Links

When I’m working – which I am a LOT these days – a few minutes wandering around the internet lets my subconscious work out problems – be they fictional or real – and gives me a break, too. Here are a few places I’ve been this past week or so. I’ve tried to remember who sent them to me or where I saw them, but apologies if I’ve missed acknowledging you:

I’ve mentioned my writing friend Ev Bishop before. Her blog is lovely. She may not be the writer she wishes to be, as you’ll read in this entry, but she’s a writer I’m glad I know.

The lovely Laura Bradbury, who rents out her lovely vacation properties in Burgundy, led me to this excellent article. I’m a parent, so it resonated with me particularly, but I think it has applications beyond parenting.

In the interest of being able to laugh at myself, or at least the industry in which I work, I give you this video, which I saw on agent Nephele Tempest’s blog.

25 Things… a most excellent post by Chuck Wendig

I started writing my own New Year’s post today – happy new year, by the way – but got interrupted by life. It’ll get done, but until then, if you’re a writer, especially if you’re one who’s struggling right now, go read this. You may already have seen it, because it’s come to me from at least three different sources in the last two days, but in case you haven’t, here it is.

Small pleasures

I’m not much of a Thanksgiving girl. It’s a good excuse for a turkey dinner, but it’s not a tradition I grew up with. I don’t think my Thanksgiving gap is all that unusual for Canadians. At least, I’ve met lots for whom it’s simply a very welcome long weekend, not a celebration. In my case, my Scottish family simply never really picked up the tradition. But Christmas? Now that’s a different story.

I love Christmas. Love the box of special ornaments that come out each year, the sameness of the things I bake and the people we see and the dinners we eat around the holiday. Love the traditions and the music and all of it. For me, Christmas is the time I think most about all I’m thankful for in this life. It’s a long list, mostly of the names of people I care about and who care about me. But there are a few utterly trivial items on there, too. Like this tool:

It’s cheap, ancient, and has its name printed on the side in all capital letters: MAYOKNIFE. Okay, so it’s descriptive, I suppose, but not of what I use it for. It was a freebie, more than twenty years ago, thrown in with some catalogue order my grandmother in Florida made. She gave it to me, undoubtedly along with the “diamond” ring that also came with the order (I had quite a collection of those at one time from her various catalogue orders.) It’s meant to get the last of the mayo out of the jar. I don’t know about you, but I inevitably end up throwing out out-dated mayo long before I finish any jar.

But for years and years, this ugly thing has been my kick-ass cookie lifter for taking hot cookies off cookie sheets and moving them to cooling racks. Yes, there are special tools for the task; I have a lovely one in a drawer in the kitchen. But I never use it. This cheap mayoknife is perfect for the task, thin and flexible enough to slip under any cookie without damaging it, and strong enough not to bend under the weight of even the biggest treats. And it won’t scratch my good cookie sheets, either. It’s a little thing, but little things can sometimes be the most satisfying.

May your holiday and the year to come be filled with pleasures large and small, things that bring a smile to your face and remind you what a joy this life can be. There are so many of them, when we take the time to pay attention. So wishing you the time, too, to notice them.

Merry Christmas!

Agents and Underwear

I haven’t talked too much here – or anywhere – about my recent serious effort to find an agent. It’s no secret, but it’s a business thing, and I figure it’s pretty much between me and the agents until something official happens. In the meantime, either someone is going to love my work and want to represent me or s/he’s not the right agent for me, however perfect s/he may look on paper. But, of course, as easily said as that is, the whole process is also a very emotional one. I don’t think it’s possible to write a good book without pouring your heart and soul onto the page, so sending it out and waiting for likely rejection isn’t easy and feels very personal. For me, it’s essential to remember, always, that this is a business. But it’s also essential for me to keep my sense of humour about the whole thing.

My best friend is not a writer, and is the perfect person to help me keep this process in perspective. So especially for those of you who are also going through this process at the moment, I give you her analogy about agents and underwear:

A query letter is the first time you see a potential date across a room and get up the nerve to go over and introduce yourself. Rejection is likely, but the amount of yourself invested in the attempt is relatively minimal. Being rejected sucks, but it’s a numbers game. You expect it to happen more often than not. If it happens every time, you polish your approach and try again. And if things go well, it leads to

The partial. This is the first date. It’s conversation over dinner, where you find out whether you have the same taste in music and feel the same way about dogs vs cats and whether there’s any chemistry. At worst, one of you will feel it and the other won’t and you’ll get rejected. This will sting, because you had your hopes up that he might be The One and you put your best effort into being your most attractive self. But if the two of you click and you can’t stop talking and suddenly it’s two am before you realize it’s even dark outside, the relationship will progress to

The full manuscript. This is the first time your date is going to see you naked, and you’re not sure whether you’ve picked the right underwear for the occasion or if he has an aversion to cellulite or freckles, but cellulite and freckles and the lacy number you picked up that one day you were feeling thin is what you have to offer. And it’s here that you reveal so much of yourself that rejection is going to hurt. You know he likes you enough to want to see you naked; that’s been established. But when you’re standing there in your best bra and panties, holding your breath, it’s nerve-wracking. Being told “Sorry, not for me” at this point is a blow. No matter how circumspect you’ve tried to be about the whole thing, standing nearly naked in front of anyone is pretty intensely personal. But there’s always the hope, the chance, that he’ll take a long look and want to take things to the next level as much as you do and maybe even propose…

On Language

I’m between books at the moment, and haven’t yet figured out what the next one is going to be about. Not that I’m lacking for ideas. Like most writers, I’m sure, I have a swirl of possibilities and images and fleeting bits churning like a dust storm in my mind. It’s just that none of them has become the idea, the one that separates itself from the maelstrom and asserts itself, demanding to have the rest of its story told. In the meantime, I’m doing what I can to fill the well so I’ll be ready to write, and looking for inspiration and reminders about why I love this job and this language of ours.

As often seems to happen when we open ourselves to the universe, what we need comes along, somehow. My great friend anovelwoman posted this wonderful video of Stephen Fry on language.

That, of course, sent me to YouTube to look for more. Stephen Fry again, this time with Hugh Laurie:

And as a bonus video, a little on swearing, too.

The Winter Sea

Being a writer changes you as a reader. It’s not as easy as it once was to suspend disbelief and let a story take you away when you’re aware of the writer at work, crafting the tale. Even in the books I love best, I can see some of the choices the writer made along the way. In good books, I see those choices with appreciation for the skill of the person who made them, and they don’t take away from the pleasure of reading. In other books, well, the story gets lost because I’m too aware of the author sitting at his or her word processor trying to finish the damn thing.

So when a book makes me squirrel myself away from the world for a couple of stolen, don’t-really-have-them-but-am-taking-them-anyway hours to read the last hundred pages or so in one sitting, and the only thing that makes me put it down during that time is the need to go get tissues because it makes me cry, that is something very special indeed. The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley is one of those books.

I finished it two days ago, and I haven’t started reading anything else. I am never without a book on the go, but this is one of those rare cases where I’m still thinking about what I just read and don’t want to interrupt that with something new. That’s in part because I enjoyed the book so much and in part because it left me wanting to be a better writer, and I’ve been thinking a lot about just what Susanna did that made me want to aspire to be able to do it, too. That is probably a topic for another post, but for this one, kudos to Susanna Kearsley. If you like Scottish history and books with writer protagonists, this one’s for you.

The Writing Sweater

It’s a cold, wet, dreary, gray day here on the Wet Coast. (And no, for those of you Elsewhere, that’s not a typo, but an apt description.) It’s been just about dark all day, and the edge of our street is one long, massive puddle, thanks to leaf-blocked storm drains.

I’m inside today, editing. Like I often do on days like this when writing is on the agenda, I found myself reaching for my writing sweater.

I should not actually admit to wearing this sweater, and I never, ever leave the house in it. But somehow, on days when the house cools off quickly between furnace cycles and the light is thin and cool, this particular sweater works for writing.

It’s probably as old as I am, or close to it. Years ago, I rescued it from the donation bag when my mum was cleaning out her closet. It’s pretty much indestructible. It has permanent stains that may actually be wood stain from my mum helping my dad build our family’s cabin when I was a toddler. Or maybe they’re from some other project; I don’t know. I do know they’re not coming out. The sweater’s been washed hundreds of times. It’s got a couple of minor pulls, and there’s no doubt from the look at feel of it that it’s been around for a long, long time, but it’s in pretty amazing – if ugly – shape. It once had buttons, I think, because there are button holes, but the buttons themselves are so long gone there’s no hint of them on the knit. Lesser, newer sweaters have gone off to charity in the years since I’ve had this one in my closet. I own softer, more comfortable sweaters now. But somehow, this one keeps hanging around, available for days just like this.

I’m not superstitious about clothes, as a rule. But this sweater only comes out for writing. I don’t know why. I don’t even know why I rescued it all those years ago. But here I sit, writing this, wearing it, anyway.

Remembering

Thank you.

Happy Halloween!

Okay, I’ll admit it. Halloween is not my favourite holiday. There are parts of it I like, of course, and look forward to. I’m a fan of traditions, and Halloween offers its own unique set of them. I appreciate that. When it comes to Halloween traditions, these are a few of my favourite things:

- Driving my daughter to the front door of the school (a rare treat), where we know we will see the long-time principal wearing a school t-shirt and his Frankenstein mask, welcoming the costumed kids and, despite his best intentions, not fooling even the littlest kindergarteners;

- The little ones in their costumes. The under-seven crowd has always been my favourite part of Halloween, so adorable and earnest in their outfits;

- The joy of not having rain for trick-or-treating. In the Lower Mainland of BC, that’s more of a treat than the chocolate, almost;

- The chocolate. Chocolate is always good, no? Chocolate in tiny little packages that really don’t count…? Excellent.

- The contraband. Inevitably, I end up with at least a couple of Peanut Butter Cups, culled from the kid’s haul and traded for things she likes, for my once-a-year enjoyment;

- The excitement of others. Firecrackers and scary movies and zombies are not really my thing. But I love to see kids excited, planning their costumes, running from door-to-door, interacting with each other and the neighbourhood and generally having a great time.

Those are the best parts of Halloween for me. Whatever yours are, I hope you enjoy them today.

The Right Goodbye

My friend Leslie was a cool chick. She loved her kids, her boyfriend, Star Wars, her friends, and standing up for what she believed was right, probably in about that order. The top three on that list meant so much to her they were inscribed permanently on her body in an impressive collection of ink. She didn’t fit, visually, on our playground, where I knew got to know her as one of the school moms. But she fit with us and she cared, big time.

For some people, funerals are the right goodbye. For others, it’s a wake or a party or a tiny gathering of friends. When Leslie died in July, there was no immediate memorial planned. The three of us who’d been four until then held our own, privately, toasting her at a repeat of the birthday dinner we’d had for her the year before when she’d hoped for a future and told us what it meant to her to celebrate her birthday with us. It was a good way for us to say goodbye, but it was just us. The universe, I thought, still had something else in mind.

There were other gatherings for her, with friends and family and the sea. But today, I saw the goodbye I didn’t know I was waiting for. For me, this was the right way to see Leslie off. I don’t pretend to know very much about Burning Man, but Leslie loved it. And she would have loved this, too. She’s one of the pictures in this piece, and this, for me, is the right goodbye.

Dear Temple of Transition [Burning Man 2011] from Ian MacKenzie on Vimeo.