A Quiet Exuberance

In between bouts of self-loathing I've been working away on my novel. Quietly, you know. Chopping here, slashing there, duct tape slapped over my yap to dull the screaming.

This morning, though, something miraculous happened. After a few blissfully exciting days working with graphic artist Steven Novak (aka Mr. Awesome), I OK'ed the cover.

SQUEE!

As I'm writing this I'm gritting my teeth, in a good way, and rolling my eyeballs faster than a hydro meter wheel with the hot tub running. Such is my excitement!

I heard about designer/illustrator/author Steven from author GP Ching, whose book covers I admire endlessly. They're glamourous and richly done, beautiful in every way, and they attract readers to Gen's marvellous writing. I know how important cover art is – as a retired graphic designer, I spent years making words look good. As a reader, I find myself clicking 'Buy' on Amazon based on the cover. The old adage is you can't judge a book by a cover but, in this digital world we live in, that little thumbnail means the difference between selling your book or letting it languish. Granted, if the writing inside is terrible, nothing can help you. My hope now is that my own writing is equal to Steven's work.

I'm not sure when my book is coming out. Soon. Very soon. I'd like it to be done in time for my birthday in October, a present to myself and yet another excuse to eat cake.

In the meantime, help me celebrate Steven's work! The orange is the same shade as you'll find on the Dr. Seuss classic Green Eggs & Ham, and the lovely curvaceous woman with the wild red hair is exactly who I was thinking of when I sat down to write Weezie's story. It's funny, when I was working as a graphic artist, I would CURSE the clients who weren't sure what they wanted, who made me do revision after revision after revision, and yet there I was sending Steven through the same hell! My apologies, dear Steven, and my sincerest thanks for a job well done.

The cheque is in the mail ... really, it is ...

Spike needed

When I got my first rejection, I was THRILLED.

Suddenly, I felt like a real writer! I printed out the rejection and gleefully showed it to everyone around the office and squealed, "I'm-a-gonna get me a great big spike and I'm-a-gonna stick ALL my rejections on the spike, just like Stephen King!"

I also felt like J.K. Rowling, who couldn't get Harry Potter published if the broomstick under his bony butt depended on it, or Kathryn Stockett, whose blockbuster success The Help was rejected by 60 agents before Agent 61 swooped it up.

This, I thought, is the process. This is what happens. I was pumped.

I was still pumped when rejection #2 came along. And #3.

But by the time #4 showed up late Friday night on the heels of a crappy day, I wasn't as thrilled.

I can tell you right now, I will not be doing what Kathryn Stockett did. I will not be flogging my book out to agents for the next three years hoping someone will eventually take pity on me and throw me a bone. Gawd, I could be dead in three years. I'm old as dirt. If I want to see my book published I do believe I will have to do it myself.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I had originally planned on self-publishing. The way the publishing economy is shaking out, the chances of being published the traditional way is slim to none, unless you're a rock star and I'm no rock star. To carry on with the music metaphor, I can sing OK in the shower but I wouldn't make it past the first round on American Idol.

I dunno, I just thought I'd give 'er a go... see what happened. Ya gotta try, you know?

You have to try.

Besides, some of the most successful books on the market right now started out self-published. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, Still Alice by Lisa Genova and The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis were all originally self-published before the authors were offered contracts.

Bonus: I just did a search for the bestselling women's fiction on Amazon and guess what: the number one bestseller is self-published (The Edge of Never by J. A. Redmerski).

Even better? This summer FOUR self-published titles made it to the New York Times e-books bestseller list.

I highly recommend you read this post by David Meerman Scott about Lisa Genova's rags-to-riches success story with Still Alice.

And ya gotta love Terry Fallis' determination. He shopped his book around for a year, getting nothing but rejections, before he self-published and began recording chapters and sharing them on iTunes. Having more balls than most, Terry submitted The Best Laid Plans to the prestigious Stephen Leacock Award for Humour – and won. After that, the publishing industry was knocking on his door and he finally got the recognition he deserved.

What I get from all this is you have to do-it-yourself first and, if your book is good enough and liked by enough people, you will get noticed by the publishing industry and the next thing you know you'll have a New York Times Bestseller on your hands.

I think that's the strategy I need to pursue.

What do you think?

Laughter, the best medicine

What writer doesn't have angst? It's a mandatory condition of the person who feels compelled to spend hours alone with nothing but a keyboard and an imagination, and then puts his/her pulsing heart onto a gingerly thrust sleeve and begs, "Please like me."

Even when readers do say they like our work, we don't really believe them. "They're just being nice." Deep down we know we're not really worthy of the word writers; we're pretenders. Waiting for the day that will surely come when someone outs us as the frauds we are.

The good news is we all feel this way. On Saturday I was at the wrap-up party for the Muskoka Novel Marathon and, for me, this was almost a better learning opportunity than the marathon itself, where we actually wrote. At the party, we talked about writing and that's when it struck me that even the most successful, published authors suffer from crippling angst. That's such a relief, knowing everybody else is just as wonky as I am.

I'd been feeling extra angsty about my novel lately. I'm waiting for revisions to come back from my good friend and fellow writer Laurita Miller, who I completely trust and adore. On one hand I've got my sleeves rolled up, waiting to get to work. On the other, I'm tormented she'll say "this is a total piece of shite." I understand this is how all writers feel so I'm trying not to freak out about it.

Still, I wanted to test my writing. I wanted to read it to the group at the marathon, who knew nothing about my novel or, for that matter, very little about me. I wanted to hear their honest reaction – and that's easy to judge when you're writing humour. If they laugh, you're gold. If the room is quiet, you're sunk.

Well, they laughed. Heartily. The room rang with laughter. I had to pause in several places to wait for the laughter to die down.

Oh. How I relished that sound. It was like the warmest of blankets; it was like getting roses when it's not your birthday; most of all, it gave me hope that maybe people will like the story, maybe someone will publish it, maybe they'll make a movie about it and Meryl Streep will be the star and I'll be rich and famous and, and ....

Yes. I'm being silly now. But not about how that laughter made me feel. That exquisite laughter. I shall carry it in my heart, today and always.

Or at least until the next bout of angst sets in.

Thanks, Etta

I didn't think it would happen, actually. I was so wrapped up in getting one book written that I never thought I'd get around to even thinking about another one. Lately though there's been a character percolating in my old brain, just an idea, that's all.

Then last night I was driving home listening to At Last by Etta James and it hit me like a drunk with the burning reds – what she'd be like, this character. I could see her, what she looked like, what her apartment looked like, the art posters on her wall, old blues on her stereo, a glass of gin on the rocks in her hand.

I listened to that song several times in a row, hitting replay over and over as ideas took shape and, later, the mystery of it all, the crazy out of the blue magic of it, kept my eyes on the bedroom ceiling as the minutes ticked by into the dark rain of this new day.

This morning I did a quick Google before work and found out more about James. A white Canadian girl raised on Tommy Hunter and The Lawrence Welk Show, I don't know nothin' about the blues or about James, other than At Last was Barack Obama's inauguration song and he and Michelle sure looked pretty dancing close on the tender evening.

The more I found out about Etta James, the more songs I listened to, the more my character rose from the smoky wisps of imagination.

I'm going to be singing this one all day.

Linda Simoni-Wastila – Letter from a Friend

Once upon a time, when my jean size was enormous somewhat larger, Linda Simoni-Wastila sent me a jar of homemade peach jam. I gobbled it up, so fast the postage stamp wasn't even dry yet. It looked, and tasted, like she had reached out into the sky and captured sunshine with a butterfly net, then mixed it with crystalline sugary sweetness and preserved it, with love, in a pretty glass jar. 

The jam is long gone but its flavour lingers. When I think of Linda, my thoughts are tinged soft with peach.

I know a number of Lindas (when I was in school there were as many Lindas as Cathys and Susans) so sometimes Dave has a hard time knowing who I'm talking about. "Which Linda?" he'll say, when I mention a story she has written, or something witty she has posted on one of her blogs, leftbrainwrite or bluetruedream. All I have to say is, "The jam Linda," and he nods and says, "Ahhh."

Funny, isn't it, how we come to identify our blogging friends with such labels. I'm glad that it's jam that labels Linda with Dave, because I have a much more sobering label that forever links me with her. We've both lost our fathers; me, a few years back, hers, not all that long ago. Whenever I write about my dad, Linda is there with a reassuring comment. The same when she writes about hers. I realize that everyone in the world can be connected by grief, but somehow our own connection has solidified over the last couple of years by this sadness.

We understand each other. And that's good.

While I feel like I know her intimately, what I actually know about Linda wouldn't fill more than a couple of paragraphs. She lives in the United States, somewhere near Baltimore, Maryland. She's a part-time writer, like me, only she's way more committed and has actually finished a book, and we hooked up through Friday Flash. She's a mom, she's an academic, she's a minister's wife and she's a fabulous cook. She takes writing classes, she's on board with the Weight Watchers program (but I mean, pffft, she's like Twiggy next to me) and apparently she's as bad at cross-country skiing as I am. She struggles with the business of the everyday, like all of us, and somehow she keeps the many and varied aspects of her life in balance. 

Linda is observant, intelligent and sensitive. She has a quality of dignity about her; a gentle strength, that shines through every word she writes. 

One of the words she writes the most is "peace." She signs every comment with it. And when you see it, that signature word, that peace, you feel her spirit, her quiet goodness, her offer of friendship, and sometimes, when you're feeling low, it is powerful enough to make you weep.

Hello friend!

I hope this letter finds you happy, writing like a mad woman on your novel, and not pondering funeral songs. I am, per usual, in the midst of chaos, but what else is new? Busy suits me, the alternative not a healthy one. Mostly I am consumed with work and this smorgasbord I am hosting for church folks. A friend is helping, but when we came up with the idea, we forgot the point of a smorgasbord is a LOT of food, which means a LOT of baking and curing and saucing. So, I write to you in between bread risings and cookie batches. Please forgive me if I sound confused—I likely am.

*

It is late here. Three loaves of Pulla cool on wire racks. The house smells of yeast and cardamom and I want to saw off an end, smear butter over the still-warm bread, but I think – what would Cathy do? You would walk-away; after all, you can walk away from Christmas cookies. You are a better woman than me, so I compromise: a small piece, no butter. Good enough for company, and still within my daily points.

Tomorrow will tempt me. But to be safe, I planned low-fat options (ta-da!), like cucumber rounds topped with salmon and a dab of wasabi-infused cream cheese. Tomorrow I will blow Weight Watchers, but that is what bonus points are for. Come Sunday, back to salad and veggies. By the way, I don’t think I would have returned to Weight Watchers without your public bravery, so thank you. Knowing you are battling similar temptations helps, a lot. And now the oven timer is dinging, I thought I was done baking…

*

It is early morning. The sun slants low over the treetops. Lea, my baby girl, practically a tween (when did that happen?!), sits beside me while I write to you (she says hi), watching robins pull worms and grubs from the grass. There are a hundred birds at least. A red-headed bird flies into their midst. The flock rises in a chattering cloud and flies to the safety of the pear tree. Lea runs upstairs for ‘the bird book’ and finds the woodpecker page. We deduce, based on size and shape, the intruder is a red-bellied wood-pecker. My aunt gave me that book when I was my daughter’s age. I feel the tug of family and history, of people I have loved in this life, and the morning turns bitter-sweet.

*

To sit, at last, to sit. The smorgasbord went well—the guests laughed and talked, their tongues looser from the beer and glogg. They left with full, happy bellies, the best I could hope for. My family has scattered to other corners of the house. I sip a small glass of white wine while I write. Peace. Yes.

Making this meal took more work than I ever imagined. Preparing these foods, many for the first time, I felt kinship with my grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, cousins. Kneading the Pulla dough, infusing the milk with cardamom, braiding the tubes into loaves, I imagined Mumu beside me, whispering the steps, guiding my hands. Brewing the glogg reminded me of my grandfather simmering the mixture of wine, port, and brandy in a soup pot in the week before Christmas. After he died, my mother continued the tradition, and now I make the ancestral potion. The sweet smell of glogg on the stovetop will always connect me to my mother and her father.

Food plays such an integral role in my memories. I love food, to make it, to eat it, to write about it. In one novel, my character Phoebe makes Pulla and remembers her mother, dead over a decade, and feels overwhelming grief. But as she massages the dough, sadness turns to the realization that everything she needs from her mother she has already received—a strength she can invoke anytime by the simple act of making bread, by remembering.

Preparing these ‘memory’ foods feels like small sacred acts, like resting flowers at gravesites. A way to honor my family and how they have shaped me and, in turn, passing memories to my children.

Anyway, enough of this sentimental mush. One more week before classes start, enough time to research snipers, Afghanistan geography, and hammer out Jeremiah’s story. Who is Jeremiah? You’ll find out soon enough, once I get down his bones. And I can’t wait to meet the characters you have cooked up this past year. So lucky, aren’t we, to love who we love, and to live as we do. For that I am grateful, just as I am grateful for your friendship. So take care, you. Hug your boys close, then tell them to hug you for me.

Love and peace, Linda

Lollipop train derailment

Where did my mojo go?

Have you seen it?

I'm half-afraid I ate the fecking thing. I've been eating everything else in sight these days, why not the lollipop train that's been chugging stupidly along the losing-weight-writing-a-novel happy track?

Picture a zombie. Mindlessly trudging along, a song in its putrefecating pustule that once was a heart, locomoting one asphalt-sucking galosh at a time until it finds some cardio-challenged fattie it can chow down on. Right? Get it? That was me, the zombie. Finishing NaNo was finding the fattie. I chowed down and now I'm at a total fecking loss at what to do next. I feel like I'm adrift in a sea of goal-lessness.

Yesterday was bad. I woke up feeling like a bear with a sore ass and I went to bed feeling like an ass with a sore bear. I had no reason for it, but there it was.

Losing 50 pounds was also like finding the fattie. Tonight I went to Weight Watchers and I am not proud to announce I gained four pounds. In one week! Feck! I came home and bawled.

Oh, I KNEW I was going to gain weight this week. I'm not making up stupid excuses – I just ate too fecking much. I ate out four times (once at the dreaded all-you-can-eat Mandarin buffet, henceforth to be known as the Mandarin Factor); I ate a wedge of chocolate birthday cake, not a piece, a wedge – it was so big you could jack up your house with it. Worse, I suddenly remembered why I was going to Weight Watchers in the first place: I LOVE TO EAT. Even now, right now, I am craving something sweet. Like Mr. Christie's Fudgeo cookies, the ones with Double Stuf (wishing there was Triple Stuf), or homemade oatmeal candy. Or my mom's shortbread cookies, the ones with the sprinkles on top. I have a Santa bowl on my kitchen table and all I can think about is how good it would look with ju-jubes in it. The really fresh kind. The ones coated in sugar. I saw someone eat a bran muffin today and I wanted to take it from him, forcefully, and stuff it into my own great gaping maw.

I'm on dangerous ground here. I know, I've been here before. I am at a crossroads of getting back on the zombie track or jumping the rails and saying "feck it" and gaining every single pound I lost and then some. You skinnies are going, "why in hell would she gain 50 pounds back?" But you fatties and former fatties, you know what I'm saying – it's a mad desperation that can grab us by the balls and send us howling back to the great buffet of life as easy and as fast as a wink of the puffy eye.

I need to find my way again. I need to find that light switch in my head that's currently switched to OFF and turn it ON again.

If I don't, there are bad times ahead and Christmastime is no time for bad times.

Eighty-five words and blah, it's Sunday

My cousin Debi, gawd bless her, wrote this on Facebook:

Heeeelllloooooooo........
So you finished your NaNo, congratulations.
Now write something dammit, we have had nothing from you for days!!!

Which made me laugh. She does have a point, though. I haven't written anything since Tuesday, when I finished NaNoWriMo. In fact, I didn't even finish the chapter I was working on that night. I wrote enough words to complete the damned 50,000-words-in-a-month challenge, then turned off my computer and haven't touched it since. Oh, I've read a few blog posts and checked the weather, and took three seconds to wish my husband a happy birthday. I also saw a photo of my son with some blonde chick on FB, and sent him an e-mail demanding the 5 Ws of Mothers:

Who is that girl? 
Why is she blonde Don't you like brunettes, like your mother? Aren't they prettier and smarter? Like your mother? 
WTF is she doing standing so close to you? 
What the hell were you thinking, not telling your mother? 
And, the classic, 
She better not get pregnant or I'll kick your ass all the way to Kalabogie?


What? The last one isn't a question? Does it matter? Do mothers make sense?

But I digress.

The writing, the writing. This morning I opened up the chapter I was working on and read it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, so I added 75 words, then fretted some more about my son's GF, drank some coffee, made a dint in the laundry and came in the bedroom, my woman-cave writing space, obstensibly to write but more likely to contemplate the growing fuzz in my navel.

NaNo drained me. It took all my writing juice and then some. I needed a little break from it all. Also, I've been busy doing normal person stuff, like going to Christmas parties, going Christmas shopping, celebrating Dave's birthday, eating way too much food, all of that. I am sure to gain weight this Monday at Weight Watchers and no surprise if I do: Wednesday night, a big hunk of chocolate fudge birthday cake; Thursday night, chicken parmesan and pasta at East Side Mario's; Friday night, Christmas party buffet; Saturday afternoon, complete pig-out at Mandarin. Yup, I'm screwed, Weight Watchers-wise. Oh well.  I had a good time. I'll try harder next week.

My friend Paula also posted on Facebook:

And we want to see photos of you in your new Christmas party dress!

Ah yes, the dress. Friday was Dave's Christmas Party, a swanky fabulous do hosted by West End Motors at Hidden Valley Resort in Huntsville. The party was GREAT. I had the BEST time. I really did. I loved talking to Dave's co-workers – it's not something I get to do often and I'm always charmed by their intelligence, their grace and their wonderful humour. The buffet was outstanding and the candy cane cheesecake was to die for. Yes, I had cheesecake, but then I danced my ass off, literally, when the dance floor opened up in all its techno-disco-pop glory. That's the thing about losing 50 pounds and exercising all the time – I COULD DANCE! I shook my booty all over that floor, almost every song. I mean, you couldn't hear yourself talk so you might as well dance, and dance I did. The only time I didn't dance was when I slurped down a Diet Coke. I felt like a teenager again.

As soon as I got in the car to go home, though, everything seized up.

"Dave," I said, "I can't move my neck." He had to do an emergency neck rubbing just so I could drive. (He had rum with his Coke; thus I was driving. I had a stiff neck. He was just stiff.) When we got home, instead of getting romantic, he fed me Tylenol, slathered me with Deep Cold and used the Orbus Forme (or however you spell that) Thumper on my back. He was at it for 20 minutes. His arm was getting sore, so he stopped.

"Oh no," I begged. "More. More!" The neighbours must have thought something wild was going on. Until the hot white smell of Deep Cold wafted through the breezeway.

I'm digressing again. The dress.

You know what? I made the mistake of looking in the full length mirror in the women's washroom at Hidden Valley. There I was, thinking I was all hot. I looked really hot in the full length mirror at the fat ladies store. I looked really hot in the little low-lit bathroom mirror here at home. But in the cold hard light of Hidden Valley I was aghast at my reflection. Despite losing 50 pounds, my arms still look like the arms on the Michelin Man. All puffy and white and HUGE. Yes, they're smaller (I don't need the extra large blood pressure cuff anymore. I don't have to lift my arm flab just to shave my armpits.) But all I could see when I looked in the mirror were two freakishly fat arms. Feckitty, feck, feck.

There was my sparkly sequinned party dress. There were my high heels and my flouncy hair and dangly feather earrings. But all I could see was my fat, fat arms.

Not to worry, though. I have a high tolerance for mirrors and a strong ability to not dwell on body image. "Feck this," I said to my fat-armed reflection. "I am going to go back in there and dance my ass off and have a fantastic time, no matter what you think."

So I did. Why dwell on the negative? Feck the negative! I went out to that party and I danced like there was no tomorrow and I had the BEST time. It was probably the best Christmas party I was ever at. And when we got home, Dave leaned in to make his move and told me I looked gorgeous.

A happy warmth spread all through me and I snuggled in close to his amorous arms and sighed and kissed him and whispered in his ear, "Get out the Deep Cold and the Thumper, baby. I'll meet you in the bedroom wearing nothing but my flannelette nightgown and a grimace."

Anyway, Paula, there are no photos. I took the camera, hoping to ask someone to take a photo of me and Dave in all of our sartorial splendour, but then forgot all about it. The good news is, I have another Christmas party this coming Friday. I will make sure I get a photo then. And don't worry, I'll make sure my fat arms are on full display so you can see what I'm talking about.

One thing about me: I have equal opportunity fat. Some women look like apples, with skinny legs and skinny arms and a rotund apple-like middle. Me? I'm like a sausage casing, from top to bottom. It's like God had a pastry bag and squeezed all the fat into my entire self, from my chubby toes to my chubby ear lobes.

But I'm digressing again. I really did want to talk about NaNo. I think that will have to wait for another day, however. A day that's not Sunday. A day when it's not gray and rainy and slow. I would like to go to a movie today. Anonymous, that flick about who wrote William Shakespeare's plays, is showing at the local moviehouse. I could get down with a bucket of movie popcorn, a bag of Twizzlers and some of the Bard.

One more thing: I'm looking at e-readers and I've heard nothing but bad things about Canada's Kobo. Apparently they go wonky really quickly and the customer service is terrible. Does anybody have one? I have a Kindle and I love it, but a number of current bestsellers are unavailable to me because Canadian copyrights for e-books are held by Chapters and Indigo. Amazon can't sell them to Canadians and Chapters/Indigo e-books aren't formatted for Kindle. Bah. So much for Free Freaking Trade.

37,931 words and my writing buddies

Right on the heels of telling you how hot I am, here's a photo that proves, not only otherwise, but also how little pride I actually have.

That is me deep in Nanowrimo mode, writing the Great Canadian Novel, or at least, MY Great Canadian Novel. Eight more days of writing ahead. 12,069 words. That's 1,509 words every day. Can I do it? How can I not do it after investing so much time and energy?

Am feeling confident right at this moment because I just had a good writing night. Last night, though, I was convinced I didn't have one more word in me. What I wrote was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't developing the plot. And it certainly wasn't well-written. Tonight I decided, to heck with it, and started writing the chapter again from scratch. This time I knew where it was headed; I had the right atmosphere and the words fairly spilled onto the page.

I asked Dave to take this picture, not to show you how chub-ugly my feet are, but to show you my undecadent writing space and my two furball writing buddies.

I've tried writing everywhere else around the house but I've done my best writing on the bed, scrunched into a back-busting ball. I goof around on my blog or facebook on the kitchen table but when I go into the bedroom and shut the door, I'm all business. Sometimes I even use ear plugs. I find it blocks everything out but the sound of my own brain thunk-thunking in overdrive.

The funny thing about this is my two cats, Dodge (the orange one) and Ben. Cats are creatures of habit and they have made a habit out of sitting at my feet while I've been NaNo-ing. As soon as the door closes they push it open and come walking in. They don't bug me. Much. Sometimes they rub their whiskers on my laptop or demand to be petted. For the most part, though, they just lie down like the slugs they are and fall asleep. Sometimes they even snore.

Is this how The Great Canadian Novels are written?

In a messy bedroom with snoring cats?

29,885 words and I'm so grumpy!

Dear Diary:

What on earth is wrong with me? I am SO grumpy!

I woke up feeling perfectly fine yesterday but the minute I got to work people started ticking me off. Nobody was doing everything different than they usually did – it was just me, being grumpy. Like capital G Grumpy. Like a bear with a sore arse wasn't as grumpy as me yesterday.

There's this guy at my work – let's call him Gilligan. Well, old Gilligan works in a different office than me and we hardly ever have any dealings with each other. But he has an inexorable radar for when I'm grumpy – it's the only time he ever appears in my chat window. Sure enough, I was in mid-meltdown, the highest (or shall I say lowest) point of my grumpiness, when Gilligan shows up wanting to chat. The last time we chatted I just about ripped him a new one. Today I managed some decorum. Just "yes-sirred" and "no-sirred" my way through the conversation, practically standing on my tongue. Finally he exited the chat and none too soon. He probably thinks I'm the bitch of all time; the "problem employee" who has trouble getting along with people. The truth is I get along with practically everybody but for some reason Gilligan makes my head spin around and spew pea soup.

Last night, for one of the first times since I started National Novel Writing Month, I didn't make my daily word quota. I wrote 700 or so lackadaisical, blah-blah-blah words. It would have been less painful to slash my wrists and bleed onto the page.

This morning I was grumpy with Dave, who only wanted a kiss before he went to work.

Oh man, I have a headache right now.

Like I said, I don't know what's wrong. Probably hormones, or just pure exhaustion. These two and a half weeks of NaNo, while thrillingly productive, are killing me. Even dieting is wearing me down. My whole focus this month has been diet and exercise, writing and working. Those three things fill almost every minute, from the time I roll out of bed to the time I fall in it again, exhausted.

I'm feeling discouraged, at this point.

Last week I registered a 50 pound loss at Weight Watchers, which is THRILLING, but it followed two days of fasting and laxatives in preparation for a colonoscopy. I went for the weigh-in on the tail-end of the enforced fast. I mean, wouldn't you? Why waste two days of not eating? The trouble is, my weight has crept up a couple of pounds since then, simply because my body has rehydrated. I'm being very good this week, trying to stave off the inevitable, but every day I get on the scale and see that my elusive 50 pound victory has not returned. It will. I know.

But I can't help but feel discouraged.

And I'm discouraged because I wrote a pile of shite last night. A very, very small pile of shite.

Thank goodness for this blog, my diary, my journal, my venting board.

Oh, and it snowed yesterday. It's crazy beautiful outside.

Too bad I'm too grumpy to appreciate it.

21,263 words and I'm freakin' hungry!

I'm having a colonoscopy tomorrow afternoon (YES, ANOTHER ONE) so I haven't been able to eat anything all day. Worse, the stupid procedure isn't booked until 3:30 p.m. so that's almost another whole day where I can't eat anything.

HELLLLOOOOOOOOOO????? Doesn't my doctor realize how much I have to EAT? That if I didn't love food so much I wouldn't be going to Weight Watchers?

I think I'm going to die if I don't eat soon.

And – gak – as soon as I finish writing this I have to take the purgative that will ship everything I've eaten for the last week fleeing from my loins like it's hopped up on nitrous.

Feck, feck, feck I hate colonoscopies.

I just had one in the spring and all was FINE. I was FINE. But then I went and got sick a few weeks ago and now the doc wants to have another look. What does he think my colon is, anyway? A movie? With polyps as the starring role? With him as the director? And his probe-thing as, I don't know, Godzilla?

It doesn't help that I just wrote a chapter about corn roasts. Mother of all that is holy, I was drooling as I wrote this:

"Grandpa Bean set up several enormous pots over raging bonfires. They boiled hundreds of cobs of corn, picked fresh that day from his fields and husked by the entire family. They cooked hot dogs, too, big steaming vats of wieners bursting their skins. Grandpa Bean used a hay wagon as a giant table and it was loaded with plates of butter, buns for the weenies, all manner of condiments and bowl after bowl of homemade potato and macaroni salads, coleslaw and baked beans. Weezie loved all of it. She could eat six or seven cobs of corn at a sitting, on top of a couple of hot dogs and a can of orange pop. The butter and salt would drip down her elbows and smear all over her cheeks and she’d care not one whit. And despite being full to bursting she’d find room in the bottom of her hollow leg for a slice or two of homemade pie. Grandma Bean and her daughters and sisters all made pies for the corn roast. The hay wagon groaned with pie. Apple, lemon meringue, raisin, cherry. Just thinking about those pies was enough to provoke drooling in Weezie some 30 years later. "

 Yep, let's write about hot dogs and corn on the cob when you're eating nothing but popsicles and ginger ale.

Those of you who know me will realize that I was using my grandparents' famous corn roasts as inspiration. Hazel and Charles Hooper farmed in Buttonville, Ontario, where Grandpa was the Reeve of Markham and had a lot of friends in political circles. Every year they hosted a corn roast to thank their friends and colleagues and these parties were one of the highlights of my kid year, right up there with Christmas and birthdays. It was the best corn, the best hot dogs, the best everything. It was such a pleasure to remember it today, even though I'd give my left nut right now for even a slice of dry bread.

(No, I don't actually have nuts. That is just an EXPRESSION. Gawd, sometimes people take things so literally!)

The writing, as you can see, is ROUGH. I'm just laying it down, trying to meet my daily word count and not bothering about grammar or spelling or how many freaking times I used the word "big." Just getting the words down, at this point, is good enough for me. The last few days I've been in a bit of a funk. One day I didn't write anything at all and yesterday I only pumped out a few hundred words. Thank goodness I was able to crank out 2,000 or so today. I feel like I'm back in the game.

Still, the halfway mark is coming up tomorrow and, by rights, I should have 25,000 words under my belt. That's 3,737 words by tomorrow night if I want to stay on par.

Is that possible? When my arse end has a date with Dr. Prong? We'll see. Or he'll see... he's the one with the scope.

Gotta go... have to go drink some really disgusting crap now.

(I hate my life sometimes.)

I am like Hugh Grant

Today I am Hugh Grant in that movie Two Weeks Notice. This hotel is my home and I am running around here like I own the joint, which I do, for the next day and a half.

Except I can't, by rights, call it a hotel because it is a motel. Actually it is a glorified truck stop.

I was all excited about going to Mississauga for two glamourous days in a spa-like writing sanctuary while Dave is taking a transmission course at Chrysler and, lo, here I am in the Husky truck-o-rama, full of grizzled, leathered, tattooed truck drivers and enough carbohydrates to to float a rolling turd.

Yup, I look out my window on the fifth floor and there, spread before me like a Freightliner assembly plant, are acres of tractor trailers. The thought has occurred to me that I could go for a "walk" out in the parking lot and maybe make some extra coin. It could pay for one of those nifty polyester-fluff neck rolls they have on sale in the gift shop.

I am, however, making the Best Of It.

This morning I chose a fresh apple over make-your-own-waffles, stale croissants, white toast and canned fruit salad. Then I went to the exercise room and tried out all their equipment. Man, their bike is WAY harder than my bike. I just about popped a gasket on that one. I can just see the headline: Country Bumpkin Found Dead In Puddle Of Sweat In Tacky Truck Stop. Mother Mortified. 

When I was good and stinky I staggered into the pool area, had a lovely swim with the pool all to myself, then an even lovelier hot tub with all the jets pointed at my sore bits – namely the throbbing gluteous maximus on my hiney.

Then I dashed into the truck stop store and picked up a large coffee (free for hotel guests!) and have come back to my freshly cleaned room where I am now drinking coffee and eating dry bran cereal which I brought from home. I also brought yogurt but forgot a spoon. Am thinking of chugging it right out of the squeezable container, although I'm sure Hugh Grant would send up for utensils.

I must write now. Although googling photographs of Mr. Grant is far more entertaining.

14,235 words, 43 pounds and the hunt

I was all worried about gaining at the Weight Watchers weigh-in last night but I was down a pound and a half, bringing my total to 43 pounds.

I have a sort of losing buddy at WW – she has lost the same amount as me and has about the same to lose so we've made a bit of a pact. Both of us aren't even thinking of our big goal – it's just too depressing to think about. But we've got our eyes on the 50 pound prize. I was thinking last night, wow, only seven more pounds and I hit the big 5-0. Remarkable, really.

It's like participating in NaNo – I can't possibly think of writing 50,000 words in one month, but when I focus on the present I know it's possible to write 1,667 words in one day.

One pound, one word, one step at a time.

Here's another quote from my new favourite book The War of Art, in which author Steven Pressfield compares his writing day to going hunting:

"The sun isn't up yet; it's cold, the fields are sopping. Brambles scratch my ankles, branches snap back in my face. The hill is a sonofabitch but what can you do? Set one foot in front of another and keep climbing. 

"An hour passes. I'm warmer now, the pace has got my blood going. The years have taught me one skill: how to be miserable. I know how to shut up and keep humping. This is a great asset because it's human, the proper role for a mortal. It does not offend the gods, but elicits their intercession. My bitching self is receding now. The instincts are taking over. Another hour passes. I turn the corner of a thicket and there he is, the nice fat hare I knew would show up if I just kept plugging."

The War of Art

Are you filled with self-loathing?

Do you feel uncomfortable calling yourself a writer? Or a painter? Or whatever creative activity it is you want to try but you're numb with indecisiveness and paralyzed with fear?

That's my hand up in the air, waving furiously. Yours too?

Then you need to read the book I'm reading. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (author of The Legend of Bagger Vance) is the best, skinniest, smartest smack in the face I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It's like a cuff upside the head. It's like Cher in Moonstruck slapping Nicholas Cage in the face and yelling

"SNAP OUT OF IT!"

I was angsting, as usual, at my writers' group meeting when my friend Dawn suddenly stood up and said, "I have a book you need to read," and she went and fetched The War of Art.

Wow, Dawn, I owe you big, my friend. This was exactly the common sense kick in the arse I so desperately needed.

The point of the book is that we human beings constantly battle Resistance, a soul-sucking internal device that stops us from doing the creative things we were born to do. This tiny tome is not a typical self-help book, which I would loathe. This is just straight talk from someone who knows what he's talking about.

Here's one of my favourite sections, entitled Resistance and Self-Doubt:

"Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), 'Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?' chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death."

You can find more information about the book here, at Steven Pressfield's website.

2,745 words!

HELLLOOOOOO NANOWRIMO!

CATHY OLLIFFE-WEBSTER IS IN DA HOUSE!

Can't talk now. Am wooting around the kitchen... look at me woot, shaking my thang. See that thang? I got some junk in my trunk, baby, and it's shaking, look at that thang shake!

FIRST day of National Novel Writing Month is DONE and I have slammed 2,745 words down on that keyboard, surpassing my goal of 2,000 words. THIS, in spite of a busy day at the office!

I got involved with NaNo at the last minute, only because a couple of other girls in my writers' group (we are all girls, even though we're as old as Alan Davidson's fez, and we always will be) were signed up and I thought, yes, this is what I need to get my novel finished. A primo kick in the ass deadline with tons of moral support.

So far, so good.

Like a recovering alcoholic, I am taking this 50,000 word challenge one day at a time.

And today was sooooooooooooooo suwheet ...

Francine's Mad Typing Skillz

My friend, let's call her Francine, is the worst typist.

The. Worst.

Which is funny because she's a self-confessed computer geek who spends all day in front of a computer screen at work, then all night in front of her home computer either working, or searching for new cat videos. She knows every cat video ever posted on You Tube.

When Francine is typing, she types really loud and really fast. Everyone in the next town knows when Francine is chatting someone because her fingers are like ninjas, karate chopping the keyboard. Oh, I should talk – I type loud, too. My excuse is learning the newspaper business on an old Underwood manual typewriter. Man, you had to hammer those puppies, and then throw the return with muscles you didn't even know you had. I had a left arm like Thor. I had muscles in my crap.

With all this computer experience, though, Francine can't type to save her ass. Her typing is an ongoing joke around the office because what she's trying to say is invariably not what comes through her fingers. Sometimes you can figure out what she's trying to say. Sometimes you can't. And sometimes it's just plain funny.

Take last night, for example.

Last night I was in a baaaaaaaaaaaaaad mood. So bad, I found a picture of a growling dog and posted it on Facebook, and wrote this:

Am particularly grumpy right now but it helps to growl. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Right away, Francine wrote this: why so frumpy??

When I saw that, I was BUAHAHAHAHAHAing all over the kitchen. When I stopped laughing, for, like, two seconds, I wrote this: ARE YOU CALLING ME FRUMPY?

Then I was BUAHAHAHAHAHAing again, until I had to run to the bathroom so I wouldn't pee my pants.

Later on, Francine added another couple of comments, trying to explain that it is only her typing skills that suck, not her tact.

She wrote this:

you said you were grump YOU know what a bad typis I am how about a nice big glas af arm milk

A nice big glas af arm milk? 

BUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Memoir Writing

Other than blithering on about Margaret Atwood, I haven't talked much about the North Words Literary Festival in Muskoka (Sept. 30 - Oct. 2, 2011), but I want to. North Words was one of the most inspiring, most fun, most fabu-lishus celebrations of the written word I have ever been to.

This year I signed up for a full day writer's workshop, the Margaret Atwood speech and an authors' forum but there was more I would have enjoyed, including a live book club, readings, and breakfasts with well known authors. Next year, for sure, I want to buy a weekend pass and go to every darn thing they've got.

When I signed up for the writer's workshop, I was more interested in the morning presentation (how to find a publisher and an agent) than I was for the afternoon (memoir writing). I only signed up for the afternoon session because I already had to book a day off work and, what the hell – lunch was included. And you know me, it's always about the lunch!

As a former newspaper columnist and a blogger, I thought the memoir writing workshop couldn't teach me anything new. I thought it might be leaden lessons for a bunch of old ladies who want to know how to write their boring life stories – boy, was I wrong. I mean, yes, the room was full of old ladies, including myself, as well as young ladies and some men of various ages; and yes, they wanted to learn how to write their life stories – but they were anything BUT boring.

The workshop was led by Cori Howard, an award-winning journalist who has written for some of the top newspapers and magazines in the country. She is the editor of the best-selling anthology Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood. Cori started The Mommoir Project to teach and inspire mothers to find their voices and inspire the confidence necessary to believe the mundane details of their everyday lives matter – and make compelling stories.

She started out by reading a few memoirs to us, including Lit by Mary Karr. The segment she read absolutely stunned me – I need to read the whole book asap. Yes, it was first person. Yes, it was a memoir, but it read like a finely crafted book of fiction, and the prose was undeniable – hard-edged, poetic and magnetic in its appeal.

Cori then talked about finding a moment, or a scene, from our own lives and how to write about our lives from the perspective of that scene. She gave us a half an hour or so to write something and then some of us read our stories out loud.

I was obnoxious – I know, hard to believe. But I was so excited about what I had written down that I started waving my arm in the air when she wanted to know who wanted to read first. Picture Arnold Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter and you get the idea. Other people were also excited to share what they had written and everyone was excited to hear what they had read. Laughter rang out through the Huntsville Public Library as funny bits were read. Tears were shed at other parts. By the time the afternoon was done, everyone felt a new closeness as well as a confidence that, hey, we could do this.

Cori's right – everyone does have a story to tell. Many stories, actually. All it takes is a little direction and inspiration to get them on paper.

Because I really am like Horshack, here's what I scribbled down:

It’s a wonder I don’t fantasize about the Maytag repairman. Not someone who goes ga-ga over a man in uniform, perhaps that’s the reason; maybe it’s also because Gordon Jump is the actor who is playing the latest Maytag man in the TV commercials, and I can’t think of Gordon Jump without thinking about the dumbass character he portrayed on WKRP in Cincinnati.

No, it’s not the Maytag man that keeps me coming to the big white boat of an appliance hulking in the back corner of our little log house. It’s the dirty socks and underwear that seemingly breed in the washing machine’s presence. My husband and two sons are veritable factories of filthy laundry.

Diesel oil, road dust and gasoline on Dave’s once-navy-blue work coveralls, the ones with “Angelo” on the embroidered nametag because, when he started working at the Huntsville Chrysler dealership three years ago, the woman who ordered work clothes ordered the wrong name. I don’t know how she mistook Dave for Angelo, but she did, and while she has been promising for three years to get Dave his own name on his own shirts, it hasn’t happened yet.

So I wash Angelo’s coveralls, and hoodies out the yin-yang from Angus and Sam. It’s all they want to wear. Hooded sweatshirts, even in the sultry thick of a mid-summer day. The hoodies belonging to Angus, who is 14, come back to me and the Maytag smelling vaguely of goat. It must be a teenage thing, this heady goaty aroma, a mixture of B.O. and, gawd, I don’t even want to imagine what else. I remember my boyfriends all smelled the same way. When I was 14, I thought it was sexy. Not so much, anymore. Sam, who is still only 11, has hoodies that smell clean, like fresh air, like sunbaked sand.

I inhale this 11-year-old hoodie fragrance, so beautiful it should be bottled, because I know that some day soon, it will change. I am tempted some days not to wash it, to put it away in a bottom drawer, to keep it as a sweet vestige of a time before everything changes, for good, and forever.

Camp Journal Day #7 - On Writing and Stephen King

Can't believe I'm on the last full day of camping. Where has the week gone? Where does every week go? Where does a lifetime disappear to? One minute you're crapping in your diddies and the next minute you're doing the same thing – only the brand name changes, Pampers to Depends. And the shit gets smellier.

My dear friend Mark Kerstetter asked me to list some of the things I found helpful about Stephen King's On Writing. He said he finds King's writing "bloated and vulgar;" the funny thing is, King is used to all kinds of critical comments and he addresses them in On Writing.  I can't say I agree with Mark on this point. Truth is, I've been a fan of King's work since forever. I actually find his writing style sparse and lean, just the way I like it.

Liking King or disliking him has little bearing on this book, though (although King fans will love his "life story" section and the chapter about his accident). What came through, for me, is some basic writing advice, a plan of attack for getting things done and some good, old-fashioned inspiration. Here's some of the things I "got" from the book:

1. Read a lot. Reading, King says, is just as important as writing, and reading a bad book is just as important as reading a good one. He really stresses reading as the best teacher of writing. He even lists his favourite books of all time at the back. He calls himself a "slow reader" but ploughs through 70 to 80 books a year.

2. Take the act of writing seriously. "You must not come lightly to the blank page." King says: "You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair – the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page. I'm not asking you to com reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's writing, damn it, not washing your car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe."

3. Build a writing tool box. King compares writing with carpentry and stresses the importance of keeping your tools close at hand. Everybody will have their own tool box, filled with different kinds of tools, but he has suggestions to help you build your own. Common tools, he says, go on top.

"The commonest of all, the bread of writing, is vocabulary. In this case, you can happily pack what you have without the slightest bit of guilt and inferiority. As the whore said to the bashful sailor, "It ain't how much you've got, honey, it's how you use it."

He goes on to compare paragraphs of famous writers, some with vocabulary that will stumble even the most literate among us; others that are simple yet beautiful, like this paragraph from John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath: "Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold."

He compares Steinbeck to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian: "Someone snatched the old woman's blindfold from her and she and the juggler were clouted away and when the company turned in to sleep and the low fire was roaring in the blast like a thing alive these four yet crouched at the edge of the firelight among their strange chattels and watched how the ragged flames fled down the wind as if sucked by some maelstrom out there in the void, some vortex in that waste apposite to which man's transit and his reckonings alike lay abrogate."

Still with me? That was a mouthful. King says, "The Steinbeck sentence is especially interesting. It's 50 words long. Of those 50 words, 39 have but one syllable. That leaves 11, but even that number is deceptive; Steinbeck uses 'because' three times, 'owner' twice, and 'hated' twice. There is no word longer than two syllables in the entire sentence. The structure is complex; the vocabulary is not far removed from the old Dick and Jane primers. The Grapes of Wrath is, of course, a fine novel. I believe that Blood Meridian is another, although there are great whacks of it that I don't fully understand. What of that? I can't decipher the words to many of the popular songs I love, either."

King says, "Put your vocabulary on the top shelf of your toolbox, and don't make any conscious effort to improve it. (You'll be doing that as you read, of course...). One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones." That sentence meant a lot to me.

I also enjoyed what King had to say about grammar, the next tool in your tool box. There are no lectures; no debates about what constitutes good grammar or bad grammar. He pretty much throws all that stuff out the window and frees writers to write what they feel, rather than worrying about subjects and predicates. "Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails," he says. For those who insist on learning more about grammar, he has this to say: "If you want to refurbish your grammar, go to your local used book store and find a copy of Warriner's English Grammar and Composition – the same book most of us took home and dutifully covered with brown paper shopping bags when we were sophomores and juniors in high school. You'll be relieved and delighted, I think, to find that almost all you need is summarized on the front and back endpapers of the book."

He also has an amusing passage about his own likes and dislikes in sentence style and structure, disliking the passive tense passionately. And don't even get him started on adverbs! "The adverb," he says, "is not your friend." And then (this makes me smile): "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they're like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day ... 50 the day after that ... and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it's – GASP!! – too late."

Something else he writes about is dialogue attribution and I am on the same page with him. It's always better to use "said" as simply as possible.


"Put down the gun, Utterson!" Jekyll grated.
"Never stop kissing me!" Shayna gasped.
"You damned tease!" Bill jerked out. All King's examples of nasty attribution.

He finishes his section about adverbs and attribution with his wise advice: "All I ask is that you do as wel as you can, and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine."

King then spends a great deal of time talking about style and structure, particularly paragraphs. You'll have to read the book for the details but his summation is this: "I would argue that the paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing – the place where coherence begins and words stand a chance of becoming more than mere words."

4. Write every day. King likes to write 2,000 words a day. Every day. That's his personal goal – no wonder he can write a novel so quickly. In fact, he says a novel shouldn't take any more than three months to finish. Any longer than that and he starts to lose his enthusiasm and the novel's "voice." He admits not everyone can write like he does – especially for those, like me, who have full-time jobs. He does suggest beginners start out with 1,000 words a day and taking at least one day off. This sounds a lot like the process fellow writer John Wiswell went through when he wrote his novel this year. This is SUCH a good idea. Maybe 1,000 words is too much – I think it probably is too much for me. But 500 words is doable. I think I can commit to that and getting writing done is making that commitment to put your ass in a seat and write. This is the best practical advice I've ever seen on writing. If you don't read anything else in King's book, read this. He also has good advice on setting up a writing space and turning off the TV.

5. Write what you know. John Grisham writes about lawyers. Patricia Cornwall writes about medical examiners. Don't try to copy their style, just because it's successful. Write what interests you. Also, don't write for money. Write because of story. Write because you love it. Write because you have to.

I'm a big fan of King's books but I have no real interest in writing horror. When I do try it, I do it badly. I can admire his work, and Grisham's, and everyone else's, but I must stick to what is in my own heart. When I do that, I write well.

6. Forget about the plot. King doesn't plot his books and he suggests other writers do likewise. Stories, like lives, are organic. They come to life of their own volition. Writers, King says, are mere transcribers. Allowing the story to take the writer where it needs to go will result in a better story.

I do have a bare outline for the work I'm doing now but the outline is in my head. I have no notes. Every time I sit down to write the story takes on a life of its own. I can see where having a definite plot would stagnate the creative process.

7. Description. "The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary."

8. Dialogue. "Some people don't want to hear the truth, of course, but that's not your problem. What would be is wanting to be a writer without wanting to shoot straight. Talk, whether ugly or beautiful, is an index of character; it can also be a breath of cool, refreshing air in a room some people would prefer to keep shut up. In the end, the important question has nothing to do with whether the talk in your story is sacred or profane; the only question is how it rings on the page and in the ear. If you expect it to ring true, then you must talk yourself. Even more important, you must shut up and listen to others talk."

Brilliant advice from King, just brilliant. People sometimes say I write good dialogue. Part of that may come from 25 years as a reporter, listening to people talk and writing their quotes down verbatim. So much listening does translate into knowing how people talk. One of the things I've loved most about King's books is they read like people talk; they read like the thinking going on in my head. You can tell Mr. King is a very good listener.

There's more to this book, of course, but I fear I am already way past "too long." I'm also half afraid somebody from the King publishing world is going to slap my hands for quoting him so much. I hope not. No one's a bigger fan of this man than I am (gawd, sounding like Annie Wilkes here).

This week I put what I learned from On Writing into practise. I went through my WIP with a fine-toothed King, knocking out adverbs, smoothing out excess description and killing more than a few of my darlings. I am so happy with the results. It was like having The Great One hanging over my shoulder. When I get home from camping, back to the regular routine, I am going to, I swear, force myself to write at least 500 words each and every day. The more the merrier, of course.

Feel a need to go buy On Writing? Of course you do! Get it while it's hot, folks. The Kindle version is avaiable here.

Tippy, The Best Dog Ever

Someone should tell Angus that there isn't any money in being a writer.

Oh, there might be money in it if you're Stephen King, but not if you're me. Not a lot, anyway. My first newspaper job paid $75 a week and I had to have a place to live and a car (that worked). By the time I paid my car loan and the rent I barely had any left over for drinks at the hotel. Truth be told, sometimes I spent all $75 at the bar. (Having a roof over your head when you're 21 is overrated.)

I remember my journalism teacher (Ben Rose was his name) telling me, "There's no money in community journalism. Everybody who thinks they're going to get rich on this had better leave now."

I remember my father asking (as he pulled out his wallet), "when are you going to get a real job?"

There may not be money in writing but, by gosh, there's pride. It's not like being a Wal-mart greeter, although there's nothing wrong with being a Wal-mart greeter – they get paid the same as reporters, they don't have to have a car and they get free uniform. Oh, please tell me it's free. It would be inhumane to make employees pay for that crap.

There's a certain cache to writing. When people at a cocktail party ask what you do for a living, you can say, "I'm a reporter." You know, say it all casual-like. Like you'd say when someone complimented your dress. "Oh, THIS old thing?" And you watch their eyes light up, suitably impressed.

Now that I'm not a reporter anymore, I don't get that same reaction.  I say, "I work in the production department of a newspaper," and they don't have a clue what the hell I'm talking about. They go all blank and nod politely and move on to the next person. They must think it's a factory or something. If I say, "I do ads," they think I'm in sales. If I say, "I'm a graphic designer," it sounds like I have a big head. No matter what I say, it's not half as cool as saying, "I'm a reporter." Or "I'm a writer." Saying the latter is like you're starring in a Nora Ephron movie. Or hanging out with Woody Allen. Which I would never do, even if he asked me, because he married his daughter. 

Weirdo freak. 

He's not even funny.

But I digress. 

What I really want to say is that I have always been proud of my writing background and I have wondered if either of my two sons would take after their mother. I was rewarded richly tonight when Angus announced he had started a blog. A blog! 

His topic is Tippy, his faithul pooch, who is not really an oaf. (OK, so she is a bit of an oaf. I'm sorry, Angus, she just is!!!)

 I read everything he had written and laughed and smiled and beamed with pride! What an amazing son I have! I wanted to be the first to comment and be a follower but, alas, I couldn't figure out how to do it. (I'm sure that's why I have no comments on my blogs... no one could figure it out, right???? Right???? Anybody out there???? Hellllllllllloooooooooooooooo??? This would never happen to Julie & Julia but I guess she was saying something interesting. And I'm... not so much.

Sigh.

Anyway, if you ARE reading this, you must go to my son's website and admire his blog. Here's the website: tippyolliffe.weebly.com

He is a very talented child.

Just like his mother.

The photo features Angus and the inukshuk he made at Inverhuron Provincial Park last summer.

P.S. I have to start taking photos every day. This morning on the way to work the view along the river was so beautiful that I stopped the car in the middle of the road and just stared. The trees were laden with fresh snow, the river steamed and the sun's first light painted the tops of the evergreens with gold. I wish I had my camera. The first blizzard of winter is called for tomorrow. My kids are excited about a snow day. I'm just hoping that Dave and all family and friends get to work without incident. There's an excitement about the first bad storm of winter. Bring it on, I say. Our riverside cabin is warm and cozy and wonderful. Let it snow!