We were given another tracking number and spent an agonizing week checking on the progress of the shipment as it travelled to Mexico City, Villa Hermosa, Merida, and Cancun.

Thank you, Steve and Chris.  You made our day! 

Finally, on Thursday, June 12^th – thirteen months since Diego and I teamed up to do this project - Lawrie and I drove into Cancun and picked up the 420 kilograms of books at the AlMex loading dock. 

A few hours later, as we waited in the lineup at the car ferry docks at Punta Sam, we made our first two sales: Chris Shannon and Steve Mattox. Thank you guys, you really made our day.

During the whole process, everyone was helpful: Annie and Gold Printing, Erika at Gade Aduanero S.C., Paula at IFS Neutral Marine, and Carla at Grupo Almex, the trucking company. 

They gave us such good service and encouragement, Diego and I are already working on book two.

Hasta luego
Lynda, Lawrie, Sparky, and Thomas the Cat

Celebrating with Diego, Thomas and Sparky

Murder. Mayhem. Revenge. Romance.

Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

Death in the Vineyards Mysteries

The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky