Day 24: Hot little moments of anger

My father is not a reader. In fact, I think it pretty safe to say that my father has never read a novel in his life. Somehow I find it easy to imagine him weaseling his way out of reading novels in high school, and these days, the longest thing he reads is the daily paper. All of which is to say, I suppose, that my father has always been somewhat skeptical of my fascination with pen and ink. He was skeptical but tolerant of it while I was in high school, and nursing dreams of being an editor. "People will always need editors," he said. "That's a good job. That's a good thing to strive for."

But then I went away to university, and told him that I was not, in fact, going to be studying "editing" at all (ie. publishing), but just wanted to study this: creative writing.

Some thoughts on life, and "Annabel"

I've read a lot of books in my short little life. I've read a lot of books (though I will echo my friend Steph, here, in saying that I too don't think I'll ever consider myself to be very well read), and I've enjoyed a lot of books, and I've even been bowled over by one or two texts that have danced across my way. The first book that ever did this for me was The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy. The next book that came close, for reasons that were variously different but ultimately led to the same end, was Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wide. And then there was The Heart of the Matter, by Graham Greene, and anything at all by Flannery O'Connor. Nabokov's Lolita. This is the kind of writing, I like to think, that survives the ages. These are the kinds of stories that rise above the initial hype, that speak to something more and grand and other, something that lifts us above our tired lives and makes us see the world in an entirely different way.

And then I read Annabel, and everything changed.

Day 23: Transatlantic love

Today's little bit of joy came in the form of an unexpected Skype chat. I'd just gotten home from work, and had dragged myself to my desk in an effort to convince myself to stay awake for another four hours, when the little telephone on my Skype screen started ringing. Lo! I opened it up and saw two dear friends smiling at me, all the way across the ocean in Scotland.  I could see the Walter Scott monument through their window. And I got to bask in the 10:30pm Scottish twilight, even as the sun itself began to set on my part of the world, thousands of miles and five hours of time zones away.

Let's just  pause for a moment, and give thanks for the supreme fantasticness of video chat.

Upcoming trips

I'm off to Scotland in just over a week. Delicious! Thirteen whole days of friends and pubs and good music and cobbled streets. The turkish baths in Portobello. The Espy. A wedding. Night out on the town. Traipsing up Arthur's Seat for old times' sake. A cup of tea and a piece o' cake in the Sheep Heid Inn. Maybe a trip to Mull, and Iona, and a few nights in the shadow of that great abbey.

And so today, which was in most other aspects a humdrum, unspectacular kind of day, I rejoiced at the thought of exciting days to come.

Okay, I also had a few moments of guilty pleasure whilst watching the season premiere of True Blood. This is possibly the most ridiculous, most unbelievable show on television right now, but gosh, is it delicious. Though I imagine I'll want to smack Sookie Stackhouse something awful by the end of the season.

Oh well. What can one do but soldier on, glued to the telly.

Day Twenty One: I Heart Jill Barber

I discovered the wonderful Canadian chanteuse Jill Barber about two years ago, right in the middle of my time in the lovely shoebox that was my Portobello apartment. I streamed her album, "Chances", on my online CBC radio twelve hours a day on the weekends. I'm not kidding. In retrospect, it's probably good that I was living by myself, as I'm sure any potential roommates, much as they might have loved her music (because, really, how can you not?), would have gotten sick of listening to the same songstress/album/song on repeat for all their waking hours.

However, I did not have roommates, and therefore I was blissfully free to crank up the volume on my little Mac and dance alone in my apartment, dreaming of slippery satin dresses and sleek updos and long black gloves and cigarette holders and basically everything that was fantastic about the Jazz Age.

Day Twenty: Road Trip!

Now that I have my license and have proven that yes, I didn't forget to drive whilst living in the UK, being situated out in the middle of nowhere actually has its perks. One of those perks (in addition to the silence and the utter blackness of a country night under the stars) is the fact that there's a 45 minute commute to get anywhere. Might not seem like a perk to most people, but when you love to climb behind the wheel and crank the stereo as much as I do (how did I live without driving? How?), the prospect of a longish drive to get anywhere becomes immensely exciting. It's like being able to take multiple mini road trips all in the span of one day.

Day Nineteen

Today, among other things, I had an interview (of sorts) in regards to a freelance writing position for a special needs website. The position sounds amazing, and the woman I spoke with sounded like a kindred spirit in lots of ways. It's probably going to be a volunteer position for the first little while, but they're eventually hoping to get grants and sponsorships in order to pay their staff, so who knows what might happen in the future. AND it's based in Montréal, which leaves open the possibility of an eventual move to la belle ville if the position becomes more of a permanent thing.

So, all of that's exciting. But the most exciting thing about the phone call was the fact that she actually called me 1/2 an hour late because she'd got caught up in reading my blog.

"I love it!" she said. "It's so gorgeous -- one comes away from it really feeling like they know you, and you write so beautifully. I can tell just from this that you're a person I would love to know, and to work with."

And, well, that warmed the cockles of my heart, as they say. We even chatted a little about this 365 project that I'm doing. "Who knows," she said. "Maybe your work with us could bring you joy like that, one day."

Awesomesauce!  How lovely to be able to talk once again about loving one's job, or about one's job bringing joy to one's life. I feel like the world has softened just a little, and shown me a glimpse of possibility and hope beyond my present situation. (Which is absolutely not as bad as it could be, I know.)

Still. How lovely to hear that. I had a smile on my fact the whole day.

Flash Friday: The Drabble* Edition

My mother died in the same blue lake where she'd learned to do the butterfly. When they found her, days later, her face had swollen beyond recognition and her boyfriend was gone. My grandmother launched a lavish campaign -- TV interviews, pages in the newspaper, a nationwide manhunt. Even a spot on Oprah.
The jury is in on Cole Morgan -- GUILTY!

I was days old, and knew nothing. I learned to swim at the Y. But when I turned sixteen, my grandmother put me on birth control, just in case.

"There's just no telling," she said, "what a jealous man will do."

_____________

* (For those of you who might not know--I didn't--a "drabble" is a short story that's exactly 100 words long, excluding the title.)

"Instructions" on the Indie Books List!

And now, for featured blog Numero Deux, we have an excerpt of Instructions being featured on the Indie Books List.

Fun fun!

In other news, today I braved the torrential downpour and rescued my copy of Annabel from the library. Have just spent a delicious 1.5 hours swimming in Kathleen Winter's luminous prose. How can one help but rejoice in the presence of books like this?

I'll write more about Kathleen Winter in a bit. Suffice to say, right now, that she's everything I want to be in a grown up.

"In this cankered world": Author on author action, and other smutty things

A few days ago, via the wonderfulness that is Twitter, I came across this article, which lists "The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults in History". It was definitely good for some laughs, and even a few mild shocks. (I say mild only because I know writers, and I know that at heart we all have the power to lash out with the best of them.)

But it got me thinking about the grander idea of author insults. You know, the mudslinging that happens in this gentrified literary culture of ours. Harold Bloom guts Stephen King. Jodi Picoult slams Jonathan Franzen. VS Naipaul slams all female writers. On and on.

We writerly types sure get (and give) our share of zingers, don't we?

Amanda on The Independent Voice!

Hey kids,

Check it out! Instructions is being featured today on two lovely sites promoting independent authors. The first site, The Independent Voice, is run by the lovely and talented writer Carolyn Arnold. See the article here.

Many thanks, Carolyn, for giving me the chance to promote my work!

Day Seventeen

Another small, excessively simple thing for today. This morning, my alarm went off at 5:00am, as usual. But I had the day off. So today I got to revel and rejoice in the supremely delicious feeling of turning one's alarm off and snuggling back into bed.

I dreamed of writing, and then woke up a few hours later and had a productive day filled with words.

So simple. So wonderful, in so many ways.

Days of Plenty

A small thing, for today. Which just makes sense, doesn't it? My days can't always be filled with moments of clover-eating, firefly-watching splendour. Some days will be humdrum. Some days will just be ... regular days.

Today was such a day. I worked. I tried very hard to greet everyone with a smile. But when that last worktime minute clicked by, boy, was I glad to march away. Stopped to get my watch fixed on the way home. And then ... I came home and had pizza. And then I watched three episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and ate more pizza.

That was my day, more or less. So: when a day is as pleasantly uneventful as the one described above, where does one find the moment worthy of rejoicing?

beauty and terror

Today, while waiting for my ride home from work, these lines from Rilke's "Go to the limits of your longing" popped into my head:

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

And suddenly I had a flash, a glimpse, a deliciously brief taste of what my next novel is going to say. Definitely something worth rejoicing over, even if only to myself.

Here's the whole poem, just because it's that beautiful.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.


These are the words we dimly hear:


You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.


 Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.


Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.


Nearby is the country they call life. 
You will know it by its seriousness.


Give me your hand.

(Translated by Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows)

Day 14: For the love of Pa

Family day today. Drove out to see my paternal grandfather for a few hours, and then drove a scant few kilometres down the road (my parents grew up within two miles of each other, went to the same elementary school until my mother was 10, and then met again when they were in high school, seven years later) and visited my mother's parents. Sat on their back porch and looked out over their yard. It hasn't changed at all since I was ten -- the trees are larger, and the vegetable garden is smaller now, but the air still smells the same.

My father's father grew up in Quebec, and has a Quebeçois accent to rival that of Jean Chrétien. It still surprises me to know that I didn't notice his accent at all when I was growing up. Now, of course, I notice it all the time. I love the way he talks. I love the way both he and my father get increasingly agitated when they speak (particularly when they speak to each other -- the French blood runs hot in these veins, let me tell you!).

And so today I sat with family, and reveled in voices and pictures and sounds from my childhood. It made me thankful for my dad, who can be so gosh darned stubborn and ornery and infuriating but never fails -- ever -- to make life interesting in the extreme. Must be all that French blood.

I'll probably have to write a story about it, some day.

Day 13: Surprises

I've only been at this project for two weeks. And yet somehow--slowly, bit by bit--I can feel it changing my outlook. Changing how I approach the world. Every day holds surprises now. What will my moment be? When will that unlooked-for moment of joy come to greet me? It reminds me of the memoir that CS Lewis wrote, Surprised by Joy (which in turn always makes me think of his wife, Joy Davidman/Gresham, even though the memoir isn't, in fact, about her). These days, I wake up knowing that joy will greet me somehow. Even in its smallest, most inconsequential of forms.

Calling all indies!

Hey kids,

If you've self-published a novel through Createspace or Smashwords or another likewise platform, check out this wonderful site that I stumbled across today: Indie Books List. Free promotion for you and your book, provided you furnish them with an excerpt and a little info about your work.

Sounds fantastic, non? I certainly think so!

Day 12: Kiddies and curses

This might possibly make me a bad person. But today's moment of joy came from the fact that I finally found the text for the much touted "children's" book pictured above.

Day Twelve: Freedom!

I downloaded the trial version of "Freedom" today. You know, the handy program that Nora Ephron touts as her anti-procrastination tool, the software that Naomi Klein says is responsible for her finishing her next book, and the very same thing about which Dani Shapiro writes so beautifully in this essay.

On Van Gogh, and Luongo, and the Game ...

Like many Canadians, I grew up in a hockey family. My brother played from the age of six until about sixteen or so, and my dad was his coach for a number of years. He played defense, and he was really good at it, and one year he scored the championship goal for his team. His number was #77. I screamed myself hoarse when they won. But I myself wasn’t much of a hockey gal, in that I didn’t play, and I didn’t actually know that much about the mechanics of the game—how it worked, what the rules were. When I moved away and went to university I stopped watching. And eventually my brother stopped playing, and for a while there I was little more than a mildly interested bystander.

Then I moved overseas, and suddenly hockey became this magical, wonderful whiff of Canadiana that remained stubbornly elusive in a land sans CBC. I watched when I could—which, considering the time difference between Canada and the UK, usually meant that I was watching games until 3 or 4 in the morning. When Canada played against the US in that fated Olympic game, I sat in my Scottish apartment until 3 in the morning and danced like a banshee. And when I came home, finally, it was with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the fact that I was back in the land of hockey hooligans. I might be jobless and destitute and living with my parents, but Ron McLean and Don Cherry were on TV at a normal time now. Hallelujah.

All of which is to say that I’ve spent the past few months watching the Canucks’ slow climb to the Stanley Cup final with equal parts joy and timidity, I suppose. I’ve been wanting to write about them, but have felt constrained by my lack of hockey knowledge. At the end of it, I’m only an averagely-educated spectator. And most of the time I think hockey’s best left to the pros. Especially when exciting series finals end in heartbreak. What can a girl who doesn’t know hockey, in and out, say in times like this? 

Day 10: Heartbreak and Happiness

I'm going to write more about this tomorrow, but for now, let me just say this.

I'm heartbroken that the Canucks lost. I'm even more heartbroken at the reports of the riots now taking place in Vancouver. So disappointing, folks! And here I thought we were doing so well, and being so civilized about everything.

However. I can't help but also feel joy at how much this game, as it has done for so many years, has brought our country together. Maybe it's a silly thing to rejoice over, especially in light of the riot disgrace as outlined above, but I'm going to take heart from the fact that the majority of Canucks fans and hockey lovers aren't rioting, and love the game as much as I do.

So tonight, even in spite of the heartbreak, I am going to rejoice in the presence of hockey, and how much joy it can bring to this vast stretch of Canadian soil. Well done, boys. Congratulations on a journey well taken.

Day Nine: Frequency!

You know when you're driving and your favourite song comes on the radio? I love those moments. Even today, in the age of mp3 players and car hook-ups for one's iPod and the opportunity for endless favourite songs in one's car, I still find it such a novelty when it happens the old fashioned way.

Ditto for television. I rarely watch the ol' telly anymore, but last night I found myself channel surfing.  And lo and behold, Frequency was on TV. You know, that movie you've probably never heard of, starring Dennis Quaid and James Caviezel (back in the days before The Passion did what it did to his career).

So I hunkered down and watched me a good old-fashioned, commercial-breaks-every-ten-minutes-movie on television. I had the entire rec room to myself, and a lovely mug of tea. About halfway through the film I got a hankering for Smartfood. I kept putting it off, because I'm trying rather hard to fit into this dress that I'll be wearing to my friends' wedding, but I caved about half an hour before the movie's end.

It was delicious. Smartfood + good film + comfy couch = happiness, even if only for one hour and forty-five minutes.

Review: Practical Jean, by Trevor Cole

 Jean Horemarsh has just watched her mother die.  She’s watched her mother die for three long, excruciating months, and when she moves back into her own house after her mother’s funeral, it’s with a heavy heart and deflated sense of life purpose.  What’s the point, she thinks, in rejoicing when age will come forth to grab us all?  What’s the point in being happy, or any of that, when one is destined to suffer the aches and pains of old age anyway?  Of what use is friendship when faced with that ultimate, lingering sentence?  And so Jean, filled with concern for this eventual fate of those closest to her, hatches a plan.  A diabolical, horrendous, and yet ultimately practical plan to save those she loves, and give them one last thing of beauty before they go.

Day Eight: Magic in the forest

So the game is going on right now.  Right now, right this very minute, Boston is lording it over Vancouver by a score of 4-0.  It hurts.  It hurts probably more than it should, and I'm no doubt getting far more worked up over this than I should be, but there you have it.  I am attempting to salvage the situation by reminding myself that a Game 7 in Vancouver, win OR lose, is going to be so much more epic than a Game 6 in Boston.  Still.  My altogether-too-easily-bruised hockey heart is aching right now.

It's a good thing magic still exists in the world ...

Day Seven: Blog Love

Today's bit of rejoicing came, without a doubt, from the comments that were posted in response to this entry.

How can one not feel cherished as a friend and inspired as a writer with the gift of words like these?  So thank you, dear friends and fellow scribes, for putting a smile back on my face and reminding me that just putting that pen down to paper is an accomplishment in and of itself.

You are loved.

Day Six: Porch read

Today I read a little more of Practical Jean, the novel that won Trevor Cole the Stephen Leacock Medal.  Read outside on my parents' lovely porch, in their comfy wicker couch, while the breeze blew gently through the trees and the sun shone down on all.  No rain in this part of the world, at least for today. 

And then my aunt and uncle stopped by for a surprise visit.  They stayed for a barbecue and then we all went down to Dunnville for the Mudcat Festival fireworks.  (I don't know exactly what the fireworks were/are for, but they were pretty spectacular.)

And I felt like a child again, watching them.  There was a family sitting just next to us on the grass, and they had two little girls that reminded me of myself and my sister when we were young--so excited to be there, snuggling under their blanket together.  They laughed and laughed when the fireworks came on.  So cute.

It was a simple day, but an exciting one all the same.  And the simple but exciting pleasures of today--reading out on the porch, barbecued veggie burgers, waiting for fireworks--reminded me so much of what it felt like, being a child.  To look forward to things, to really truly enjoy the things that lay around you, whether they be surprise visits or reading a good book or fireworks exploding in the sky. 

Some time into her newness project, the writer Kathleen Winter posted an entry about how her search for newness had the tendency to culminate in a bunch of new things, all at once.  Today I feel like my resolve to rejoice in one single thing each day has culminated in an entire day's worth of rejoicing.  This is a good feeling.  It gives me hope for the project, for the future, for myself.  For the 359 days ahead of me that might hold treasures such as this.  How lovely, indeed. 

Day Five: PUPPY!

So I'm having a bit of a blah day, folks.  Very much a why bother kind of day.  I opened up the document for the new novel, and felt blah about it.  And then I opened up the ms that's currently making rounds to smaller Canadian presses, and felt blah about it.  Blah.  Blah. 

I mean, why bother?  Why bother, when the newest recipient of the Orange Prize is a mere 25 years old, or when the author of the latest YA fantasy craze is only.  Twenty.  Two?  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all of the talent that's out there, in the world.  Some days, I wonder if I really have anything worthwhile to say.

The good news, of course, is that these kind of feelings don't last forever.  Especially when there are PUPPIES involved!

Day Four: Itsy Bitsy

Historically, spiders and I have never gotten along all that well.  This despite the fact that spiders have been portrayed rather well, for the most part, in children's literature.  I mean, Charlotte's Web was (as was probably also the case for millions of children) one of my favourite books, growing up. 

But actual spiders, now, that's always been a different story.  One of my earliest memories is of watching a gigantic (okay, so it was probably only twice the size of a quarter, but we're dealing with childhood eyes, here) spider build its web in one of the tires of the van that sat in my parents' driveway.  Thinking about it still makes me shudder.  During my last year in Victoria, I lived for a few months in a basement apartment.  Lesson:  do NOT live in a basement apartment in British Columbia if you have a dislike of spiders.  Seriously, folks:  the emotional distress simply isn't worth it.

Today, though, brought me a different kind of spider story.

Woof (365 days of rejoicing, Day Three)

I'm not going to lie -- these past seven months back home have been pretty tough.  Most days I feel like I'm 15 again, except with none of the social life and three times the responsibility. 

However, I have a dog here.  I did not have a dog (of my own) in Scotland.  And today, I think this is plenty reason to rejoice.  So today, on this day when it was fiendishly hot outside and lovely and cool in the house, I rejoiced in the presence of my dearest snuffle poochie-woo, whose eyes are brown and lovely and whose tolerance for hot and sticky days rivals that of my parents.  We laid on the floor and chillaxed for most of the day.  

She's my favourite blonde in the whole wide world!

Ice, Ice baby (Or, 365 Days of Rejoicing: Day Two)

Today is the first day in a three day stretch off work.  Delightful.  I slept in until 9 (gasp), struggled with words until 12:30, watered plants, played some piano, and concocted grand dinner schemes involving the barbecue and some fresh rhubarb from the store.  (Rhubarb goes in a pie.  Not on bbq.  Sorry for confusion.) 

It usually takes me a day to get back into writing mode, so I'm not going to be too harsh on myself for only having spit out about 500 words.

Oh, and it would appear that I've been chosen as a finalist in this week's 5 Minute Fiction Contest!

365 days of rejoicing

I've spent the majority of the past year and a half in varying shades of depression.  I think, for the most part, that it's been a situational sort of depression, borne out of the fact that I was burning myself out in Scotland in order to stay there because I loved it so much.  So when things in Scotland crumbled anyway, and I found myself flying back to Canada with nary a job or prospect in sight, the world and my experience of it collapsed in quite a few significant ways.

But depression does run in my family, and around six years ago I had an episode of sadness that was not dissimilar to what I've described above.  Once again, that period of sadness involved a burn-out -- in that case, I was working 35 hours a week and taking six classes at uni and generally just spreading myself way too thin.  It happens.  I tend to do this -- throw myself into things full tilt, work really hard, lose sight of the importance of standing back and resting and allowing things to fall naturally into place.  I can do it, I always think.  I just need to work harder, be better, write more, do more, sleep less.  Stop complaining.  Reach for every opportunity, and things will eventually come.  

On arrogance, and itchy smacking hands

By now you've probably all heard that the always controversial VS Naipaul has, well, gone and done something controversial again.  Big surprise.  This time around, he opened his mouth and stated that he doesn't consider women to be his literary equals.  Why?  Because we all write sentimental, feminine tosh.  Oh, and we're not the masters of the house, so we shouldn't really be writing about power dynamics anyway, because what the heck do we know?  Nothin', that's what.  Etc.

My first instinct on reading this was to scream.  Incidents like this make me so darned angry.  But then the ever lovely and always brilliant Diana Athill provided a divinely calm rebuttal in The Guardian.  And then the wonderful Steph, of Bella's Bookshelves, quoted a friend and pointed out that all we can do, really, is feel sorry for the man and all of the fabulous writing he's been missing out on as a result of his gender bias.  And then I felt much better.

Still -- arrogance in the literary world is something that's always intrigued me.  And so today I thought I'd take a few minutes and ruminate on that.  Feel free to chime in and let me know your thoughts.

But he looks so delightful & cuddly!

But she looks awesome.  And goddess-like.  Goddess trumps teddy bear every time.

                                                       VS.

Thoughts on a wee conversation

That I had yesterday, via Twitter, with the tremendously talented Julie Booker and equally talented Steven Beattie.  I suppose it wasn't really a conversation -- more like one or two sentences -- but it centred around some interesting issues, and so I thought I'd discuss them in a little more detail here.

Yesterday, I came across this article, touting several Twitter tips for writers.  I thought -- and still think -- that it's mostly a good list.  I have issues with numbers 3 and 5, but that's only because they require Facebook, and as we all know, Amanda is still stubborn in her refusal of all things Facebook related.  I'll be the first to say, of course, that my stubbornness is waning, and I contemplate going back on Facebook at least fifteen times a day.  But on the whole I'm still wary of it, and I get irked when I see marketing tips that assume everyone in the world is plugged in to that blue and white social marketing machine. 

However.  This isn't actually a post about Facebook, believe it or not.