Sparkly & Stinky - #fridayflash

'Me and My Pink Shoes' photographed by Isabelle Ste-Marie.
Isabelle is an outstanding photographer whose work can be seen here.
Please take a moment and visit her blog – you won't be sorry, I promise!

Radio’s playing R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion, coffee doused with double sugar and Coffee Mate Vanilla Caramel is steaming in the Timmy Ho-Ho’s travel mug, Cover Girl Natural Beige is hiding her bumpy bits, Soap & Glory’s Sexy Mother Pucker is tingling on her lips and, so far, nothing is staining June’s new faux linen summer dress.

She is wearing her J-Lo Glow perfume and her favourite pale pink flats, the ones with the bows and the sparkles.

The sun is shining and June is off to work at the real estate office where she sits at the front desk, answering the phone, rearranging the photo board and fending off passes from pasty-faced middle aged losers in shiny-elbowed suits and downwardly spiraling sales careers.

She sniffs.

What is that smell?

She wrinkles her natural beige nose and looks around the car to see if there are any dead animals putrefacating on any of the seats.

She lifts her underarms. She smells the collar of her dress. She checks her breath. Everything seems fine. She thinks maybe she has just driven by a swamp.

At work, she notices the smell again. When no one is looking, she takes off one of her sparkly shoes and sniffs. Her face turns the colour of pistachio ice cream and she retches.

She thinks, this won’t do.

Luckily, she has an extra pair of shoes in her desk drawer, so she puts them on. The gaseous green fog that emanates from the bright pink sparkly flats is enough to make a wild hog hold its snout.

June decides to take the shoes out to the trunk of her car so they won’t kill everyone in the office but she sees customers coming up the sidewalk, so she shoves the stinky shoes in her desk drawer and slams it shut, just as the Haskells open the door and ask to speak to Mr. Fitzsimmons, the broker.

“Was someone eating Limburger cheese?” Mrs. Haskell asks.

“Er,” says June, because she can’t think of anything to say that won’t indict herself, or the people she is thinking of blaming. “Mr. Fitzsimmons has a digestion problem,” she is tempted to say, “but don’t mention it because, you know, he is sensitive.” She imagines herself whispering this last part.

She is spared this lie because Mr. Fitzsimmons has heard them arrive. He greets them with a florid smile and a hearty handshake, then escorts them to his little paneled room, decorated with all the hundreds of dead fish he has caught and stuffed over the years.

He waits until the Haskells are well ahead of him, then he turns to June and says, “For God’s sake, what smells? Open a window!”

Mortified, June does as she is told and then the phone rings, and then rings again. The other agents arrive and soon the day is in full swing, always especially busy on a Friday with agents lining up their weekend open houses and appointments.

She forgets all about the stinky shoes in her desk drawer.

In fact, she doesn’t think about them again until she arrives for work on Monday morning, when she opens the door and is literally bowled over, on her pretty butt, no exaggeration, by an overpowering, overwhelming, over-everything, stench.

Mr. Fitzsimmons, coming up the sidewalk, watches June scramble to her feet, run at full tilt to her car and then drive away. 

"Crazy woman," he thinks.

He hopes she comes back to the office soon. He has heard from the public works department that the sewer line has backed up. He is hoping June can meet clients at the front door and steer them to a temporary office across town. 

Cutest Moose Picture EVER

This is the cutest moose picture I have ever seen. Ever!
I found it on Canadian Roadstories but the photo was taken by Ontario Parks staffer Jill Worthy.
I showed it to big, tough, macho Dave and his face melted and he said, "Awwwwwwwwww."
I sort of thought the mooselet on the left looked like a bunny wabbit and the one on the right like a puppy dawg. (Click on the photo for biggie size moose twins.)
Ontario is renowned for its fabulous provincial park system and we spend every chance we get camping in places like Algonquin, Inverhuron, Balsam and Killbear. In two short weeks we'll be enjoying our annual Canada Day long weekend at Lake of Two Rivers, one of Algonquin's most popular camping spots. And then, a couple weeks later, we'll be going to Killarney, one of the most beautiful parks in the province and the inspiration for many Group of Seven paintings.
I have been in a fabulous mood for a few days because I've been working on my novel and I am actually LOVING what I'm doing.
(As an aside, it takes a great deal of courage to call my WIP a novel because it sounds so pretentious. I realized that's ridiculous so I've been practising saying 'my novel-my novel-my novel' and it seems to be inspiring confidence.)
I thought I'd tell you that because usually I'm whining about writing. Not today, though. Today I was on cloud nine all day, just bubbling with the thrill of finishing Chapter Four with great plans for Chapter Five and beyond.
I sent a wee bit of it to my good friend Lou Freshwater, who is also a famous and fair editor (who is looking for work, btw), hoping for a little feedback and, I am happy to report, SHE LOVED IT!!!
*picture me dancing in my pink pajamas*
In fact, I'm so happy about my writing that I don't even CARE that Vancouver is CHOKING at the Stanley Cup Final.
No, don't care at all.
Not one ... bit.
*runs sobbing hysterically from the room*

That Summer Song

There was a song – I can't remember what it was but I've spent my whole life trying.

Something to do with a highway. Route something. No, it's not what you're thinking. Not that one. Something else.

When you're young and you have a transistor radio by your side like a faithful dog, you live your life by music. Especially summer music. Pop radio stations like CHUM and CFTR played the hits in quick-fire rotation and you probably heard the big songs a thousand times. But if you're quiet now, if you're in tune with the memories of your own skin, you will find there is one place, one moment, when you remember each song.

Except this one.

My uncle and aunt owned a marina in cottage country back in the summers of music and my cousins worked there, all of them, pumping gas, scooping ice cream, selling confectionaries and comic books at the store. The dress code was decidedly casual – the girls, all great looking, curvaceous girls, wore bikinis pretty much 24/7. They were the bronzed goddesses of the gas pumps, selling oil and ice with dazzling smiles and toned long limbs. The radio was the background buzz to what was essentially the lake's living, breathing hive. You went there every day to pick up a Toronto Star and a bag of milk, or a container of worms, while Bridge Over Troubled Water, Some Kind of Wonderful or Maybe I'm Amazed thrummed to the beat of gassy outboard motors and Detroit land yachts.

Until my uncle built a proper house my cousins' bedrooms were rustic sleeping cabins, built decades before by previous owners who dreamed of finding gold in the wallets of travellers seeking the quiet of a northern lake and the song of the loons. Even then the cabins were falling down but no one cared. How utterly perfect to have their own space, physically removed from parents. They decorated their cabins with Beatles posters and their dressers were looped with the dazzling bling of faux pearls and beads in a rainbow of groovy colours. This was just past the Summer of Love, remember, and all you needed to be cool was a cascade of wavy hair, a tan, cut-offs, a bikini top and beads.

The song was playing when I sat on the end of one of their beds, listening to their quick chatter as they were getting ready for a Saturday night with their boyfriends. They laughed loudly, constantly, as they tried to improve on what was already gorgeous. Already perfect.  I was that much younger than my cousins that I wasn't a part of this ritual, or the golden sunshine of their summer lives. 

I wanted to be, though. So much that I can still taste it.

The beads shone in the late afternoon's rosy light and the song played.

I'd give anything to remember what it was.

Hey there - I wrote this piece for a summer tourist guide my company just published for the cottage country crowd in Huntsville, Ontario. The theme of Summer Scene is summer music, the songs that you hear on the radio that make you say, "Yah! Summer!" If you're interested, you can see pdfs from the publication here.

The photo, above, was taken when I was about 13 or 14 years old. That's me in the green tube top, back when I could get away with such nonsense, snugged up close to my first boyfriend, Peter Budd, a tuba player from Windsor, Ontario. Sitting above us are my sister, Liz, and the Megarry brothers, Kevin and Andrew. Their dad was the publisher of the Globe & Mail and I always kicked my arse for dumping Andrew after we dated one summer. I mean, it would have been handy graduating from journalism school when your boyfriend's dad is the publisher of Canada's national newspaper. (WHAT was I thinking?) Standing at top is another friend, whose name escapes me, and my brother, Bill. I can't believe I forget the cute blond's name. Again, WHAT was I thinking????

I couldn't end this without sharing at least one of my favourite summer songs. Strangely, I wouldn't have put God Only Knows by The Beach Boys on the top of my list but I heard it this morning when Brian Wilson was interviewed (he's touring in Canada this year) and it stuck in my head all day long.

I'm curious: what's your favourite summer song?

On Writing and Giant Moths

Tony Noland tagged me with the meme.... WAIT. What the heck is a "meme," anyway.
*off to the dictionary*
The definition I just found made little to no sense... something about "an element of a culture or system of behaviour that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially by imitation." OK, it makes a little sense. I was just about to use the word meme without even knowing what it meant. Sometimes I do that because I don't want folks to know my ignorant backswoody nature. At the many cocktail parties I never attend I can be found standing there, wide-eyed, nodding enthusiastically. Not. A. Clue.
So this "meme" is writing and what it means to me. I'm supposed to pontificate and then tag four other people to share their thoughts on writing. For me, this couldn't come at a more or less opportune time.
Writing is the bane of my existence.
I'm teeter-tottering between wanting to write a novel and wanting to just absolutely forget about it. Some days I think, hey, this is pretty good. Some days I think, I SUCK and what the heck was I thinking? I'm in the midst of reading Alice Munro's book, The Beggar Maid, and that's real writing. She is a master. She writes with seeming ease; but the simplicity in her work is deceiving. The character development is intricate and dazzling. During one section of the book I cried, I laughed, I held my breath; I finished, exhausted.
In this section, Rose, the daughter, has done something to anger her stepmother, Flo, and Flo has called in the father to deliver punishment. The deliberate way Munro works through the process of the father's developing anger is chilling.

Rose detects in her father some objections to Flo's rhetoric, some embarrassment and reluctance. She is wrong, and ought to know she is wrong, in thinking that she can count on this. The fact that she knows about it, and he knows she knows, will not make things any better. He is beginning to warm up. He gives her a look. This look is at first cold and challenging. It informs her of his judgment, of the hopelessness of her position. Then it clears, it begins to fill up with something else, the way a spring fills up when you clear the leaves away. It fills with hatred and pleasure. Rose sees that and knows it. Is that just a description of anger, should she see his eyes filling up with anger? No. Hatred is right. Pleasure is right. His face loosens and changes and grows younger, and he holds up his hand this time to silence Flo.

"All right," he says, meaning that's enough, more than enough, this part is over, things can proceed. He starts to loosen his belt.

And then, as the beating, the "royal beating" begins, even the most familiar objects in the kitchen turn their backs on Rose.

She tries again looking at the kitchen floor, that clever and comforting geometrical arrangement, instead of looking at him or his belt. How can this go on in front of such daily witnesses – the linoleum, the calendar with the mill and creek and autumn trees, the old accommodating pots and pans?

Hold out your hand!

Those things aren't going to help her, none of them can rescue her. They turn bland and useless, even unfriendly. Pots can show malice, the patterns of linoleum can leer up at you, treachery is the other side of dailiness.

Oh, to write like that. The depth – amazing. I feel like such a pretender. If you've never read Alice Munro, one of the biggest stars of Canadian fiction, you must go now... now... what are you doing still standing there ... and find one of her books.
I'm not writing this down to elicit encouraging comments ... that's just how I feel.
The other thing about writing is its loneliness. I'm such a social critter that I find it hard to sit my butt down in the chair, all by myself, and just write. Once I start, I'm usually good. It's the starting that I find difficult.
One more thing about the project I'm working on – sometimes I do not like what I'm doing. Everyone always talks about loving their characters and while I do like them, most of the time, sometimes they bore the pants off me. I feel like saying, can't you just write yourself? Why do you need me? What a pain in the butt you are... In journalism, if a story is boring you, it's time to stop. Is this the same with novel writing? I don't know because I've never done it before. Does 'bored' mean the subject matter is terrible? Because, if it bores the writer, surely it will bore everyone else. Or do I just have a short attention span and everything bores me after five minutes?
Maybe a blog isn't enough. Maybe I need a shrink.
So that's what writing is to me right now: the bane of my existence. Tomorrow it will be my salvation, my obsession, my light.
Speaking of light (notice the segue), we have had some exotic visitors to our Light of Death. That's what we call our electric bug zapper, which emits sleazy ultraviolet light that all bugs are drawn to like sailors at a tart convention. I'm not a big fan of the zapper, by the way, because it kills all bugs, not just mosquitoes.
Fortunately for these two beauties, they are too large to enter the sacred portals of the Light of Death, so their lives were spared. (Double-click on the photos for biggie-size big moths.)

The big green one is called a Luna Moth; the brown one is Atheraea polyphemus, or brown one, for short. Obviously the brown moth doesn't inspire people as much as the green one because nobody gave it a cute name. I'm going to call him Frank.
Oh, and I almost forgot. The four people I want to tag with the "how I feel about writing" meme are:

Laura Eno

Laurita Miller

Linda Simoni-Wastila

Lou Freshwater 

Notice they are all "L-women." (In alphabetical order, no less.) Notice they are all talented writers.
I think the key to writing must be changing my name...

Aaron Polson - Q & A

I've been a fan of Aaron Polson's blog for some time. Outspoken and emotional, he comes out on writing world issues with both guns blazing.
Even yesterday he was bitching about the way his new book was coming ("Doing the Right Thing") and I read it and was like, hell yeah.
And then there's his practically famous tirade against a misguided literary agent who had the wherewithal to say self-published writers don't care about readers and publish for selfish reasons. Not to mention that readers need to be directed by the "gatekeepers" that legacy publishers apparently are.

Oh--that's right, because it's my f*cking job to serve the publishing industry. I forgot. *smacks head* I'm supposed to work for free for years to try and squeak through the needle's eye until the great gate-keeping elite think they can properly profit from my free labor. 

Yes, do you see that little word: profit. Because publishers are in this business to make money. Not "protect" readers. 

I'm sick of the hypocrisy of a system which would publish Snooki's trash and then pretend to be a protector of readers. Sick of it. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to the public. Stop lying to readers.

You know who cares more about readers than you, giant publishing machine? Writers do--all of them, whether "traditionally" published or indie or whatever. I like how we've decided the indentured servant model of publishing is "traditional". Back in Ben Franklin's day, anyone who owned a printing press was published. Don't play word games until you know a little history.

But wait--I'm not the one who has to prove I care about readers. I'm not the one readers are questioning, am I? 

Every story I write is a love-letter to storytelling. 

Go climb back in your stupid castle and shut the gate. We heathens will sit around our campfires and tell stories well into the night--as it should be.

Brilliant, inspiring, honest stuff. Commenters rushed to agree.
As much as I have always admired Aaron's blog, I hadn't, until recently, read any of his novels. When I bought my Kindle, however, one of the first authors I paid a call to was Aaron. Without blinking an eye I purchased almost all of his books. Then I had to decide which one to read first. Being a graphic designer by trade, I picked the cover I liked best – see? Covers really do sell books!
That book was The House Eaters.

Not only does it have a trés cool cover, it also has a cool haunted house concept that pits ghost hunting teenagers against the scariest broken down house you'll ever see in a weird neighbourhood in smalltown U.S.A.
I flew through the book. The plot drives you through it like the speedometer is stuck on 90. The characters are likeable and well-drawn and the tension builds to a fiery conclusion. I didn't realize until I was halfway through that Aaron had penned this as a YA novel but it was so well-written I had no idea it was meant for teenagers. Either that or I'm just sinking into my second childhood. (That must be it.)
I loved the book so much that I contacted Aaron straight away and tossed a bunch of questions his way. I also asked him for some casual photos that people hadn't seen before. Graciously, he acquiesced on both counts; and, for the photos? He said "do whatever you want with them." (Muahahahahaha.... he knows not that I am the Evil Photoshop Queen.)
So, sit back, pour yourself another cup of joe, and read some Aaron Polson. When you're done reading his answers, I highly recommend you go to his blog and buy one of his books.
Trust me. You'll like them. Because when he says "every story I write is a love-letter to storytelling," he's telling it like it is.

Q & A: Aaron Polson

Q: Hey Aaron, how’s it going? With you and your blog there’s always something seemingly on the go, whether it’s angst over the business of publishing or renovating your bathroom. To me, you blog like you write – straight from the hip with little fuss or flash, always delivering an emotional wallop. It’s like you haven’t got time to be frivolous – you’re a man on a mission, driven, it seems, to write as much, and as well, as you possibly can. Am I far off the mark on this quick assessment? How would you describe your writing style?

A: Wow.  To me, your assessment sounds like pretty high praise. I try to teach my students to write in clean, straightforward prose.  I want them to deliver as much punch as possible in few words. Sounds like some of my teaching has rubbed off on me. I try to write in a style which isn’t wordy and “clunky”, yet has a certain lyrical quality.  Reading one of my stories isn’t like reading the newspaper—it’s like hearing your favorite ghost story from your favorite grandfather. 

Q: I’m overwhelmed by the number of projects you have already published. I’d love a complete list of everything you’ve done that’s available to the public and where people can buy/find them.

A: Um… Okay.  Short of saying “Google me” (which sounds so silly) I’d suggest starting at my blog (www.aaronpolson.net).  I have several short story collections available in e-format for the Kindle, through Smaswords, and at Barnes and Nobel.  I just discovered many of my works at the iTunes store (you can now search for books).  

For the record, here we go:

Short story collections (reprints and new work)

The Bottom Feeders (print, ebook)

Violent Ends (ebook)

Thirteen Shadows (ebook)

Black Medicine Thunder and the Sons of Chaos (ebook)

Monsters Among Us (Collects The Bottom Feeders, Violent Ends, Thirteen Shadows, and Black Medicine Thunder…in one ebook)

The Saints are Dead (print, ebook)

Novels/longer works

Monsters Among Us (ebook)

The House Eaters (print, ebook)

Borrowed Saints (ebook)

Loathsome, Dark and Deep (print, ebook)

Several stories are available to read for free online. I have a list of most at my blog.

Q: What projects do you currently have on the go? What can we look forward to?

A: I’m squeezing a few short stories in here and there, but I’ve started to focus more on longer work.  The second “Sons of Chaos” serialized novella will be available this fall at Red Penny Papers (www.redpennypapers.com). Two “novels” are also in the works. One is a MG novel, Raygun, involving an enchanted toy “space gun”.  My wife challenged me to write something Owen, our seven-year-old son, could read. In Raygun, the protagonist, a young boy, finds a stash of his grandfather’s old tin toys—a good, old-fashioned science-fantasy romp ensues.  The other piece is a supernatural thriller involving ghosts and a form of time travel.  I’m sworn to secrecy on the rest. 

Q: What’s your favourite novel and character you’ve ever written and why?

A: Probably a toss-up between Loathsome, Dark, and Deep and We are the Monsters for favorite novel (although We are the Monsters is “technically” a novella).  I wrote both for myself without regard to a “market” or potential sales category.  They’ve been my best reviewed work, too.  Go figure.  

My favorite character is probably Sarah Hawkins from The House Eaters.  She’s the girl I wish I would have dated in high school—cute, athletic, reads a ton of horror books—perfect. 

Q: You’ve said much about the business of publishing – why does this issue get you so pumped? How’s the world of self-publishing treating you? And do you have any quick advice for people who want to follow in your footsteps?

A: Advice?  Be patient.  Keep working.  Keep writing. Be patient. (I’m not.)

Self-publishing is a wide open world today, much different than it was even five years ago.  A writer can actually sell e-books (via Kindle, Smashwords, etc.) without fronting any money.  Self-publishing used to be fairly cost-prohibitive (and a bad business choice) because the up-front investment was so large.  Now, if you have quality work, why not let the readers decide if they want to spend their hard-earned money on it?

Q: You’re a teacher and you have a family... how do you find the time to write like you do and when do you do it? What’s the secret to sticking with a project when life has worn you down and you don’t have a lot of energy to spare?

A: Wake up early and go to bed late. ;)  I find my writing day goes better if I sit down first thing in the morning, even if I only knock out 100 words.  Then I can tell myself, “hey—you’ve already started today.”  I’ve also cut my TV viewing down to about an hour a week.  That helps.  

Q: And regarding The House Eaters: what was your inspiration and how do you really feel about haunted houses? Was this book everything you hoped it would be or are there things you might change? How’s it selling? Is a sequel in the works?

What do your students think about having an author for a teacher?

A: The original “story seed” for The House Eaters came when I took a wrong turn and stumbled upon a ruined building.  At first glance, it seemed to be a Victorian mansion, complete with central garret (almost like the Psycho house), buried in the side of a hill.  It looked as though something had “eaten” part of the building—that is, the front façade had been demolished. The image chilled me—even though, upon closer inspection, it was only an old quarry building.  Once I found the proper highway and headed home, the idea took on a life of its own.

I think I could have fleshed out the relationship between Nick’s parents, but in general, I think it’s a pretty fun read.  Right now, it’s my best seller on Kindle and I hope the audience grows.  Sequel… Well, I’m not supposed to say anything, but I have a few notes and a bit of an outline (shhhh).  

I hope I can inspire my students to write, and keep writing until they get it “right”.  Writing isn’t easy; it never has been.  But what worth doing is “easy”?

Er, I didn't Photoshop this one...
but doesn't Aaron look remarkably like Nicholas Cage?