SOME DAYS I question the sanity of anyone who voluntarily becomes a writer. This has been one of those days. I'm supposed to be enjoying a lovely visit with my son, John, in a pleasant Ontario city and what am I doing? I'm carting around a large holdall bag containing implements of the writing trade: assorted notebooks, pens and pencils, newspaper clippings, old drafts of my new novel that no one but me can read, various mouldering scraps of paper with story ideas scrawled on them. Some of them date back to 1977. And of course a few copies of my 1988 novel January, February, June or July.

Why didn't I leave them back home in St. John's where they belong? Just because the novel was recently re- released after being out of print for nine months is no reason for me to make a nuisance of myself showing it around. Who really wants to read about three months in the life of a Newfoundland family when for a much lower price they can have their pick of Danielle Steel, Stephen King, Judith Krantz, Anne Rice, and John Grisham? Last night I had to steel myself against grabbing up one or two of those best-sellers myself-, they were leaping out at me from all directions.

I don't do this kind of thing in St. John's. Like most of my writer friends I steal surreptitiously from bookshop to bookshop, checking to see if my books are on the shelves. I don't even complain to the management when they're not. Or not often. Sometimes Bernice Morgan, Gerry Rubia, and I ask casually about each other's books. Somehow that seems more dignified.

I wouldn't be wallowing in shame and self-reproach tonight if I hadn't taken to heart what I heard at a recent panel discussion in St. John's. It was all about book promotion, and the panelists (publishers, booksellers, agents, and distributors) spoke with one voice about the individual writer's responsibility to push and peddle her/his own books. We writers in the audience looked at each other; we had always assumed this was the publisher's job. But no, we must all be personally involved or we'd have only ourselves to blame when our poor books languished and died in the publisher's storeroom.

Like most writers from the regions -- and even some from the centre -- Newfoundland writers rarely see their works on the shelves of mainland bookstores. Even in our own province the books are all clumped together under a sign that reads Of Local Interest. I always expect to see the word "Only" after Interest. That's certainly the implication.

I know it's useless to visit chains when you're on a book-pushing mission. The poor bewildered salesclerks tell you that all their ordering is done from Kalamazoo or Cleveland. When, still fired up by the panelists' message, I began my round of this city's independent bookshops, I encountered little enthusiasm. Nobody was downright hostile and my spirits didn't falter too much until I reached a large, smart-looking shop a three-mile walk from my son's apartment. The best thing I can say about my trek there is that the exercise was probably good for me.

A friendly saleswoman on the lower level directed me to a steep staircase at the top of which I would find the manager's assistant. The weather was hot and humid; I probably looked like a tired cabbage by the time I reached the upper sanctum. I was wearing a boldly patterned Newfoundlandmade cotton suit that I loved when I bought it three years ago. Now it's beginning to remind me of a chesterfield slipcover.

Rivers of sweat ran down my red face; my damp hair had collapsed into pathetic little strings around my head.

I took a deep breath and launched into my spiel. The manager's assistant looked cool (decidedly so), collected -and bored. As I became more and more incoherent I handed her my novel, suggested that she might like to hold on to it and pass it along to the manager on her return. She dropped her hand as if I was passing her a letter-bomb or a dose of ebola. "No, no," she said crisply, shaking her head. "I'll tell the manager you were here. If we ever decide to carry your book we'll order it from the publisher." The look in her eyes told me that the freezing over of Hades was distinctly more likely.

I've a] ways been told that I have a very expressive face, which simply means that I've never learned to hide my emotions. "Maybe you should try to persuade Quill & Quire to give your book a mention," the manager's assistant suggested, thawing to about minus six degrees Celsius. I'm ashamed of what I did next. "This book," I shrilled, "has won the Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Award and was short-listed for the W. H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award." "But it's not even a new book," she said patiently, as if talking to a tantrum-prone child. The words "new edition" and "working on a sequel" died on my trembling lips.

I should have turned on my heel (I've never been quite sure how one does that) and left while I still had a shred of dignity to hold on to, along with my book. Instead I committed the most grievous sin a writer can be guilty of. "You have one Newfoundland book in this store," I told her, trying hard to keep my voice under control. "The Shipping News. And that was written by an American."

She looked at the telephone on her desk and extended an elegant hand toward it. Did they have bouncers in upscale establishments like this, I wondered?

I managed to get down the stairs and out the door without tripping or dropping my holdall or shouting Go F... Yourself. I stumbled to a nearby hotel and ordered a large white wine, grateful that the days of Ladies and Escorts are no more.

What happens next? I take a solemn vow to stop listening to know-it-all panelists who specialize in making writers feel as guilty as Judas if they don't devote their entire lives to self-promotion. And I silently apologize to Annie Proulx. I liked The Shipping News and she can't help it that she's not a Newfoundlander.

Suddenly I remember a bookstore I passed today on the way to my encounter with the manager's assistant. Used and Rare Books Bought and Sold, the sign said. What could be more rare in an Ontario city than a novel set in St. John's? I swallow the last of the wine, pay my bill, check my bag to make sure the books are still there, and hurry back into the fray.