February 27th, 2016

Treats for writers

There’s definitely people in the literary community who would crucify me for saying this, but I sometimes describe writing as a lucrative hobby rather than a job. I do this not because I think writers should not be paid for their work–I absolutely do–but just for personal morale purposes. If you line up writing income beside other jobs, like bank teller or physiotherapist, and compare incomes, you’re going to feel really really bad about writing. Whereas if you make the comparison instead to other hobbies, you feel like you’re coming out ahead. Knitters I know spend hundreds of dollars on wool, needles, and patterns and what do they end up with–some sweaters. Skiers are constantly buying clothes and equipment and paying for travel, and they don’t even get a product. Whereas all I need is the laptop I would own anyway, an internet connection, and a few pens–and I’m well on my way to writing the stories I love, and maybe, sometimes, as few bucks. It’s a cheering way of thinking about it–I assume the skiers, knitters, and I all have fun, but my fun is the cheapest, and the only one that’ll put the fun-haver occasionally in the black.

That said, there are a lot of products and services targeted at writers for a hefty cost. Many of these are fun, some of them are helpful, none–beyond a decent dictionary and the aforementioned computer–are really necessary. There’s always a way round, and I would encourage anyone who is worried not to feel pressured into paying money for something just to feel more “writerly.” If you want something because you think it would bring you joy or convenience or be helpful in your work and you can afford it, great–go for it–but assume that buying writer stuff is the same as any other capitalist transaction: once the money is spent, it’s gone. The worry I have is when folks tell me they’re going to spend x on a thing for writers that is guaranteed to pay for itself when they sell their movie option or whatever. Don’t do that–those things might not be scams, but there’s no such thing as a guaranteed return on investment in this crazy game called literature.

That said, I am finally finally nearly finished with my novel, and there are few things I’m going to buy my writer self as a reward. These things are fun for me and also, I hope, a bit helpful for the book–but if it turns out that they aren’t that helpful, ok, I’ll get some joy out of them and write off the money. I’ll put my hoped-for treats at the bottom of this list, after all the other ones I’m aware of.

Writing classes: So fun and valuable to me–I’ve taken half a dozen as an adult and learned a tonne. I’ve also met some wonderful other writers who are my workshop-friends now. I no longer take classes, but we still work together and offer each other feedback on our work, so what I got out of those initial, expensive classes was the ability to create free classes of my own. It was also a real blessing to just get out in the world with my stories and have people start to read them in a very supportive environment. While I no longer do these, writing classes were a really valuable first step when I needed them.

Books: This one is so obvious I almost didn’t put it on the list. Buy as many books as you can afford. When you run out of money, head for the library or borrow from a friend, but it’s really great to own the books you love best, so you can consult them or just reread for pleasure whenever you need a hit of high-quality literature. Buying books is also a good way to meet authors you admire, because everyone likes to be asked to sign their books (people who say they don’t are LYING).

Fancy notebooks and pens: I never buy these because I get them as gifts so often, but they are nice to have. I’m much less of a longhand writer than I once was, but I do like to have books to take notes in at meetings and workshops, and good fast-running pens. True confession: sometimes I use my nice stationary at my job instead, but it still makes me happy.

Manuscript evaluations and other editorial services: In general, I would recommend the first option on this list over this one–teach a man to fish and so forth. But some people learn better one-on-one, and some have issues with a particular manuscript rather than the craft of writing as a whole, and in those cases it does make sense to seek out a professional consultation and see if the editor can help you. My only advice would be to get a recommendation on this–there’s tonnes of people doing this kind of work in a variety of ways, so you want to find someone you can trust–and then consult on exactly what you need and can afford. Real, thoughtful substantive editing on a full manuscript is a huge job, something that often takes writers by surprise (though I don’t know why, considering how hard it is to write the damn thing in the first place) and can rightly be very expensive. A manuscript evaluation–an editor reads through your book and sends a few pages of notes on what’s working and what isn’t, but mainly leaves the how-to-fix up to you–can be a lot cheaper and still really insightful. If you want to go this route but are stumped at finding someone, hit me up–definitely don’t do this via google.

Writers’ retreats: Oh, my goodness, I want to do one of these. These are basically fun little summer camps for writers–you get food and a place to stay in (usually) a very pretty or interesting setting. There are other writers around to talk to in the evenings, and really nothing else to do but write during the day. How perfect does that sound? However, these are typically very expensive, and I don’t have a good justification for taking one. If I want to spend a week writing, I just take the week off from my job, sacrificing that income, and go write in my home office. To pay to write in a nicer place, while desirable, would be hard for me financially on top of the lost income from not being at work, and I really don’t have a hectic enough home life to justify it. BUT I WANT TO. If you do this, let me know how it goes–and send pictures! EDIT: Lovely Julia pointed out to me that there are fully funded residencies in the states, and even some that make up your income while you’re there. Obviously, I’m not too conversant in this stuff, but definitely I should be looking into it!)

Professional website design: I did this one–you’re looking at it! I love Rose-coloured and I spend a lot of time on it, so it sense for me to have a pretty, personal design that suits me and my work and accommodates the things I want to share in the ways I want to share them. I’ll go back to the designer (www.createmethis.com) for site refresh for the new book, and this is one of the aforementioned treats that I’m really looking forward to. It’ll be fun to have the site look different after half a dozen years of pink and the subway map. That said, I don’t think anyone needs to do this–you more or less do need a site of some kind, so that people can easily find you bio, events, and publications all in one spot, but you can totally do that with Blogspot or WordPress.com or any of the others free or cheap self-design sites. It can make you feel lovely and professional to have a lovely professional site, but it is totally a treat (can’t wait!)

Headshots: This is the other thing I’m going to do soonish in support of the new book/because I want to. I was pretty much told I had to get professional head shots for my first book, and though that turned out not to be true, I loved doing it. Professional photographers are so cool and interesting, and so different from writers, and it’s fun to spend a few hours trying to look like a real writer. Not to mention stage-managing the shoot so that the mood suits the book, maybe buying new clothes or whatever. Totally vanity, but if you’ve spent a few years in your sweatpants writing a goddamn novel, you are entitled to a little vanity. Or so I believe. Anyway, if you don’t want to go this route, it is fine, but you should still put a little thought into it. Basically, don’t take a cellphone selfie and call it a day. Try to find a friend who has a nice camera and takes photography at least a little seriously (easy way to tell: ask your publisher to send you the specs of what they need in a photo, then ask the friend if they understand those specs–if yes, they’ve got the gig) and ask them to take the pic in exchange for dinner or something like that. Spend some time thinking about how you want to look and where you want to be in the photo, and ask the friend to take a whole bunch of shots so you have options. Then go to a nice restaurant.

There are so many more treats you could buy your writing self: business cards, specialize software, fancy writing hat (ok, that last one is not a thing, I don’t think). There’s also stuff I know nothing about, like the services of a professional publicist to promote your book. Sounds legit to me, but I know no one who has done it, so I can’t offer any advice. And there’s probably lots more that I’m not even thinking of.

So basically, write your book, do your drudgery, put in the long exhausting hours, and then buy yourself a treat or two. You’ve earned it.

February 18th, 2016

Small talk: a how-to

Social media keeps offering me this article about how small talk is bad and getting into serious, important, emotional conversations is where are our interactions should start, not end. Which I think, with all due respect, is garbage. In the best light, this sort of thinking comes from a place of desiring genuine connections with fellow humans, which of course is a great thing to want. But it also speaks of not wanting to put in any effort–the effort to learn where a person puts their emotional energy, where they are guarded or vulnerable, where they would be comfortable speaking deeply and where they’d prefer to stay on the surface. This idea that we can demand an instant connections, brave emotional honesty and all that entails, from our fellow humans, is a big red flag for me.

When I was dating, some of the fellows I went out with occasionally opened a first date with the baffling line, “Gawd, I hate dating.” After I had heard this a few times and stopped being paralyzed by it, I started making a gesture to leave the room, sometimes muttering, “Well, you asked me out.” Similarly, when someone says to me that they hate small talk, my inclination is to respond, “Ok, sure, so would you like to start with the existence of God, or how you lost your virginity?”

I don’t have a lot of patience with these sorts of comments. I resent the idea that it’s too much work to get to know me, that finding out what I’m like and whether we have things in common would be something this person would skip if he or she possibly could. It’s like saying “It’s too far to get to Spain–I wish it could be just 20 minutes away.” But then it wouldn’t be Spain.

Small-talk can be awkward or embarrassing, or very boring, but it can also be as fascinating and full of personality as any late-night revelation. And it’s very very hard to make new friends without it. Hell, with the person I know best in the world–my husband–a majority of our conversation could be considered small-talk. Since I already know most of his life story, secrets, dreams, goals, and ideals, we tend to talk about whatever has happened since the last time I saw him, often only a few hours before. How is that book you are reading, what did you have for lunch, who was at the party, and what did you dream about last night are some of our classics, and I rarely find the answers less than interesting, at least a little.

So for those whose small-talk contempt is born of fear and not a genuine dislike of talking to other people, here are some good ways to get into it…

How has your day been so far? This one works in any context. The most obvious is someone you see often, like a family member or colleague, but it can be fun to ask someone you just met at a party, or an old friend you haven’t seen in years, or the barista making your coffee. It allows for an answer that is as specific or general as the speaker likes, and unlike some other queries, could never be interpreted as prying. You get to present whatever info from the day you think is relevant, from your health, kids, and work, to a book you read or a fluffy cloud you saw. Using it in the long form, as opposed to, “How are you?” kind of hits home the idea that you genuinely want to know, and cuts down on the “Fine and you?” responses, though you’ll still get those from time to time.

Whereabouts do you live? What’s it like there? This is a great generic question, everyone’s asked it and been asked a million times at work, at events, at parties, but the thing is, there’s a lot of really cool stuff to be said here. Everyone lives where they live for a reason, and I’m curious to know what those reasons are. Are you near all your childhood friends’ houses? Are there lots of old-growth trees in the yards? What’s the neighbourhood like? What are the good restaurants around there? Where do you get your bike repaired? This one can go on for ages without getting boring.

How do you know the hosts? Obviously, this one works only at parties, but it’s a great icebreaker, because you learn something relevant about the person you’re talking to–where s/he works or lives or went to school, whatever the common element is. Sometimes you also get to learn something new about whoever invited you to this party, like you didn’t know she was on a tennis team or that her work had certain elements to it. You get to know BOTH people better, and hopefully the conversation spins on from there.

Working on any cool projects these days? I ask this one most often at my actual job, where the names of projects will have tonnes of meaning for me, and I’ll be able to ask pertinent questions. But I also ask my colleagues in the creative world this one–it’s less scary than “What are you writing?” or “Did you finish your book yet?” It also allows people to talk about projects that they care about that might not have the status of “work” or a “job”–renovating their homes, teaching a child to bake, learning French. I genuinely love to hear about people’s work, but I’ve learned asking “What do you do?” can be a threatening question to those who don’t like their jobs, are un(der)-employed, or don’t work in a traditional sense. This version of the question allows the speaker to talk about what genuinely matters to him or her.

Have you read any good books lately? This is a question I’m always interested in the answer to–I may even write it down for later purchase if someone speaks passionately enough. I have found I need to judge this question pretty carefully, because some people who don’t read a lot of books find it a bit intimidating–“good movies” or “good tv shows” can work just as well. In these days of highly niche content, it’s unlikely that two people will like all, or even mostly the same stuff, but it’s always inspiring to hear about new things, and hopefully find some commonalities in there somewhere.

How did things work out with X? This is a fantastic question, because it shows not only are you interested in talking to this person, you remember what s/he said last time you spoke. That’s huge–it can be so baffling if I update people on elements of my life and then when I see them again, I need to start from scratch. This is a good question to ask because you automatically know this is a topic the person is comfortable and interested in discussing, be s/he has before. And you get to find out another chapter in a story you have been following, which is always cool.

An unusual but not prying question: At my age, everybody’s asking “Do you have any kids?” which is a fine and interesting question, but it comes up a lot. I am a huge pet person, and I found when I started asking “Do you have any pets?” I got REALLY good answers. It’s just not most people are expecting at a party or a business meeting, and yet at the same time, not really personal or intrusive. People who do have pets love to talk about them, but the thing I’ve found was that people who don’t have pets still put some thought into giving an interesting answer. They talk about pets they want to get someday, animals they know in other contexts, and their childhood pets (the VP of my department told me a great story about the cat she loved as a child!)

There’s a billion more interesting questions you can ask people that will both set them at ease and draw them out–and then you can gradually go deeper and more personal if the person seems receptive. Or not. I know plenty of people with whom I can fill a good couple hours with the above questions and feel as deeply connected as when I’m talking about true love and fear of death.

The commonalities here are all of the above are questions, not demands–“Tell me how you knew you were in love!” or statements–“Here’s the interesting thing about me.” It doesn’t always work, but usually when I show genuine interest in who a person is and what’s going on in his or her life, the conversation goes good places–big or small.

February 10th, 2016

Rose-coloured reviews: #Hair Expertise by Loreal

Intro: I am into giving my opinions on stuff—you might have noticed. When I combined that poverty in grad school and working at a very underused info desk at that same time, you wind up with me on a lot of market-research and focus group mailing lists. I would get free products to try and/or take surveys for money about which products I currently use or would use if they existed, and I attended focus groups with clickers and some very upbeat moderators. I have given my opinion on everything from songs on the radio to feminine hygiene to grocery stores to candy. Sometimes they even ask me about politics! I resigned my major focus-group affiliation a few years back. I regret that a little–$100 for talking about gum for 2 hours–but really at this point in my life I need 2 hours more than I need $100. On the other hand, I continue to do and like the surveys. My recompense is free products and the occasional little cheque in the mail–which is fine, I like the perks and the surveys are a good quick break from more strenuous work.

This is all just background to my new project, which is via Influenster. I don’t even remember where I heard about it or why I wanted to sign up, because I don’t understand the site at all. I remember being interested because oooh, surveys, but after I’d answered hundreds of questions I thought it might never end, and no one seemed to be sending me any prizes, so I gave up. It wanted me to log in via various social media, so I linked it to my Facebook account, but the site kept importuning me to let it post on my behalf, which I kept having to deny (obvs.) I tried to link Twitter, but it was IMPOSSIBLE without agreeing that Influenster could tweet on my behalf. I honestly think no one reads my tweets, but still–that seemed a bit much.

So I gave up on Influenster, but I guess I filled out enough surveys that they felt they understood my interests, because they asked me to fill out another survey to get a Vox Box. I didn’t know what that was but after I got a few more emails all saying the same thing, I went to the site and figured out that a Vox Box is a box full of products to review and voice (vox is Latin for voice) your opinion on via social media, blogs, surveys, etc.

Now we’re talking. So I did the survey and yesterday a big glossy specially designed box came in the mail filled with three full size Loreal Hair Expertise products, plus a brochure proclaiming their benefits. I was very pleased with all of it, though I gave the box to my cats to play in.

Anyway, they are big bottles and the testing period, according to the website last 48 days, though the website strongly implied that I might like to start tweeting about the experience immediately. I did post an “ooh, free shampoo” hashtag post, and then checked out the others using the same tag. Apparently I’m 15-20 years older than most of the other Influensters. I also hadn’t understood that there was so much push for me to post photos of the shampoo bottle and me with the shampoo bottle–who wants to see that? Well, some of the Influensters are very attractive with fab hair , even before the new product, so I guess that is why. I will not be doing that.

Anyway, here’s the day one report. I’ll check in over the 48 days whenever anything interesting happens, hairwise.

My products are the Arginine Resist line: shampoo, conditioner, and spray. It’s for hair that is weak and fragile and falls out easily, which is certainly true of mine, which is all over my apartment and which my roommate (the last one before I started living alone) once found in the fridge. It’s supposed to make your hair stronger by both strengthening the hair shaft and increasing circulation at the root. I didn’t fully understand–it’s interesting how beauty treatments get more and more medicinal sounding the older you get. I wonder how old I’ll have to be before they are palliative, just keeping my hair comfortable until the inevitable end.

Anyway, I normally wash my hair every other day because it’s healthier for the hair according to some, but I hate that, and feel like the swamp thing by the end of the second day, so I’m taking this opportunity to go back to every day washes for a while. I figure if the shampoo/conditioner itself is supposed to be making my hair healthier, I should use it as often as possible. Both looked like generic hair products, white creamy guck with a mild sweet scent, totally unproblematic. My hair felt really great afterwards, but that is often the case for me with new products, any new products. My hair enjoys novelty, apparently, but it wears off in a few days.

The spray, which isn’t hairspray in the usual styling sense, was harder to figure out. I didn’t know if I was supposed to put it on before or after combing, or styling, or what. The instructions on the back are pretty odd and minimal. I put it on first, and it combed through nicely. I debated other styling products, but decided against, to give the Arginine its full chance to shine. After a few minutes there was no smell, and my hair seemed a bit less frizzy than usual. All day long it felt extra soft, though after a few hours it didn’t really look different than on a normal day.

So that was the first day! I suspect this post was really boring, but as I wrote it on a break from various much harder things throughout the day, I thought it was delightful–sorry! I’ll strive to make the other ones at least shorter.

February 3rd, 2016

Name games

I have very strong feelings about names, but they are hard to quickly and easily define to people. It’s not that I don’t have rules, it’s just that those rules are not often comprehensible to others. Also, what does it matter? It matters that I am writing a novel with a lot of names in it, so how much sense the names make could potentially drive a reader nuts.

You get a name at birth and that is always your name–unless you change your name, but that strikes me as incredibly mind-boggling. I mean do it if that’s your jam, I don’t think it’s wrong or bad to change your name, I just don’t understand how anyone copes with, for a certain number of years being one name, and then later another.

This bafflement on my part is in turn baffling to others who know me well, because for the first 27 years of my life I went by “Becky” and then switched over to “Rebecca” after that. To me it makes sense because my name was actually always Rebecca, Becky just being a nickname for Rebecca. It was just that no one called me that–parents, other family, high-school, university friends, teachers, everyone called me Becky but I knew myself to be Becky or Rebecca interchangably and I did not find it a major switch to start introducing myself formally as Rebecca. I felt I was old enough to carry the three syllables, and I wanted less dissonance between my written and spoken worlds (I have almost always written under Rebecca). Many people could. not. deal with this change, and that also makes sense to me–see below–so I stopped asking family and friends who had known me prior to age 27 to call me Rebecca. So now all those folks know me as Becky, and everyone I’ve met since–grad-school friends, work friends, people in the writing community, and notably my husband and everyone he’s introduced me to–call me Rebecca. This makes perfect sense to me, no confusion at all, the way you wouldn’t be confused if someone pointed at a piece of furniture you call the couch and said, “Want to sit on the sofa?” Rebecca and Becky are synonyms, synonyms for me.

I am extremely respectful about given names and nicknames, and I am always careful to call someone exactly what they introduce themselves as. I would never presume the privilege of using a nickname, even though I love nicknames, unless I were invited to do so. This also causes some confusion, as the various Jennifers I work with are all occasionally referred to as Jen. I never did that, because I wasn’t invited to–I wouldn’t be happy if someone went rogue and called me, say, Bek–and they all thought it was weird. The Jennifers actually got together and asked me to start using Jen, which is also weird but I feel more comfortable doing so now. Basically, I guess I think, one’s name is one’s own–nicknames are at the owner’s discretion.

Although if you ask me to call you by a nickname, or ask me to GIVE you a nickname, I will be very happy to oblige. Something that makes me happy is that way back in the 90s, my friend Karen complained that she didn’t like any of the nicknames available to Karens, and I thought for a while and suggested “(W)ren”–the second half of her name, and also she is small and birdlike. She still uses it! I got the same complaint from an old workmate named Taylor and suggested Lori, which she liked but I don’t know if she still uses.

So, I’m down with nicknames. HOWEVER, it blows my mind when someone changes their name to a completely other thing that has no relationship to the original name. How I see these two categories of change as so different I have no idea, but there you have it! Seriously, when people change their names at marriage (the reason most of those I know who have changed it did so) it takes me YEARS to get it straight. There are people who have been married over a decade that I refer to occasionally by their maiden names (is sexist terminology? I feel like yes.) I mean no disrespect, I’m onboard with the idea of the name-change, it’s just that I can’t process it properly.

One of the great things about being a writer of fiction is that I have access to and control over tonnes of names–which is good, because my husband would never let me have enough cats to use all the names I like. I don’t have a science to how I name characters, though if you read a bunch of my work you can notice certain preference areas. I once got a baby name book with the idea that I would read through it and find new kinds of names for my characters but that did not pan out at all. Usually I just think about a character until a good name pops into my head and that’s that. I almost never change a character’s name once I’ve decided on it, which is why in my last book there’s a not-so-great fellow with the same name as my husband. Sorry, Mark-the-husband, Mark-the-character showed up first and I just couldn’t unname him.

And while I’m listing my naming oddities, I should mention that I can’t use generic terms of endearment–my husband and I call each other by the names on our birth certificates. I can’t explain this anymore than I can the rest of it–maybe it has something to do with how if anyone can be “baby” or “sweetie” than perhaps no one is? And this rule does not extend to the cats, to whom I regularly refer as “sugar plums.”

I also do weird things with nicknames in fiction–many’s the editor who has come back to me with a “correction” that a character is flipflopping between or among names. In truth, it’s that someone could be referred to by different nicknames by different people, but that’s a pretty hollow truth if no one understands and just thinks the story is sloppy. So I wind up changing it–in my forthcoming book, Julianna is almost exclusively called that, and I took out most of the use of Juli and Jules. This is sad to me, but it is important not to baffle the reader with my personal quirks.

Similarly, my editor pointed out that two characters have very similar names and readers might get confused–could one change? My instinct was “absolutely not.” It’s one thing to use a nickname or not and it’s another to give someone a name he never had before!!! Despite the fact that it’s an easy change to a minor character, I am a fragile point with the manuscript and I honestly didn’t think I could look at it with the wrong name in there.

I was being, as you’ve no doubt been thinking, an asshole, so instead of stating the above, I said I was going to leave the old (right!) name in place until the last minute before I hand off the manuscript–then I’ll do a global search-and-replace with a new, yet-to-be-determined name, and send off the ms without looking at it again. Which is clearly a batshit thing to do, but shouldn’t inconvenience anyone but possibly me, which is fine.

Next time you think an artistic type person is being eccentric just for the sake of it, please rest assure, I’m annoyed by me as anyone else. But I’ve had this quirk all my life and at the end of an exhausting edit is just not the time to rehabilitate it. So on we go–

Love,
Rebecca (Becky)

January 26th, 2016

Thursday reading (NEW TIME), other nice things

I know, being a writer is supposed to be about writing, and mainly it is–there really isn’t another way, because you just can’t count on the outside world to provide you with ways to feel all writerly without actually doing anything. I know I can count on myself to show up at my desk, and that’s about all I know.

BUT sometimes the random outside world comes through, and then I get to read the fantastic stories Best Canadian Stories, mentioned in the previous post and think, as I read one great piece after another, “Hey, me too, I’m in here too.” And that’s delightful.

Also, this week I finished an incredibly slow read of one my stories in French. A literary translation student chose my story for a project and was kind enough to send it to me when she finished. I’ve been aware of a few other such projects–one student in Mexico was translating a story into Spanish–but for whatever reason they weren’t comfortable sharing the final products. Which is totally fine, but what a gift to see the translation, and in a language I can actually read (very slowly)! I have been so privileged to see my work interpreted by other creative folks in so many interesting ways–a play, a short film, a feature film project that in the end did not work out but was really cool to discuss with the producers. A translation is another way of seeing a creative stranger dance with some of my ideas, and it was a lovely experience.

And finally, I’ll be doing that little reading Thursday night. The time has been MOVED UP–PLEASE TAKE NOTE if you’re coming–it’s doors 6pm, readings 6:30 on Thursday, at the Supermarket at 268 Augusta Street. I’m looking forward to reading to anyone who cares to attend, because that’s fun and maybe they’ll even say something encouraging or challenging to me afterwards, but I know that in the end, all this fun flurry will come to an end and I will have to go back to my desk and right some more. Which is–and has to be–fine too.

January 18th, 2016

Best Canadian Stories 15

Oberon Press sent me a couple copies of the lovely Best Canadian Stories 15, which includes, among other wonderful things, my story “Marriage.” Actually, Oberon sent it a couple weeks ago, but CanPar bafflingly just held on to it, never gave me any delivery notices, and eventually returned the package to whence it came. Grr, CanPar, but yay the kind folks (hi, Nick!) at Oberon who sent it out a second time.

If you get a chance to pick up a copy, you totally should–there’s stories by Alice Petersen, Kathy Page, Adrian Kelly, Kevin Hardcastle and tonnes more awesome people that aren’t so web present. I can’t wait to read it all!!

To temp you, here is a photo of the book, being nuzzled by me for some reason (I took a few versions of this photo–this was the best one, sadly).

Hello, gorgeous!

January 15th, 2016

A complete list of everything that went wrong for me on Thursday

1. Did not discover hot water wasn’t working until after gym workout.
2. Had to take awkward sponge bath; cats watched, looking horrified.
3. Developed migraine.
4. Dispiriting work meeting.
5. Found all colleagues dispirited by work meeting, all in different ways. Upside: we can’t all be doomed. Downside: no one available for cheering-up role.
6. Migraine worsened.
7. Myriad other small work problems.
8. Decided to go home early to cope with migraine; when boarding bus, driver closed door on me. Like, I wasn’t trying to squeak in in a hurry; I was standing in line and he saw me, but his hand just jumped or something and the door whacked me in the face. He nodded wryly but did not actually apologize.
9. Upon arrival home found that not only had hot water not been reactivated but heat now not working either. But it’s all scheduled to be back by 7:30, per mysterious voice over PA system.
10. Yes, my building as a PA system. It is like living in a high school.
11. Spend part of evening sitting on kitchen chair in front of stove, despite migraine and wanting to lie down, because bedroom is too cold.
12. Eventually feel better and make dinner, but are unable to wash dinner dishes because hot water did not return as scheduled.
13. By about 8pm, sitting on couch under duvet trying to edit novel.
14. Voice returns to PA but is garbled, and we can’t understand what it is saying.
15. My hope the PA is that it is saying the heat/hotwater is back, but as I go to check, power blacks out.
16. Mark runs down then up 10 flights of stairs to investigate electricity issue. Mark has a chest cold and this was not, in retrospect, a good idea.
17. RR finds a trickle of warm water and does dishes by flashlight.
18. Heat is still not on, apartment is freezing, it is too dark to do anything but go to bed and hope Friday will be better than Thursday. So we go to bed at 9pm.

January 7th, 2016

A reading!

I know, right–I haven’t done a reading since November 2014–over a year!–and it was starting to seem like I might never do one again. But friend and correspondent Jeff Bursey is coming to town to read from his new novel Mirrors on Which Dust Has Fallen and he kindly invited me, Mark Sampson, and S. D. Chrostowska to join in the fun. We’re all reading together at Supermarket on January 28, doors 7pm, readings 7:15 (I think there’s a band after, is why). Here’s the BlogTO notice for it and here’s the Facebook invite in case you want to respond or see our bios or whatever. If you are free that night, I hope you consider coming out!

Honestly, this event is mainly to celebrate Mirrors but I can’t help but be a little excited to read for an audience again. And the good thing about my long hiatus is that I have a wealth of new material to choose from…whatever shall I read…

January 5th, 2016

The best condiments

10. Maple syrup

9. Chili sauce (the sort of the thing rural people make from their garden tomatoes and peppers and bottle; not actual chili)

8. Chutney

7. Balsamic vinegar

6. Pickled ginger

5. Applesauce

4. Raspberry jam

3. Marmalade

2. Salsa

1. BBQ sauce

December 27th, 2015

For 2016

I hope everyone had a very merry everything this holiday season, and continues to do so. Mine has been and hopefully will continue being wonderful, but I’m not sure a recap of the nice things I’ve been doing, seeing, and eating would be that interesting. Instead, I’m in the mood to look forward to 2016. 2015 was a pleasant year in many ways, and certainly nothing really bad happened to me personally, but I found it to be a challenging 365 days in large and small ways. So I’m anxious to get on to the new one, which, like an unwritten book, has not had anything go wrong in it yet. Here are some things I resolve to do to keep making 2016 a good year even once it has gotten started.

1. Finish novel–really finish, not like the other times I’ve resolved this when it was “finish a draft” or “finish submission draft.” This time it is “finish and submit to copyedit” finish–world without end finish. Not included in 2016 goals only because it’ll be happening in January 2017 is “publish novel.”
2. Clean out spice cupboard. Find a way to store spices that is not a giant mess for first time in life. Cannot be that hard.
3. Wear every piece of jewellery I own at least once, out in public. This is an adapted version of KonMari, I guess. I got a new jewellery box for Christmas and in transferring everything over from the old one, found I had a tonne of stuff I never wear and indeed have forgotten about. I’m inclined to keep it all because most of it was gifts, but if I find I can’t even get through a single public appearance with the item due to physical discomfort or embarrassment at the item’s inappropriateness for my look, I think I’ll have an easier time parting with it.
4. No eating after dinner is over.
5. Stop being so fussed about what people I might never see again think of me. Focus on being a better friend to people who are genuine friends.
6. Start new novel. Have clearer structure and better plan than first novel from the get-go, so this one does not turn into another six-year ordeal.
7. Experiment with only one social outing per week for month of January. See if it makes me more productive and happier, or insane.
8. Use migraine tracker properly, or else find better migraine tracker.
9. Complete marathon critical essay and edit into something publishable. Essay is currently less than a third finished, 10 000 words long, and largely about my personal issues.
10. Train cat to ring bell on command.