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 14th, 2010

Stuff to be sad about

In case you didn’t take my point yesterday, my problems are totally lame and largely of my own making. Doesn’t really cheer *me* up to think that, but might cheer you, concerned friends, to know that I have not been stabbed, shot, hit by a car, infected with anything, fired, dumped, or insulted. I’m merely having a loserish week (and it’s only Wednesday). To whit, here are some things that, if you do not have enough problems, you may wish to be sad about with me:

1) Not yet having the new lists issue of The New Quarterly (for which this list is a poor substitute).
2) Combination skin.
3) Was working on a new story for several weeks, put it on hold to work on something else, and upon returning to the project, can no longer remember what the hell I was planning to do with it.
4) Dressing not on the side, as requested.
5) Amy moving away. Sadness not improved by opportunity to buy her stuff since I don’t need any stuff (but maybe you do?)
6) Still cannot find crystal lightning bolt earrings (has been six years, but every now and then I re-open the mourning).
7) Russell Smith launch on same night as Guy Gavriel Kay launch; RR not cloneable.
8) Hardcover books hurt my tiny mouse hands.
9) Weekend kitten visit apparently cancelled.
10) While catastrophic affects of doing large part of a project backwards have been averted (by frantically redoing all the work), am terrified someone is going to ask be why I did it backwards…and I won’t know the answer.
11) Now worried that listing bad things that have not happened to me (see above) will tempt fates.
12) Tax season.

To balance things out…good stuff:

1) TNQ will likely come soon.
2) Guy Gavriel Kay launch with Scott and co will be super-awesome (and perhaps afford an opportunity to eat in a food court, one of my favourite forms of dining).
3) Weekend bowling still on.
4) Finished 3rd draft of another story (the one that distracted me form #3, above) and sent it away.
5) People keep giving me free lipsticks. I counted this morning (what? you have your hobbies and I have mine) and discovered I have seven lipsticks, despite the fact that I have not paid money for one since the year 2000.
6) Have a blog to complain to.
7) Sparkly sunrise this morning.
8) Nice friends.
9) Mother some sort of tax genius.
10) Am wearing sockettes with gold trim, as purchased on my whirlwind trip last May.
11) Spring.

April 13th, 2010

Transcribing The Stills

Oh my god, everything sucks. Not really; it’s pretty much limited to first-world problems around here, but morale is low. And what boosts morale faster than transcribing the lyrics of popular music? Transcribing the lyrics of angry popular music (note to anyone baffled by the above: I occasionally enjoy writing down the lyrics of a song I like while I listen to it. It forces me to really examine each word; a song that I still love after I’ve done this is lyrically unimpeachable).

I started with Destoyer, but in the end I didn’t want to post the whole song because when you *do* think a lot about the lyrics, some of them sound pretty psychotic. So I’ll just post the best verse, and suggest that you watch the video above and not overthink the lyrics, because it’s pretty catchy, and also I used to live next door to where the video was filmed.

And arrows are pointed
And the archers delighted
Oh the thrill oh the smell
The shit I’ve been put through
Let angels to no one [I think I have that line wrong, but the principles of the game preclude looking it up]
Well I hate you and your blood
So don’t make a goddamn sound
Well I’m comin’ well I’m comin’
To your town

I ended up doing The Stills’ “In the Beginning” which is vaguer but still wrathful. Also, I can’t find a good video for this, but you can hear it off their CBC3 page.

This story ends in bloodshed
The face I love
The city I’m from
Well the persons I’ve met
The persons I’ve let down
But our hero never turns around

It’s nice to see you’re moving on
I know hard to carry on
And it’s just never what it was
Oh in the beginning
In! the beginning!

And how did this start
And when did we begin
In a ball of fire and stars and soot [I think I have that line wrong]
And that brings me here now
Well my heart’s caving in
A tornado whips it round the poles
And it’s –rainin’

Oh!

It’s nice to see you’re movin’ on
I know it’s hard to carry on
And it’s never what it was
Was in the beginning
Well in! the beginning!

[bridge]

In a ball of fire
In a ball of fire
[do do do do do]
In a ball of…
[do do do do do]

Anyway, in case you didn’t pick it up, I totally love The Stills, and I feel their stoic deadpan guitar-fuelled rage is exactly in keeping with my own. Hope this has been a good pitch for them–you don’t even have to listen to their music exclusively when you’re angry!

RR

April 12th, 2010

Bits and Bobs

The always wondrous Kerry Clare has found another of her own kind, ie., another fascinatingly bookish Kerry! This one is poet Kerry Ryan, and their interview together is really insightful. A small example:

“KR: Well, domestic subjects are easy to come by; we’re constantly surrounded by them. But that doesn’t make it easy fruit to reach — there’s always the challenge of finding the aspects of everyday experiences or objects (especially the ones everyone is familiar with) worth the attention of a poem.”

I don’t look at a lot of photo blogs because, well, I don’t have much technical insight into photography, and to just look at image after image, day after day, on a strictly “That’s so awesome!” level, I must agree with the photographer pretty closely on the definition of awesome. I agree *very* closely with Brooklyn Codger about awesomeness–check this out, and tell me if you are surprised that her real name turns out to be Rebecca. Her posts are generally one (or more) of my favourite things: 1) things found on the ground, 2) cats, 3) food, 4) books (quite often, 1 and 4 combine), 5) cityscapes, 6) craft projects (ok, I don’t get much out of crafts, but BC is so charming I go with it). Now go look at the whole blog and see if you agree about the awesomeness.

You can read a little interview with me over on the Now Hear This blog, posted in anticipation of my reading for them, next Wednesday at 7pm at the Free Times Cafe. It’s been ages since I’ve done a reading in town, leastwise one that was public, so I’m really excited (ok, I’m always excited about readings). What to read, what to read…
RR

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

April 8th, 2010

Workshop #6–Dialogue

When I taught creative writing for the first time, last year, I didn’t teach dialogue. I claimed to have run out of time, and more or less had, but in truth I didn’t shift the schedule to accomdate dialogue because I had no idea how to teach it.

I think it’s inappropriate to relay compliments about myself, but a number of people have told me I write dialogue well, and most of the time I believe them. It seems logical that I would be good at it, since I love it! Definitely I’ve found that the things I find fun are also the things I can do well, but I’ve also find that people who are good at things can’t teach them. Did you ever have your math-brained friend try to tutor you in algebra? It’s horrible, right? Because they keeps saying like, “ok, and obviously the vector would go this way,” and they actually have no way of explaining it if its not obvious to you. Mathy people’s brains make too many math leaps and they can’t retrace their steps for someone whose own brain doesn’t leap.

What you want is a teacher who struggled and struggled and struggled with something, and eventually achieved some (possibly low) level of mastery. That person remembers every step of the process and is able to explain it clearly to the novice–a teacher that remembers what it is like to learn. Which is why I think my most useful lessons are on plot structure or self-editing or things of that nature–I struggle with those still, and my memories of my learning process are as recent as last night, so I can bring the kids some very well-rehearsed tips.

I am not saying I’ve “got” dialogue or am not constantly trying to improve–certainly I am, and there’s plenty of room to do so. But dialogue is the fun part for me and I do bounce along more easily with that stuff than anything. And it’s really hard to say why or how!

But for my students, I’ll try. Start with the thing that every creative writing teacher–and anyone who has even heard of the process of creative writing–would advise is that if you want to write dialogue, listen to people talking. Absolutely! And not just your friends–listen to as wide a range as possible. Eavesdrop in restaurants and on transit. Make note of how people use certain words and how they vary–dresser or bureau? Snow machine or skidoo? “Bay-gal” or “bag-el”?

Of course, the flip side of this is that really good, really readable fictional speech is highly stylized, and if you use real speech to convey character you would need the length 0f an evening (a whole first date!) to catch an even slightly accurate portrait. I don’t take notes and don’t record–indeed, I never quote directly from strangers. When I listen, I just want to get the rhythms of their speech, turns of phrase, that sort of thing.

What to leave out? Sneezes, burps, apologies for dropping things on the floor, long descriptions of what a mutual friend is up to, repititions, speakers losing their place in the story for no reason, giving of directions, self-absorbed monologuing (unless it both a. reveals a lot of character and b. is funny), conversations about the weather that are actually about the weather, way-too-plot-heavy-garbage (some people probably actually say, “I don’t think you love me anymore, Bruno. I think you have played me false” but they do not need to be immortalized in fiction).

In short: dialogue in realist fiction is *like* real speech, but *better*. So I brought hyper hyper stylist stuff–Pirandello, Beckett, Abbott and Costello. Oh, and it was funny stuff, too, at least in my opinion. I’m finding that the students feel the weight of “writing a story” really a lot–I wanted to remind them there’s supposed to be some entertainment value here.

And then I taught them how to punctuation dialogue and then…well, it was a short day so then we were out of time, but that was pretty much all I had anyway. How *do* you teach dialogue?

RR

Slackers and singles

Final set of votes on weird word variations are in–I’ll add mine in now and also the reason I’ve asked the questions. These were a bit more pointed than the others, I guess.

April 5th, 2010

Bad Blogger

Dear Rose-coloured,

I am so sorry that I completely blanked on our third anniversary, last Wednesday. I truly believe that we are an excellent couple, Rose-coloured, and together we have so much fun, make such lovely new friends, and waste so much useful time that could have been spent getting the tomato sauce off the wall. I could never have imagined that what began as a self-absorbed fling could blossom into the long-term, with digital recorders and long distance interviews, shout-outs on serious blogs, and such kind comments a vast improvement in my nonfiction writing skills (and some actual publishing of it), all in pink pink pink!

Look how far we’ve come! When we first met, I had three jobs and was scrambling to finish my masters degree, and yet you always inspired me to write nonsense about busses and snacks and friends, no matter how tired I was. Now I have, um, two jobs and a book to finish (hm, not that far after all), and yet I totally haven’t gotten sick of friends, busses, snacks, or blogging. Maybe I am a little (tiny bit!) tired of pink.

The forgotten anniversary is only reflective, rest assured, of those above busynesses. My love is pure, and I promise I will make this oversight up to you…what would you say to a new house?

Love and inanity,
RR

The last of the word surveys

Ok, I’m going to stop doing this soon, because it is sort of addictive and I fear this becoming the Weird Word Variations blog. But y’all are very interesting, you know, and I keep coming up with new things I want to ask.

These are the results of the last round of questions, posted here. You should really go to that link and read all the crazy comments, because I wasn’t able to adequately quantify the discussion, nor most of the bonus questions. But here’s the gist of it:

1) What do you call the evening meal? The midday meal? Does that ever change? For what reason?

April 2nd, 2010

Rose-coloured and Mark review Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms

I can’t tell you how much I enjoy doing this series.

RR: Hello and welcome to the 3rd installment of Rose-coloured and Mark review bizarre candies that we find in our travels. Mark has been to America. Mark, would you like to tell us what you have brought back from America?