NaNoWriMo Wha-aat?

Some of you may notice the new widget on the sidebar.

This is for NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, this stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, writers from around the globe come together between November 1st and November 30th in an attempt to write 50,000 words each, pretty much the length of a novel. (Unless you are Diana Gabaldon, and then it's more of a prologue.)

"Thirty days and nights of literary abandon!" is our rallying cry. The idea is to let the writing flow without getting overly obsessive over quality. You may end up with complete crap, or you may find that partway through, you've hit the writers' equivalent of the sweet spot. It doesn't matter. What matters is getting the words on the page.

In order to add your name to the list of "winners" you must complete 50,000 words by the end of the month.

I know.

I know.

It may be the craziest thing I've done for a long time. (Except for maybe...nah. That was crazier.) And of course, it would coincide with my decision to give up coffee. (Eleven days and counting.) You are encouraged to start afresh with a new idea, not to rework an old manuscript. I've got to focus and decide which idea I'm going to run with, starting tomorrow.

Actually, midnight. As in, tonight.

The point is to let your creative mind run naked and free into that golden field of barley and allow yourself to feel the warmth of the sun upon your metaphorical face, and to ignore that niggly feeling that says hey, the farmer next door just stumbled out of the woods looking for his lost dog and is now staring open-mouthed upon your big pale rump.

Wish me luck! If I'm posting on my blog less frequently, it's because,

a) I'm writing obsessively.

b) I'm sucking my thumb in a corner asking myself "Why, oh why did I agree to do this?"

To quote Yoda, "Do, or do not. There is no try."

edited to add: I just began in my usual fashion, not by writing an outline but by avoidance i.e., cleaning off my desk. I just removed a large T.G. Green bowl filled with loose change, old receipts and the usual flotsam and jetsam, and what is resting on top of the pile? A box of Imodium and an Air Canada barf bag. A sign?

Smartass Bathroom Stall Talk

Not to be confused with bathroom small talk.

I like to think of it as High Art or High Culture. Not to be confused with Low Culture, practiced by Barbarians, Philistines and the plebs, good bathroom graffiti reflects the mores of our times. T.S. Eliot believed that the only way to a complete culture was a mix of the high and popular culture. This apparent juxtaposition explains why I love things like Monty Python's "moistened bink lobbing a scimitar" sketch. (Bonus points if you can name that movie! In fact, now that I think of it, the first night I slept over with my boyfriend now husband of 25 years, we got up around 4 a.m., ordered a pizza and watched this movie together. No one bats an eye when you do such things in Montreal. Order pizza at 4 a.m. not sleep over at your boyfriend's house. Moving on...)

The best graffiti is usually found on campus stalls. I remember long discussions, sometimes going on for weeks, all over the walls of the bathroom stalls at Victoria College at University of Toronto. That is until the janitor ruined the fun and removed all traces of what were some most excellent debates. Mind you, I wasn't the janitor in question, so it was all fun and games and a black marker for me.

Now there's a blog called passiveaggressivenotes.com that posts notes left on windshields when someone parks in the wrong spot, or notes left on the communal fridge in the office or my favourites, the ones left in bathrooms, like this gem.

Original note:

If you need to extract dried mucus from your nose, please use a tissue. The bathroom walls are not the place for them.

Reply:

It's called "performance art." Expand your horizons.

Rebuttal:

Expand a couple sheets of tissue.

In fact, there is a host of notes on this very subject. Go here, if you dare for the "bathroom stall booger epidemic" as they like to call it. If you can't, you know, go there, and you're looking for something more pedestrian, try this one from Toronto, about why it's bad to park on someone's naughty bits.

Bad park you! Bad!

Gordon Pinsent

He is a national treasure. This slayed me. As Lainey says, this is Bieber with gravitas.



With thanks to Lainey for the link.

Vacationer Wanted - Will Pay to Travel

Here's a chance to travel with this once-in-a-lifetime contest.

How would you like to travel, for free, all around the world, no strings attached, for a whole year? I saw this before I left for Vancouver and am just getting caught up on the details now.

Transat, a Montreal based company, is looking for two people - one English and one French - to travel to various destinations in Central America, the Caribbean and Europe - for free.

That's right. Every month, you get to go on vacation, somewhere without snow or ice pellets or dishes or laundry, for 2 whole weeks and then you send in a report while you rub cream on your sunburn and rinse out your bathing suit.

And the kicker? They PAY you to do this. As in $40,000 a year. And all other travel expenses are paid for.

All you have to do to apply is send in a two minute video explaining why they should pick you. Fifty candidates will be chosen, and then voting takes place, online, with members of the public.

Cool, no? Worth checking out?

For more info and all the details, look here.

Home again from the SiWC

Once again I had an incredible experience at the Surrey International Writers' Conference. I think this was my 9th time at the conference, and every single year without fail, I return home with new insights, some clever tricks to apply to the craft of writing, a better understanding of the business of writing, some new friends and more than anything, a renewed sense of why I do what I do.

Some highlights?

1. Discovering an amazing presenter named Ivan Coyote. I honestly can't say enough about her. Truly, whatever I describe here will not do her justice. She must be seen live to be fully appreciated. It's like talking about a great chocolate cake. You have to taste a piece for yourself to get it. She. Blew. Me. Away.

2. Dinner with Anne Perry my first night there. We met at the conference way back when, and we've stayed in touch ever since (she's one of the few people in the world who still believes in the handwritten letter.) This year, I had a blast watching the interaction between her and my friend Jo, while I (and my friend Kathy) looked at each other and smiled, happily adrift in the vortex of Anne and Jo's shared interests and massive intellects. (I actually speak for myself here, not Kathy.) You see, Anne is the special brand of genius that makes it difficult for mere mortals to have a simple conversation. You won't be discussing the weather but questions like, "So who's journal from the French Revolution would you most want to read?"

(Answer: Fouquier de Tinville*, which Jo figured out instantly, and to which I said "Well, of course it is. Old Foucher." "Fouquier," said Jo. "Right, that guy," followed by a quick glance at Kathy that I'm sure projected, "outofmydepthOUTOFMYDEPTH!"

*At least I think that's who they were talking about. In any case, that's who I would pick. Thank you, Wikipedia.

Then the next question, "What year do you suppose had the most profound influence on the history of Spain?"** (Hint: it's not 1920 or anytime thereabouts nor had anything to do with their civil war, which was my guess.)

**According to Anne, it's 1492, when they created the Kingdom of Spain after the unification of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon, but most importantly, it's when they expelled the Jews and financially, went downhill faster than Picabo Street. And of course, old Chris Columbus, the explorer, not the director of Home Alone, was discovering the new world. Of course, it's so obvious now...

3. Purdy's chocolates. Shallow I may be, but Purdy's is and always will be sublime. I don't think about the French Revolution or Spain when I eat them.

4. Being with my best buds in the world, kc dyer last year's coordinator, and Kathy Chung, this year's coordinator. (Sorry I put you after Purdy's. It's random order. Honest.) I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time to see either of them as during the conference, they're likely to be moving about like a couple of whirling dervishes (and given kc's proclivity for crazy coloured striped tights in those long legs of hers, looking directly at her has the same effect as looking directly into the sun.) But in the end, we found some time to schmooze. It only makes me miss them more.

And congrats on the launch of kc's newest novel, Facing Fire at the conference with full fanfare and much excitement. It sold out!

5. The keynote address by Robert Dugoni where he recounted his own struggles to get published, and he used THIS SPEECH from Lord of the Rings and substituted a few writerly words. Picture a ballroom filled with hundreds of writers who stood, hands raised in a unified fist pump, yelling "THIS DAY WE WRITE!!" Awesome.

6. RCMP Corporal, fellow writer and my SiWC "son" Tyner Gillies who won honourable mention in the writing contest. I recounted the high praise for his writing by his "uncle" and mentor Jack Whyte. Just like an overheard compliment, it was all the sweeter this way. Those words will carry Tyner through to the next step in his writing life. Plus he looks damned handsome in that red serge. Mother of pearl, but that uniform is a charm.

7. Diana Gabaldon, generous, kind and truly a one-of. Thank you.

8. Driving back to the airport with Robert McCammon. He is a deeply soulful, kind and very talented individual with depth and compassion and great humour. Not to mention a southern accent that sounds like warm syrup on hotcakes, which made all the women swoon. "Wait'll I tell the old boys back home in Alabama that the Canadian gals loved my accent," he said, shaking his head and laughing.

So many memories, too many to include here. I can't wait until next year!

Mystery photo

What is it?

Guesses?

Yutha, you can't play. Shhh.

Wild Rose

Love is like the wild rose-briar;
Friendship like the holly-tree.
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms,
But which will bloom most constantly?

Emily Bronte