June 8th, 2010

More advices

I suggest

–reading Sarah Selecky’s interview on Joyland. Really really practical useful advice, and an interesting interview. I especially like the stuff she said about getting the most out of a workshop–I heartily agree.

–grilling the packaged, pre-marinated tempeh just a little EVEN THOUGH it is technically fully cooked and won’t kill you if you put it directly from the box onto your plate. It also won’t make you very happy.

–not quitting caffeine on a Monday, not doing it cold turkey, and maybe not doing it at all. My brain feels like it is trying to tunnel its way out with an icepick.

June 1st, 2010

Jobs for Writers, part 2 of ?

Every time I try to write about this subject, I get uncomfortable–so much as just what works for the individual writer. Some people really need to have a job they love a lot, even it it’s just a “day job,” or they can’t be motivated to get up in the morning. Some writers would rather not like their jobs all that much, or they “day job” winds up distracting from the writing. Some would rather work part time and have half of every day to write; some people will work nonstop for part of the year and not even touch their manuscripts, then have a big block of time to write and do nothing else (teachers!)

Whatever is functional for you, do that. But, as I told the students at that careers event that sparked all this ages ago, I’ve had a lot of jobs and some were more functional for me than others, so maybe there’s something people could learn from that! I mean, as Ms. Difranco says, “Nobody likes their job / nobody got enough sleep” but below are some things that let me write and even helped with some projects, as well as helping me to be reasonably happy with my life and lifestyle while I was working there.

Bookstore salesperson was the first job I ever had that I didn’t utterly loathe; it was shocking. What did I like about it? The obvious, first off: getting to hang out with books, seeing the new stuff first, the world’s most useful-to-me employee discount and other book-related bonuses. I sometimes liked chatting with customers about what they might like to read, though you still do get your jerks and your people who want “the thing that was on the radio this morning, about that dog? What do you mean you don’t listen to the radio?” I found the running around of the job, and all the chitter-chat with customers was a good balance to the sedentary silence of writing.

Less obvious perks were that, unlike most minimum-wage retail jobs, this one drew a wider range than after-school teenagers. Lots of bookish adults (including other writers) worked there and were fun to talk to–actually, even the after-school teenagers were pretty bright and well-read.

Most of the downsides of this gig may have come from the fact that I worked for a couple big chain stores. I’ve never had an indie bookstore job, unfortunately, but since I’ve known a lot of folks who did, I can make a reasonably educated guess that those jobs are more fun, though not much better paid. One issue was that the stores were mamoth, and floor staff and cashiers were forbidden to sit or, heaven forbid, read. There was always something to run to the back for, something to dust or scrub or carry–and books are heavy. After 8.5 hours darting about on concrete floors, I often had little energy left for writing. And no matter how literate, retail is retail–you can’t really live on minimum wage unless you are working a bloody lot of hours, you likely won’t have benefits, customers feel free to treat you like a moron and (sometimes) so do managers. Low points of my bookstore career include being berated by a customer for getting a mystery author’s name wrong, being berated by a manager for wearing a candy necklace, and being berated by everyone once I started working at the special orders desk because it, despite the big sign, apparently looked like a complaints desk.

Library clerk was basically a less capitalistic, more relaxed, better paid version of the bookstore job. You occasionally got to do some fun cool book-tracking-down, occasionally got screeched by a crazy person, but mainly as long as you got your work done, you were allowed to do what you wanted (ie., read). I guess I can’t vouch for every library (this was an academic one), but there was no “keeping up appearances” busywork, which was really nice. Downsides? Well, it could get a bit dull on some days, and on others, because it is a public place, a library attracts the sorts of people who get chased out of malls (teenaged hooligans, the homeless, the ranting, unsupervised children) and the staff has to deal with them as best they can. From what I hear, most library jobs have a strong hiking-around-carrying-books component as exhausting as at a bookstore, but I actually had a desk-sitting gig. Once again, this was a desk that people frequently mistook for the complaints area, despite another big sign, so I came in for more than my share of yelling, but at least I had a comfy chair. The real trouble with library gigs is that they are limited in scope, hard to come by and rarely full-time–I left the one I had because I was graduating and it was a student position. If you are seriously interested in being an actual librarian, you need a degree in library science–fascinating, but surely not easy.

Teaching is, as judged by per-hour strain, the hardest job I have ever had. I have tutored ESL, TA’d essay writing and literature, and taught high school students how to write short-stories, and all were fall-on-the-couch exhausting. Deeply rewarding, mind, but exhausting. And of course, the biggest danger with teaching is that, unlike waiting tables (the second-hardest job I’ve ever had), you can’t just eventually say “Screw it, it doesn’t matter,” with a given class, student, semester, etc. Because it does matter, so much, what you teach kids (or anyone, really) so the temptation exists to put in the overtime, do the extra projects, come out for the sports teams, and put everything you can into it, because the kids will get so much (or at least something) out of it. This is, of course, deadly if you are trying to write in your “off” hours.

This post was original going to include some of the silly things people say about jobs for writers (“You should just do a little journalism to make money!” Last time I checked, journalism was a four-year degree and a competitive field, and also not overflowing with money) but I am (mainly) not doing that because it’s too annoying. One thing that I will put in is that I once read a writer profile that said that once one had published a relatively successful book, one could get creative-writing teaching jobs and “make a living as a writer.” I am sure any teacher reading this will recognize this as offensive–if one is teaching, one is making a living as a teacher. Which is actually still amazing for one’s writing–students will challenge so many standard assumptions about writing and bring you all kinds of new energy and ideas, so it is totally worth the exhaustion if you can figure out how to teach briefly or temporarily or somehow not have it overrun all your time. But if you take a teaching gig under the impression that it is basically a grant with a bunch of annoying students hanging around, said students will become incredibly embittered and if they are lucky, hate only you and not actually writing. Just sayin’.

You may have noticed here that none of these jobs are incredibly well-paid and my standards of “fun” are pretty low (ie., not getting yelled at). That is because I have left out of here all the jobs I had that didn’t work out at all, including the fast food restaurant where hooligans regularly stole the mirrors out of the bathroom, the factory that turned out was actually some guy’s bedroom, and the fancy restaurant where the enormous wall-mounted ketchup dispenser exploded. And the time one of my fellow chambermaids seemed to be considering taking a swing at me with the carpet sweeper. So possibly I am not the best person to be getting career advice from–please chime in if you have other jobs to suggest to writers, or would like to contradict anything I’ve said (nicely).

I’ll do another post on the wonderful world of publishing soon, and that will pretty much be the sum of my knowledge.

May 10th, 2010

The News

So the news is, in case you have not been picking up on my extremely subtle hints, that Rose-coloured is moving to its very own dedicated URL with a splendid new design from Create Me This, and life is good. Ok, life is actually incredibly hectic, so I’ve been building up to the big unveiling by not posting much–I’m sure you’ve been crushed by my silence. But see below–lotsa cool stuff:

1) May is the Month of the Short Story. I sort of knew this last year, but not really, because I spent most of May in Japan, where was probably not the Month of the Short Story and even if it was I wouldn’t have understood. Anyway, I definitely know it this year because Steven WB has moved 31 Days of Short Stories to now and that’s so amazing. Although my first thought when I saw the first post was, “Hey, that’s not until August!” I have a hard time with change. At least it’s not one of those 30-day months or I would really have lost it.

2) Amy asks (in the comments on the last post) what I say when I’m asked by a random person at a party what I do–writer or editor. It depends on the party–I go to a lot of parties where people are both writers and editors and other artistic people and sympathizers. In *that* crowd I always say writer (if we talk for long, the other will come up though) because they are likely to get it and be nice about it. *However* if the party consists of people of unknown professions, I say “editor” because I’m scared they will be mean to me if I say “writer.” That’s, mind you, a stupid stereotype of people in the non-obviously creative professions (in fact, most people need to be creative to get their jobs done). However, some people *are* dismissive, and I get really sad when someone, even a random stranger, is mean about my writing. It’s like they insulted my significant other–the conversation cannot go on. And although rare, this *has* happened.

Pharmaceutical exec: So, what do you do?
Me: I’m a writer. I had a book of stories come out in 2008.
PE: A writer? Really, so you just sit around and write all day?
Me: Well, actually…
PE: Man, that would be great–sleep in, make coffee, write a little story. No crazy commute, no DVP, no stress..
Me: Well, actually…
PE: (long detailed discussion of PE’s exact route to work, timing, possibility of accidents, etc. Seriously, 10 minutes!) A writer, wow, I should get on that. That would be the life. No stress at all! You wouldn’t believe what I have to put up with.
Me: You must wish you were dead.
PE: What?
Me: I wish *I* were dead?
PE: What?
Me: Oh, look, the hostess just put out a new kind of cheese. Excuse me.

Ok, I might have made a little tiny bit of that up, but largely, it’s accurate, and so very depressing. I’d rather just say “editor” and talk about my bus route to the office. Which makes me, I know, a giant wuss, but it’s less stressful by far.

3) Lindsay has a new website too, and it’s really pretty. Spring is the time of web renewal, apparently!

More to come soon, I promise–and brace yourself for the big change (I think this is a change I will be able to handle) of URL, coming soon!

RR

April 20th, 2010

Linkages

I am mainly recovered from last week’s slump, and have various good things to suggest, report, and share:

–If you missed Sunday afternoon’s lovely Draft Reading Series 5.2 Salon des Refuses(you poor thing), you can recapture some of the magic by reading Mark’s essay on rejection (from the Draft magazine) or looking at AJ’s pictures.

–If you are still in hot pursuit of poetic pleasures to celebrate Poetry Month, why not go see the Toronto Poetry Vendors launch their big bright green poetry machine (I have no idea if it’s actually green, but it’s called Spearmint…), this Sunday at This Ain’t the Rosedale Library.

–Another poetic option would be to read my one and only published poem, originally from echolocation, now reposted on Pickle Me This. I am pretty proud that Kerry considered this piece–called “Dead Boyfriend Disco”–worthy of inclusion in her Poetic April. I write perhaps three poems a year, mainly lame ones, so I’m pretty proud that DBD exists, period. Warning: it’s really long, probably because I wanted it to be a story.

And yes, I am still reading tomorrow evening, 7pm, at the Free Times Cafe with fine folks like Adrienne Gruber and Andrew Daley. I am looking forward to it because it’s going to be fun; you might be looking forward to it being over so I’ll stop mentioning it every day!

RR

April 17th, 2010

Evenements

I went to a wonderful performance last week, a world-renown Canadian artist with a huge and frantically loyal following. I myself am new to this talent, but I attended the event with a group of sincere enthusiasts, who see this fellow on every tour, and buy pretty much everything he puts out as soon as it’s available. We went over 40 minutes early, and already there was a sizeable group there, staking out the good seats. When we ran into another group of folks I know, they were even more enthusiastic, and everyone was instantly able to chat about complex details of this guy’s work. When he finally took the stage, there was uproarious applause from the standing-room-only crowd and even some hoots at his knowing, witty banter with the crowd.

It was last Thursday, at the Toronto reference library, the world-wide launch of Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, which consisted of a reading and staged interview with Jared Bland.

It was a stellar reading and a fascinating interview, much like many I’ve seen in Toronto over the past few years. What was different was the massive, wildly enthused crowd–not like I’ve never seen one, but not to this degree. I don’t have much of a spatial eye, but I’m going to guess close to 300 people. Unlike me, most of those weren’t just there to see what all the fuss was about–most of these folks had read at least two or three of Kay’s 11 novels, which are mainly 400-500 epic tomes with a lot of complicated history, maps and family trees in the frontises, and three years of research behind them. I was pretty impressed at this well-read readership–who says they aren’t out there? How inspiring.

It just makes me really happy that such a crowd could gather at the library on a Wednesday for this sort of event, let alone be so incredible gleeful about it. Scott lent me Ysabel by way of GGK introduction, and I really hope that I like it so I count myself among that crowd. And even though it’s likely some Rose-coloured readers find that Kay’s work is not something you dig, I just thought the event itself was really cool and inspiring.

Some other events this week, which are likely to be equally fun and fascinating though a little less crowded and rowdy:

Tomorrow (aka Sunday) at 3pm, the Draft Reading series (pretty much the only series that I know of on Toronto’s lovely east side–can you think of any others?) presents Dani Couture, Michael Bryson, Mark Sampson, Ian Burgham and Ellen S. Jaffe.

Wednesday evening, 7pm–The Free Times Cafe (on college, just west of Bathurst)–the Hear Hear Reading Series presents Adrienne Gruber, Andrew Daley, Julia Tausch, and yours truly. People never hoot during my readings but it would actually probably throw me off a lot if they did.

April 10th, 2010

April is Poetry Month

But you knew that, I’m sure, and are probably well into a much-more-organized-than-mine celebration. But nevertheless, I am enjoying the poetic focus right now, reading the John Smith tribute issue of CNQ and Paul Vermeersch’s Between the Walls (ok, so I read that at the end of March, but I’m still going to count it). Right now I’m in the middle of Skim by Mariko Tamaki, which is not poetry but a graphic novel, and also absolutely captivating (and funny!) so far (I knew it would be–not sure what took me so long to get to actually reading it!) But after that, it’s back to poetry with The Laundromat Essay by Kyle Buckley, another book everyone but me has already read and loved.

Also this week, I’m thinking I’ll do a poetry class with the teens. The teacher recommended it, and if I weren’t such a chicken it should have already been on the slate. But I’m actually really worried about this, because I am not a poet. I’ve studied loads poetry, mind, but I very much doubt what the kids want is help with scansion. They would like to know how to write the stuff–or really, since they are teens, they are probably already writing it and just want to get better. But I don’t know that I know about that.

I think the easiest way into poetry is the Imagists. It was for me anyway–I think The Red Wheelbarrow was the first poem I really really *felt*–it didn’t feel like an inept teen half-guessing at an erudite writer’s goals, but like the poem was there to paint a picture in my head and it did that. Anyway, it’s a happy memory for me, so I’m gonna try out some of that stuff on them, and use it as an opportunity to talk about finding the single *right* word, not 17 close-enough, out-of-the-thesaurus words (a problem my students are having. Let me know if you have any recommendations, even if they’re not from that particular movement–my students aren’t too fussy that way, and neither am I.

And one more bit of poetic news is that I received an absolutely lovely illustrated copy of Hillaire Belloc’s *Cautionary Tales* as a gift this week, from someone who likely has no idea that it’s Poetry Month, but it does nicely suit. I haven’t read the whole of it yet, but as soon as I saw the title in the table of contents, of course I read this one (the poet’s been dead more than 50 years, so I’m not violating copyright by sharing this, am I?) It’s best read *aloud*!

Rebecca
Who slammed Doors for Fun
and Perished Miserably

A trick that everyone abhors
In Little Girls is slamming Doors.
A Wealthy Banker’s Little Daughter
Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater
(By name Rebecca Offendort),
Was given to this Furious Sport.

She would deliberately go
And Slam the door like Billy-Ho!
To make her Uncle Jacob start.
She was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild:
She was an aggravating child…

It happened that a Marble Bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the Door this little Lamb
Had carefully prepared to Slam,
And Down it cam! It knocked her flat!
It laid her out! She looked like that.
*
Her funeral Sermon (which was long
And followed by a Sacred Song)
Mentioned her Virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her Vices too,
And showed the Dreadful End of One
Who goes and slams the door for Fun.
*
The children who were brought to hear
The awful Tale from far and near
Were much impressed, and inly swore
They never more would slam the Door.
–As often they had done before.

RR

February 10th, 2010

Lynn Coady solves your problems

Apologies, but I think I’ll only be able to manage mini-posts this week–things are a little hectic in my world right now.

But at least I have fun stuff to link you to! I have been enjoying novelist Lynn Coady‘s “Group Therapy” column in the Globe for a while now–I’m sorry I never read it when the columnist was Claudia Dey–I’m sure she was great, too!

I find it really interesting that us fiction writers (often) build our work around all this insight we allegedly have about how human beings are, but speaking only for myself, I’d be absolutely terrified by, and incompetent at, this gig. It’s actual real problems that people send in to the site, occasionally serious ones. But Coady seems to be able to parlay her insight into fiction people into insight into real people, and actually be helpful.

The problems are sometimes a bit sad, but generally they don’t pick blues-song type disasters. Then readers write in with their advice and Coady counters with her own. She’s funny, very very funny, but she’s also pretty insightful and not-mean even when the problems are inane or have obvious solutions.

So maybe you want to tune into her Valentine’s Day live chat today at 1pm EST (and if you know what EST means, I wish you would tell me–is that Toronto?) You can write in with your romantic problems (not that you would have romantic problems) ahead of time or during the chat, or be like me and just read it after to marvel at the wisdom.

RR

February 6th, 2010

Net Noise

118 posts in, I’m still finding Twitter largely pointless. It’s just not *enough* for me to care about–Facebook has these big huge profiles and blogs have as much space as you would like, but there’s almost no way to determine who you are dealing with on Twitter unless you know them already. And most people *don’t* distill well into 140 characters (I count myself in this group)–Twitter is boring because most posts are a) links to articles or other people’s twitter posts that I am not going to follow because there is no commentary provided and I don’t know where the “tiny url” will take me, b) comments on other people’s twitter posts that I didn’t read at the time and now can’t find (why on earth don’t think link the comments to the posts? why?), so the comments make no sense to me, or c) boring.

January 29th, 2010

Lit Bits

1) JD Salinger, literary hero of many youths (including this one) has died. I haven’t read a lot of the coverage, but I have seen a few references to the fellow as the author of “just one novel,” and while I loved The Catcher in the Rye as much as anyone (so much!), I am a bit miffed for Franny and Zooey and Nine Stories (one of my lifetime fave short-story collections), and even Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters and Seymour: an Intorduction, the first half of which I did truly enjoy (and the second…oh dear).

But I can’t feel quite as sad as I think I ought to about the passing of such a great author. Of course, I didn’t know him personally (though my cousin did meet him once in the library at Dartmouth, a fact I always try to seem unimpressed about, and fail). It’s more that I haven’t been reading straight along with him–he stopped publishing decades ago, and I haven’t read any Salinger for the first time since my teens. Unlike, say, Mr. Updike, we weren’t moving along together.

There is a bit of excitement going around that now all his output for the last many years will be revealed and published. I’m not sure that would happen, and anyway, though I greatly hope for something that can stun me like For Esme, with Love and Squalor, I fear a reprise of Hapworth 16, 1924, the last of his published work (in the New Yorker in 1965–that same cousin photocopied an old library copy). I hate that story, though in googling it just now I found some people like. Who knew? It is deeply boring to me. So I am worried that now lots of books will come out by Salinger and I will read them and not like them and be disappointed.

2) From a literary end to a literary beginning: I went with blogger and friend Kerry Clare and her daughter Harriet to Mables Fables in celebration of Family Literacy Week (which is, as it turns out, is not real–it is only Family Literacy Day except on Kerry’s blog. But I am still going to most my family-literacy post today or possibly tomorrow, in solidariy!

*Anyway,* our fieldtrip was wonderful, prefaced by cake and punctuated by the stroller blowing down the sidewalk past the store window. Even if you aren’t particularly interested in seeing photos of a bookstore (er, but why *not*?) you should click on Kerry’s link to see pictures of Harriet, a very lovely baby with great, if over-literal, taste in books!

RR

January 23rd, 2010

Bits

I have no major theme or connective tissue for today, just a little things I’ve been thinking of and would like to share with you. Please do not attempt to take them as a whole; they certainly do not come to more than the sum of their parts. I’ll try to visually separate everything on the page for you.

——————–

I like rules. Maybe more than a so-called creative person should or is expected to, I enjoy being told what to do. I gleefully tell potential employers that I take direction well, and I really mean it. My friend P calls this my desire to “outsource my thinking,” and she’s spot-on–I appreciate it when someone will bother to form a plan or opinion where I have none–saves me the trouble, and provides the illusion of an ordered universe. Obvious, this won’t work well with things that matter a lot to me (ie., my writing, my clothes, what I’m going to eat), but I am really appreciative of advice (or imperitives) on such low-stakes issues as where to put the butter dish, when to send thank-you notes, and where I may wear my hat.

Yep, I’m an etiquette junky. When I was a tiny, I somehow picked up the Emily Post Book of Etiquette a great aunt had given my mother for high-school graduation (in a much much different edition than pictured here). And I’ve been a lifelong devote to her newspaper columns, and now the family (there’s dozens of’em) have a website. Lately, when I’ve been feeling blue or harried or as if the world just weren’t up to the white glove test, I’ve been turning to the Post family’s Etiquette Daily blog, and it’s been making me feel better. I thought I’d share my story, and the link, in case it might make you feel better, too.

——————–

Kerry Clare wrote this amazing post I think you should read, called Escape the Ego. Don’t be alarmed by the fact that it seems to be about a book called Eat Pray Love–I’m not sure what that is either, but I’m wary enough of the title that I’m not going to Google you a link (sorry!). Anyway, the post isn’t really about that book–it’s about why we read, and write, and what happens when we do. And it contains this beautiful paragraph:

“…I read, I think, to break it down and enable me to see the world in miniature, as manageable. Which, however conversely, is to be able to look at the big picture and regard it all at once, perhaps for the very first time. Fiction is a study in the hypothetical, a test-run for the actual. An experiment. What if the world was this? And we can watch the wheels turn and this bit of sample life run its course to discover. And I don’t mean that literature is smaller than life, no. Literature is life, but it’s just life you can hold in your hand, stick in your backpack, and I’m reassured by that, because the world is messy and sprawling, but if you take it down to the level of story, I am capable of some kind of grasp. Of beginning to understand what this world is, how to be in it.”

To which I say, yes. Also, wow.

——————–

Paul Quarrington has died, another hard blow in a rough week for CanLit. I hadn’t, in truth, read much of Quarrington’s work, but I was a big fan of his live performances–a great reader, a great speaker, a surprising good singer (I saw his band, The Pork Belly Futures play in Winnipeg because I was all alone and it was either that or stare at my hotel-room wall–and they were brilliant!!) He had a wonderful big warm presence, and an off-the-cuff joy in performing. I actually went to so many Quarrington events, and just ran into him randomly at so many litsy things, that he started smiling and saying hi to me, even though he had no idea who I was. I was in the process of working up the nerve to introduce myself, and now I am not going to get to do it. Which is sad. But I will be reading the books.

——————

And so ends another miscellaneous week. Hope this finds you well!
RR