Very Last Minute Steps...

Well, here it is, 2:30 in the morning. Hello, 2:30 a.m. We haven't seen each other since I wrote the paper on Nazi aesthetic policies (it kept me up all night).

I like the middle of the night. There's something sort of... I don't want to use the word peaceful, but it's the only one coming to mind. Tranquil. Calm. Solitary. A very learned person that I know once said that there are no true synonyms, and I like the idea of that and think it's true. There is a difference between tranquil and calm. And the middle of the night is quiet. My asshole neighbours are sleeping, and the only sounds in my flat are the murmured tappings of my fingers on computer keys and the slightest rustling of the liquorice package as I remove another bright red stick... The middle of the night is good for writing.

I am tired now, though. I am still trying to finish the paper that was due on Monday (for a while I thought that I would write the entire thing in caps lock, or maybe wingdings - honestly what is the purpose of the wingding font? there are no letters here, and who has time to work out this ingenious code of symbols? am i missing something?) and while my creative writing portfolio and artist's statement are finished, my story does not yet have a title and that concerns me a little. Something about apples? Something about strings? In my last packet of stories, one of the comments was that one of my titles was too postmodern... I don't really know if that was a bad thing, but the "too" that modified the "postmodern" might indicate so... In which case, I don't really know what that means. I'm not sure why the postmodern is bad. Lately I love the postmodern. Différence.

Oh, look at that. Now it's 3 a.m.

Time for that middle of the night burst of genius.

Last Minute Steps to Pathways That Lead Through Trees

I'm procrastinating. There's a paper I need to write, about the nature of tragedy in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. I have an intense dislike of Willy Loman; I think he's a dummy. I mean, maybe it's not entirely his fault, but he is. He's a dummy. And he's not tragic. I need that to fill 8-10 pages.

Whenever I am faced with writing something that I don't want to write, I end up doing one of two things: I clean (my flat is pretty tidy when there are papers due) or I think about all the other things that I would rather be writing. Sometimes both. When I have to read something that I don't really want to read, I think about all the other things I'd rather be reading. It's like that; I know I'm not alone in this. For example, right now I am dreaming about Christmas vacation, because I want to read comics. I literally can't wait until finals are over, so I can read comics. And write poems! I kind of want to write poems again... (By the way, there's a link on the right side of the page for CV2, which is the journal that just accepted some of Cassidy's poetry. Check it out, because they tell you the themes of the upcoming issues so that you can customize your submissions. The journal is poetry-only, but I think most of us write poems too...)

I'm so going to read this over the holidays - it's
entirely done with watercolours. So cool.

I've been a little out of touch lately, with what's been going on in the world outside the university. I don't even know if there are awesome new comics coming out! I haven't even clicked on the links on my own blog for weeks and weeks now (and it looks like I missed a few deadlines... ) but now that it's the end of the semester and I still need to talk about those other guys who are also cool, and as I am procrastinating at the moment, I'll talk about Drawn and Quarterly, top comics publisher extraordinaire.

This is my brother's publisher. Have I ever talked about my bro's book on this blog? I don't think so. It's cool, it's historical fiction, called The Klondike. It is naturally about the Klondike gold rush. He did the entire thing with a fountain pen tip and a bottle of ink, which I think is amazing, because it's over 300 pages. It took like, five years. That's pretty much all I'm going to say about it. D&Q is really cool; they publish all the cool comics in Canada, mostly stuff that is considered to be literary, like Seth's stuff, and Chester Brown's. Other artists: Daniel Clowes, Matt Forsythe (notorious for a distinct lack of words in his stories...), Jillian Tamaki, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Shigero Mizuki, Kate Beaton, Lynda Barry, and Guy Delisle. And they are based in Quebec, so they have a really strong base of French comic artists too. I think they recently got my bro a French publisher, like, a publisher in France, which is pretty cool. (Le Klondike?) What else can I say about D&Q? They harness new talent, are preposterously supportive (which I think I am discovering about smaller presses), and publish high quality work, stuff that takes comics so far past fanboy superhero stuff, stuff that elevates comics to a whole new level. I mean, superhero stuff is all right (I have a special soft spot for Hellboy comics, which is a different kind of hero, I think), but comics are so versatile, and D&Q is so good for the industry. I mean, that's what I think, anyway.

My bro's comic

By the way, Matt Forsythe and Jillian Tamaki also have blogs and websites that I've linked to in the cool guys list. I've already talked about Jillian, in a previous post, but Matt is an interesting sort of creature. He's got degrees in Journalism and he lived in Korea for a while (in his book Ojingogo, the only words are Korean characters), and he does a whole series of comic strips on one of his pages that are about a comics class he teaches at an elementary school. People who do comics are interesting. I really like his art style a lot. (Click on the link. Do it.)

Recent illustration Forsythe did for The Walrus magazine,
of one of my favourite bands,  Arcade Fire.

End procrastination?

Sunday at Depot

Today it was red serge everywhere, high brown boots, stetson hats, brown gloves, puffy pants with yellow stripes down the sides. Troop graduation. Families of cadets everywhere. A desperate need for a badge wallet (among other things), because tomorrow, suddenly they'll have badges. My co-worker recommends that one of the cadets buy the flashlight that runs on double A batteries, because where she's going, lithium ions will be hard to come by, and the other flashlight we sell runs on those. We can't sell her the rechargeable flashlight because it's bigger and her waist is too small, and with a flashlight on her belt, she won't have room for her gun. She needs a pocket flashlight. Already she is having trouble finding room for an extra pair of handcuffs. I think to myself, "I could never do this."

It's a busy day. In between customers I pick up the very old and damaged copy of Russian literary theory that I am trying to wade through for my honours proposal, and I get nowhere. I keep having to reread the previous four sentences, and I make little headway. The cadets look at the title of my book, The Dialogic Imagination, and they shake their heads. They tell me that they're so glad they're not in university. I tell them that this is awesome, it's Einstein's theory of relativity applied to the continuum of time and space in a literary text. Their eyes glaze over. I sell them a copy of Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement. They'll need it.

Our worlds are different.

Lalala Human Steps

However, in good standard fashion, I think I will post a video about the body as well.

You know how we've been talking about writing the body, and the way the body is used to say particular stuff in a story? Well, here is that made literal - the body telling the story, i.e. Dance, the body as narrative.

I don't really understand dance, nor do I understand how I am meant to interpret it, the things I am supposed to look for in order to find the story in the dance, but one of my bestest fwends is a dancer, and he showed me this video - Wow. Just check it out.

Part of me has always wished that I could dance, but I'm clumsy and chubby; I tell my stories other ways. Still, you have to admire the skill here.

Is writing ever like a dance? I wonder.

Bookshop Sessions

Here is a video. It is not a video about the body, as I usually post, but it is a good video, with a literary backdrop.

Song: Little Lion Man
Band: Mumford & Sons

Location: Bookshop! Yay!

I love this band right now.

Je ne suis pas ici

I come back to the idea of legitimately literary forms of writing. This is because I am doing my honours project in creative non-fiction. Personal narratives. Memoir. Autobiography. Lyric essays. Life writing. Writing a life. It feels as if it is the creation of a self within a text, completely opposite to those theorists who claim that the more distance there is between a writer and his text, the more legitimate this text is.

I do not agree. Of course I don't. When do I ever? Honestly, sometimes I wish I could just do something normal, or think something normal, or be normal. I don't think that's in the cards for me. So I write narratives that require a subjective self.

For the last few weeks I've been thinking that this project is actually about genre, and the ways that things don't often fit into neat little genre boxes, and how I don't want my writing to be one thing but many things, and so I've been looking at texts that use all kinds of genres to tell their stories. Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is one of these texts. At times this is prose, at times poetry, it is a fictional work about a real person so it contains things like news clippings and eyewitness accounts of events, there are falsified documentary-style photographs of Billy the Kid and his wife (the people in these photos are all actors/models), and the whole thing combines together to tell the story of a life. Sometimes, then, it is as far away from being what we normally associate with fiction as it can be. And, I think it might be fictional autobiography, which I sort of thought was an oxymoron.

I don't think this project is actually about genre at all, the more I think about it, even if my attempt is to deconstruct genre. The point is the subjective self. The placement of, the use of, the reality or unreality of the subjective self. Genre only offers a way for me to create that self, to look outside of my text, to look through lenses. It is secondary to where the self is found within the text.

So, where are you, subjective self?

Life's Like This

At work, Avril Lavigne is playing on the radio, and I'm thinking about why exactly I need to make things so complicated.

And at the same time, aside from the story I wrote about the guy who loses all his teeth (Medrie tells me that this boy was a particularly well-realised character, but he should be, because he is largely based on my ex-boyfriend, who I knew very well, and I know exactly why all of his teeth fell out), I haven't had this much fun writing anything in a really long time. I mean, hell yes, making my ex lose all his teeth was amazing, but I mean, as much fun as I am having right now, at work, writing my portfolio story.

Given all the frustration I felt all semester about writing the body, it seems ironic to me that I have chosen to continue to write about the body in my final project, but that is what I am doing. Plus, I've chosen a subject that I know very little about, which is making things ridiculously hard for me. And yet, it's crazy fascinating. I've been asking my friend who is a doctor, and her husband who has a PhD in biochemistry, all kinds of questions about all kinds of cool stuff - the body is crazy! And it's such a fragile shell, this singular thing that connects us to the world and to existence and to consciousness... I can't believe how much I take it for granted every day, the fact that my body works as well as it does. And I can't believe the ways that we can manipulate science, the way we stop ourselves from manipulating too much because of those pesky ethical questions.

More than I have all semester, I desperately want to do this story right. I feel like it's the first time in a while that I might actually have something to say.

I'm not putting pressure on myself though, no, not at all. I'm just doing my thing, writing with my fountain pen. Remembering that life's like this.

The First Rule of Fight Club is...

One of my pals emailed this to me. (He's never read any of my writing, so he didn't mean it to be personal.) Via Tumblr, here is some awesome writing advice... No, seriously. I try so hard to do this.

by Chuck Palahniuk
In six seconds, you’ll hate me.
But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.
From this point forward—at least for the next half year—you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.
The list should also include: Loves and Hates.
And it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those later.
Until some time around Christmas, you can’t write: Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…”
Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack that to something like: “The mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking sleep, faking because she never slept that quiet, those mornings, she’d only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.”
Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.
Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.” You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen had always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’s roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her butt. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”
In short, no more short-cuts. Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.

Typically, writers use these “thought” verbs at the beginning of a paragraph (In this form, you can call them “Thesis Statements” and I’ll rail against those, later). In a way, they state the intention of the paragraph. And what follows, illustrates them.
For example:
“Brenda knew she’d never make the deadline. Traffic was backed up from the bridge, past the first eight or nine exits. Her cell phone battery was dead. At home, the dogs would need to go out, or there would be a mess to clean up. Plus, she’d promised to water the plants for her neighbor…”
Do you see how the opening “thesis statement” steals the thunder of what follows? Don’t do it.
If nothing else, cut the opening sentence and place it after all the others. Better yet, transplant it and change it to: Brenda would never make the deadline.
Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions and details of your characters and allow your reader to do the thinking and knowing. And loving and hating.
Don’t tell your reader: “Lisa hated Tom.”
Instead, make your case like a lawyer in court, detail by detail.
Present each piece of evidence. For example:
“During roll call, in the breath after the teacher said Tom’s name, in that moment before he could answer, right then, Lisa would whisper-shout ‘Butt Wipe,’ just as Tom was saying, ‘Here’.”
One of the most-common mistakes that beginning writers make is leaving their characters alone. Writing, you may be alone. Reading, your audience may be alone. But your character should spend very, very little time alone. Because a solitary character starts thinking or worrying or wondering.
For example: Waiting for the bus, Mark started to worry about how long the trip would take…”
A better break-down might be: “The schedule said the bus would come by at noon, but Mark’s watch said it was already 11:57. You could see all the way down the road, as far as the Mall, and not see a bus. No doubt, the driver was parked at the turn-around, the far end of the line, taking a nap. The driver was kicked back, asleep, and Mark was going to be late. Or worse, the driver was drinking, and he’d pull up drunk and charge Mark seventy-five cents for death in a fiery traffic accident…”
A character alone must lapse into fantasy or memory, but even then you can’t use “thought” verbs or any of their abstract relatives.
Oh, and you can just forget about using the verbs forget and remember.
No more transitions such as: “Wanda remembered how Nelson used to brush her hair.”
Instead: “Back in their sophomore year, Nelson used to brush her hair with smooth, long strokes of his hand.”
Again, Un-pack. Don’t take short-cuts.
Better yet, get your character with another character, fast. Get them together and get the action started. Let their actions and words show their thoughts. You—stay out of their heads.
And while you’re avoiding “thought” verbs, be very wary about using the bland verbs “is” and “have.”
For example:
“Ann’s eyes are blue.”
“Ann has blue eyes.”
Versus:
“Ann coughed and waved one hand past her face, clearing the cigarette smoke from her eyes, blue eyes, before she smiled…”
Instead of bland “is” and “has” statements, try burying your details of what a character has or is, in actions or gestures. At its most basic, this is showing your story instead of telling it.
And forever after, once you’ve learned to Un-pack your characters, you’ll hate the lazy writer who settles for: “Jim sat beside the telephone, wondering why Amanda didn’t call.”
Please. For now, hate me all you want, but don’t use thought verbs. After Christmas, go crazy, but I’d bet money you won’t.
(…)
For this month’s homework, pick through your writing and circle every “thought” verb. Then, find some way to eliminate it. Kill it by Un-packing it.
Then, pick through some published fiction and do the same thing. Be ruthless.
“Marty imagined fish, jumping in the moonlight…”
“Nancy recalled the way the wine tasted…”
“Larry knew he was a dead man…”
Find them. After that, find a way to re-write them. Make them stronger.

Lest We Forget

I normally wouldn't do this, but... I've been thinking a lot about war lately, because I'm taking a history class about the Third Reich, and today, of course, is Remembrance Day. The last week or so we've been learning about the Holocaust and I can't really talk about the things I've learned, to be honest, because I find it extremely upsetting. But it occurs to me that soon, the generation that lived through that war, and the world war that came before it, will all be gone, and the world as a whole, not just us here in Canada, but everyone, will be more removed from that history, those events, than ever.

The first half of the 20th century was characterized by atrocity and horror. Today, there is a war still happening on the other side of the world. But this blog isn't about that kind of stuff. It's about the writing, and I feel like soon all we'll have left of that time, and of this time, is the words that have been left behind, whether it's a transcript of Hitler's speeches or a poem or letter written by a soldier, or that essay that Richard Wagner wrote denouncing the Jewish population as impure and unworthy of creating music, or a blog about daily life in the camp in Afghanistan. Words, images, film footage. Art. Structures built in memoriam. The preserved remains of an extermination camp. And none of those things are permanent either, really.

This week at school, no one was wearing poppies. At Depot, the cadets had to wear them on their hats, and some of them actually grumbled about having to stop by the Trading Post to get one.

What happens when there's no one left to tell the stories? What happens when the remnants have been lost to time? What happens when no one cares anymore?

Lest we forget. Je me souviens.

Why Doesn't Time Stop in Real Life?

Because, you know, here we are, with time still just ticking away. Deadlines approaching, etc.

I realized today that I don't have a conflict for my character. And I'm writing away and everything is going pretty good, which for me is saying something because I never think that something is going well, and then it occurs to me, in that sudden way that things often occur to me, that there's really no point to any of this at all. Because if there's no conflict, then there can be no epiphany, and if there's no epiphany, then there's just a succession of events that have no real meaning. And then there's no story. There i was, thinking that everything was going so well, and I don't even have a story.

this is what I looked like when I came to this realization:

You know, no big. Time just ticking away and stuff.

Out of Time

Whoa, I just realized as I was typing it that the title of this post has a double meaning. Mind blowing.

So I'm on a deadline here, as we all are, and for my Out of Time assignment I am trying to write like Dickens. Not like the dickens, as my mom would maybe say to imply that I am trying to write quickly (where does that expression come from?), but actually, like, I'm trying to mimic the style of Charles Dickens. It seems suitable, but I really had no idea it was going to be this difficult to imitate someone else's style, and I really don't know if it's going to be obvious at all that this is what I'm doing. Maybe my reader is just going to think, 'wow, her paragraphs are suddenly really packed, and she's writing with so much detail when her style is usually so sparse. Interesting.' Maybe the connection to Dickens will never be found.

Then I started thinking about the ways that we rely on our readers and I got scared. My English 100 students can't even make a sentence. How would they notice something stylistic like this, when most of them probably never have and never will read Dickens? Who's my audience? Well, I suppose my audience is readers?

*sigh*

I have to stop blogging and go write now. Time is short. These assignments are hard.

Oh, and just one more thing...

... i took this photo from my bedroom this morning. i had to go to work today, but what i really wanted to do was what Tim suggested i do, and stay inside and drink mochas and write with my fountain pen. (oh, and by the way, thanks Tim.)

inclement weather makes me feel like writing poetry, for some reason.

Oh, but also...

... this is a picture i really like a lot.

the wonders of technology

here's the thing: it's hard to write stories that take place in London when you haven't been there for a few years, and you aren't actually familiar with that part of town (London is big; there's a lot of town to be familiar with).

so, here's what i love about the internet: google street view maps! i've never done this before, and it is kind of exciting. you can look up or down, left or right, go around the corner to the next street, turn around and come back again - you can totally situate yourself! they blur out people's faces now, since they were sued by someone who got caught cheating on his wife (something about an invasion of privacy or something... pfffft, dude was asking for it). but seriously, i go online and suddenly i'm in Holborn! an accurate setting, every time.

this is a thing that i recommend. that is all my wisdom for today.

Death of a Writer

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the work that I'm producing in this class. I still haven't been able to write assignment 3. Assignment four has completely defeated me. I tried to force something, it's not working, and I don't know how to make it work. There is nowhere for me to go with this story, as far as I can see, and I have no other ideas. And to be frank, I don't have time to be frustrated like this.

I'm abandoning the death story. Apparently my narrator sounds too much like a character I don't know and the entire premise is too similar to a book I haven't read. What's the point in continuing with it? If I can't come up with something fast I won't be handing in assignment 4 at all.

I am completely discouraged.

You Know What Else is Bodiless?

NOTHING! Everything that exists has a physical form! 

Gah! I hate this assignment!

*sigh*

This post contains too many exclamation marks.

(And, to be fair, I only hate the assignment because I can't do it. I grudgingly admit that it's a great assignment and I am merely inadequate as a writer and am destined to fail in LIFE because of it.)

(Grumble, grumble)

*sigh*

And finally...

YouTube wouldn't let me post this video, but it is such a crazy use of the body that you really need to check it out. Seriously, what is happening here?

Link to NME: http://www.nme.com/nme-video/white-lies---bigger-than-us-music-video-exclusive/678806886001

Candy anyone?

And now...

... here's a comic that makes fun of writers. (I couldn't make it any bigger, so if you can't read it, here is a link: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=197)

I love Kate Beaton.

The Comics Question

A couple of years ago I was visiting my brother in Toronto and I ended up sort of randomly at the Doug Wright Awards ceremony, which is part of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, which my bro is a part of every year. Actually, when I think about it like that, I guess it wasn't really all that random. At any rate, I was at the Doug Wright Awards, and it was sort of an odd night. Stuart McLean was there, and Don McKellar, and the person in front of me turned around and it was my History professor, who as it turns out is married to a man who knows my brother, so that my brother in Toronto ended up knowing my History prof from Regina (small world), and one of the awards was being presented by Bob Rae (I still can't figure that out - Bob Rae?). Bob Rae was not actually present at the ceremony, though, because he was wherever they were presenting the Governor General's Awards. As a result, he presented the award via some sort of video. Now, this was controversial for a couple of reasons, and it brings me to the actual purpose of this post. First of all, comics have been fighting to be taken seriously as a literary form for practically forever, and Bob Rae was asked to present an award at TCAF and couldn't, because he was at the GGs. Sure, the GGs are important, of course they are. But possibly the real kicker here is that the award he was asked to present at TCAF was for a book called Skim, by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. This book was also nominated for a GG, but guess what? Only Mariko, the writer, was nominated for the GG. Jillian, the illustrator, was not. And Bob Rae was at the GGs, not TCAF.

Okay. Let's talk about last year's CBC Canada Reads competition. Here's how it works: books are recommended by the public and these recommendations are voted on by the public until there is a final 10. Then, five judges each choose a book from that top ten that they will defend in the competition, which leaves us with a final 5. The final 5 are voted off - by the judges - one by one, until there is a winner. Jeff Lemire's three-part graphic novel, Essex County, made it to the final 10 books according to public response, and was subsequently chosen by Sara Quin (of the band Tegan and Sara) as the book she felt was most important among those on the list. Essex County was then immediately eliminated by the other judges, who did not agree with the public's opinion that the book held literary merit. Now, certainly, there are those members of the public who didn't think Lemire's story was all that awesome - nothing is universally loved (not even the tomato). I think the important thing here is the main reason given for Essex County's elimination: Ami McKay, author of  The Birth House, had a very distinct problem with the number of words in the book, and described the book as "a shortcut." This was a criticism that was shared by the other judges. 

A shortcut? Really? 

I'm about to admit to my own bias. I know that in persuasive writing, this is a thing that you should never do, but I'm going to do it, because I feel really passionately about this subject. 

As a person with a family member who writes and illustrates graphic novels, I can tell you that a lack of words in no way constitutes a shortcut. A lack of words is not even a lack of anything at all, it is merely an absence, an absence that is filled with illustration, illustration that contributes significantly to narrative. This is why people who make comics were outraged by the snub in the GGs. And after the hours and hours that I have spent over the course of my life watching my brother toil at his drawing table, at our coffee table, on his bedroom floor, hours spent with a fountain pen tip and a bottle of ink, dipping and inking, dipping and inking, making permanent after the hours already spent pencilling the same images, I can tell you that to call a graphic novel a shortcut is nothing short of ignorant and insulting. It is merely preposterous.

It's important for us to realise, as storytellers, that there are different ways to tell a story. We should already know this; many of us probably make a choice, on a regular basis, about how we want to express the ideas floating around in our heads: "Do I want to write this as a poem? Is it a short story? Is it something longer? Does it feel like the story would be aided by visuals, and should I think about writing this as a screenplay, or a standard play?" I think about those things all the time. The idea that the GGs are a writing award and not an art award has been presented to me, and my stance remains firmly on the side of the artist; in a graphic novel, the two really can't be separated, and to acknowledge Skim as literary but only partly is an oversight that underestimates the importance of the illustration in that work and suggests that the artist played no part in the telling of that story - this is simply untrue. Comics have their own awards, and I realise that. But if a book is going to be nominated for a literary award, it's the entire book that should be nominated, and not just part of it. Essex County was eliminated from the Canada Reads competition based on form, not content.

Interested? Here's an article where a panel discusses the problem with graphic novels in literary competitions: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/02/17/culture-club-essex-county’s-exile/ , and here's a link to a letter that was written by Seth and Chester Brown, two of the foremost graphic novelists in the world, to the GG awards: http://comics212.net/2008/11/12/skim-graphic-novels-and-the-governor-generals-literary-awards/.

I think there needs to be more scholarship generated around the graphic novel so that people will start to take it seriously. I think I might need to be the one to do it. I'm not saying that this is a sentiment that will be universally accepted, ever, but seriously, Spiegelman's Maus? Shigeru Mizuki's Onward Towards our Noble Deaths? Everything ever written by Seth? Not literary? Come on.

Easy Like Sunday Morning?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about a lot of things. Comics is one of them. One of these days I intend to do a blog post about comics and narrative via illustration, and all that stuff. Not today though. Today I was thinking about choices, and the directions they end up taking us. I mean, even basic choices, like where to get a job. I've been thinking about this because my last job, at Chapters bookshop, was completely uninspiring. There I was, surrounded by amazing stories all day long, and never did I have a chance to even browse the shelves, let alone read the books or come up with my own story ideas. Welcome to the corporate book chain, where the employees are so distracted by the massive queue at the check-out and the rude customers that they don't even look at the titles coming through. Don't even ask me what people were buying - I honestly have no idea. Walking Dead maybe? The latest Heather's Pick? Someone asked me once if I could recommend a happy book for her to read; I had to tell her I hadn't read a happy book since about 1989, when I was still reading books from the young readers section. (All right, fine - I didn't actually say that.) Does anyone even write 'happy' books anymore? What does that even mean?

Anyway, the job. The point is that I chose to work there, and it wasn't at all what I expected it to be. Then I chose to leave there, and I got this random job at the RCMP Depot Division, working at a store that sells soap and toothpaste and gun cleaning supplies and handcuffs. Also, swimming goggles. It's so weird. And it's such a different environment from the Chapters. I'm not actually sure that it could be more different. There are no books, and lots of cadets, and no one who writes (at Chapters, everyone was a writer, but no one had time to write anything), and I can do my homework while sitting down as I am working and getting paid, because sometimes an entire hour will go by and there will be no customers. And this employment change was an impulsive choice. I work with a film student now, and a visual artist, and they are interested in the things that I do, and vice versa, and we have time to talk about our projects and fine tune and seek advice from each other. This morning, Sunday morning, I made a pot of coffee, sat down with a notebook, and asked my co-worker how his latest sculpture was going and what he might know about instances in which time might possibly stop. (Because a story where time stops? Why is it that the only thing I can think of right now are slow-motion montages from Michael Bay movies?) And seriously, who would have thought that I would be finding insight in the middle of cadet training drills and scenario enactments?

The point of this is that as I'm writing I have to make choices all the time. And it's important to remember, I think, that if I make a choice while I'm writing that takes me to a place I don't expect, I have options: either stick with it and make it work for me, or go somewhere else. Even if I don't know where that somewhere else is going to take me. In life, I have a tendency to make impulsive choices - and I think that's why I don't know what I'm going to write about until the very last minute.

I'm getting there. Maybe. Soon I will understand all of my madness. Oh, and also my method.

Oh, Oscar...

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Infinite Beauty

Just watch this, and listen. And afterwards, think about all the different ways there are to tell a story.

How is the body used here?

Writing the Body

Here's what I can say for sure: this class has pushed me way outside of my comfort zone.

I was thinking about this as I was trying to write assignment 1, and again as I was trying to write assignment 2. Neither of these tasks seemed conducive to the kind of writing I usually do, and I think that I was immediately thrown by that. I think I was immediately thrown by the theme of the course as a whole, to be honest. What could I possibly have to say about the body? And as I tried to think of something to write about, I felt a bit lost at sea, a bit awash in an ocean of doubt and uncertainty, a bit overwhelmed by projects that seemed to be far too far above my skill level. Worst of all, perhaps, I felt... well, not very creative.

This is actually very interesting to me, now that I think about it, because some of my favourite texts use the body symbolically to suggest all kinds of cool psychological anxieties. Books like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein. And there's all kinds of other ways the body is used in fiction too, like to remind us of our frailty, our imperfection, our mortality. The limits we push our bodies to can remind us of the limits our bodies keep us to. The brilliance of fiction is that we can challenge all of those things - really, the story possibilities are endless.

I really want to take this opportunity to say thank you to my classmates at this point. Every single person who sits in that circle with me every week is so, so brilliant. And you've all been instrumental in helping me see that there are so many possible ways to approach these assignments, and that my way can't really be wrong. That has eased my mind a great deal.

My Honour's project supervisor believes that writing is at its best when it comes from a place of uncertainty, of disconnection. He also believes that it's okay to go back to something, re-imagine it, see what kind of echoes remain and look at it from a new perspective, end up in a new place. He was referring to a literary technique called anaphora, the idea that you come back to the same point and begin again. But I think the idea of it applies to the way I've had to imagine my writing in this class, and then the way I've had to re-imagine it. And I think he might be right about a few things. I've felt uncomfortable with the tasks that I've been faced with, and even when I've started I haven't had any idea where I was going to end up. Several times I've had to go back to the beginning. And part of me feels like things might be turning out okay.

But this does lead me to wonder... Before, when I was sure, when I felt comfortable... Did I ever write anything that was good?

To be continued...

Lately every time I try to start a blog post I am interrupted or taken away from it, and then I end up losing what I was talking about and everything is terrible. Why am I busy? 

I promise that when I have time - finally - to pause and be metacognitive, I will blog again.

I will blog again!

Deep Thoughts

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means."
       - Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest)

Oh, Oscar...

The Body in Metamorphosis (3)

K: "I've literally got no ideas for this story. Okay, I have a few ideas, but seriously, they are LAME."
M: "You've had no ideas for a while now."
K: "I know."
M: "One of my friends has this reoccurring nightmare that he wakes up and he's middle aged, and he like, lives in the suburbs and has this lame house and these kids, and that is actually his worst fear in real life. Maybe your story is about someone who wakes up in the suburbs."
K: "The suburbs? Maybe..."
M: "Or maybe you should just think of your worst fear and write that."
K: (Pauses) "I'm not sure what my worst fear is."
M: "Then I guess you have some soul-searching to do, don't you?"
K&M: (Laughter)
K: (Brain surge!)

Thanks, Matt... Story now in progress...

Another Time, Another Space

So. Here's a photo. You can see, rather clearly, that it's a photo of a boat. And, let's be honest, it's a pretty great picture of a boat. The light is soft and even, the colour saturation is vivid, the image is well-framed and sharp, detailed. The water is still, but not too still; it has some texture to it. Actually, this entire image is full of textures, the worn finish on the wood, the blue paint chipping off the metal, the boat rails starting to rust.

I found it when I was transferring files from my old computer to my new one, a few weeks ago. I took this picture, at Cypress Hills, when I was still going to photography school. It seems like it's part of another life, now, but sometimes... I really wish I was back at that place. And yet, my memory of that time in my life is fuzzy. I was one of the dumber young people that I know, and I was heedless, of everything. A wrecking ball. But I do remember that it was early morning when I found this boat, it was August, and it was cold outside. An hour before I took this photo, the most beautiful mist hovered over the water. And it was peaceful. The spot on the dock where I sat to take this photo, on slide film no less, with no one else around, was so peaceful. And maybe because of my carelessness, my head was so clear. I felt solace - a feeling that I honestly think I've been trying to recapture ever since.

I admit it - sometimes I think about the past. Probably most people do this. I think I do it less than most, though. Or else, the people I know do it more than most. I'm not sure which. One of my oldest friends is obsessed with the past, and high school, and the people we knew then, and she is shocked by my indifference. Of that trip to Cypress Hills, and of my time at photo school as a whole, I remember very little. I do know that it was a time in my life when I wasn't writing. I spent hours in the darkness, under a safe light, in front of chemical trays where I watched images appear on blank paper like magic. I saw life through a lens. I learned that it's better to put the camera down, because you always miss what's happening just past the corners of the frame. I left school and remembered that there are other ways to record the world, and other ways to be in it. I think I understand similarities between photos and writing - they're both about capturing moments. But one forces you to observe a moment, while the other gives you the space to be in the moment and write it later, and okay, that's open to debate, but I also think that both are about spaces. People, and moments, and memories that take place inside of spaces. The thing is, once we look back on the creation of it, how accurately do we remember the creative space we were in? Does the artefact become the memory? Is it normal that beyond the creation of Blue Boat #5, I hardly have any memories of that trip to Cypress Hills? And that I remember very little about the moments that framed the creation of 20 other rolls worth of images that week? Sure, there are a few people that I used to care about, and I think about them from time to time, but mostly no. That part of my life is gone, and I don't carry that with me. Or at least, I don't think I do. I think there's actually very little that I carry with me.

But lately I've been wondering... Everything that we've lived... Does it make us better as writers? Do we need to hold on to the past, use that kind of thing as fuel? There's a song by Tegan and Sara, called You Wouldn't Like Me, which begins with this: "There's a war inside of me; do I cause new heartbreak to write a new broken song? Do I push it down, or let it run me right into the ground?" The idea here, of course, being that in giving ourselves over to pain, we become better able to write pain. Lately I'm struggling with this idea of lost moments, of memories that seem to have abandoned me, of the accuracy of the memories that I think I do have. Should I be grasping on to things? On to everything? Should I be recording every moment? Is that any way to be in the world? Should I do the Tegan and Sara thing, and method write?

Are these questions just too big?

The Body in Metamorphosis (2)

The days are getting shorter now, but my days just seem to be getting longer and by 9:30 at night it feels so late...

When I'm stressed out, I like to ride bikes. I rode my bike all over town today trying to clear my head so that I can write like Kafka, but it was distraction after distraction. I took breaks and tried to do other things, like mark assignments and wade through 74 pages of primary source material about Hitler, and still... I have no ideas. Well, my mind is swimming with the atrocities committed by the Third Reich, but there's no fucking way I'm going there...

Expletive, expletive.

At this point I think that I'm over-thinking things. The Body in Metamorphosis. Physical transformations. Temporary or permanent? Realist or with some element of the fantastic? Is it a condition that suddenly appears, or one that has always been there and suddenly disappears? Do I want it to be full of brilliant irony, or serious in a life-altering, bold, charismatic way? What the hell do I want to say here?

Oh, god. Do I have anything to say?

Lately I've been watching Californication, on Netflix. Does anyone watch this show? Major spoilers ahead. David Duchovny plays this writer called Hank Moody, whose amazing and ground-breaking last novel was written seven years ago and is subsequently turned into a terrible, Hollywood blockbuster film, and as the first season of the show begins, Hank just can't write. He's got nothing, no ideas, and he's on this ridiculous path of self-destruction to boot, and then his father dies and he sits down and starts to write again. And it's good, what he writes is good. And then the only copy of his manuscript is stolen by the 16-year-old daughter of the man who is about to marry the love of Hank's life, and she passes the novel off as her own and gets it published.

This is my nightmare. I'm going to struggle and toil over this 5-page short story for English 485A-whatever-other-letter-it-is and it's going to turn out to be the most important five pages of fiction since forever or at least since Great Expectations, and then it's going to be stolen by a no-talent hack with a drinking problem and my life is going to continue to be shit, because I'll have to do the assignment all over again.

(What is the reception history of Great Expectations? Was it important at the time? Should I have chosen a different example?)

To be continued...

The Body in Metamorphosis (1)

Dear Assignment #1,

You are kicking my ass. Please stop it. Immediately.

Sincerely,

Student 12

The Spaces Between (me and coffee)

There are several things in life that I love. Most people can say that. My things are simple: cookies, a good cup of coffee, a walk on a nice day, a beautiful piece of art, sitting with someone that I feel absolutely comfortable with, a good book. I also love my neighbourhood, the immediate spaces around me, the things I see when I look out my window. Those who are familiar with my poetry know that I often write about feeling displaced and isolated, and to be honest, in a bigger picture kind of way, that's true about me. But the places I haunt these days are different than the places that haunt me, and even though I know, somehow, that this city is not the place for me, in this neighbourhood I have found a space where I can breathe, move, think, feel like myself. There's a sense of immediacy. And perhaps most importantly, this 'hood has all the small stuff that I don't think I could do without, and it's all really nearby.

I ran out of coffee beans today, so I headed out for a walk, as per this blogging assignment, and took some pictures along the way to the coffee shop. All were taken with my phone, so please forgive the fact that some of them aren't so awesome...

 

 This is what I see when I step out my front door: the Cathedral on 13th Avenue. It's not a bad thing to see, visually. Lots of people go there, not me, but lots of other people. I've noticed it's a happening place on Friday nights, but I really have no idea why. I've only ever been inside once, for a funeral, and most of the time I don't think about it being a church at all. Only on Sunday mornings, when the bells ring.

Also across the street from my front door: the 13th Avenue Coffee House.

 Mondays are always a sad day, because the coffee house is closed. Interestingly, you can always determine immediately when someone isn't from the neighbourhood, because they try to go to the coffee house on a Monday. This is one of my favourite places to eat; I've spent many a warm afternoon sitting on this patio. And actually, it's an especially good place to do editing. Why would I sit inside my flat when I can sit outside here? It's across the street! I am sad that I have to walk past, but it's okay. Today is  okay walking weather. I carry on.

There's a mural painted on the side of Buy the Book, a used bookshop closer to Albert Street, and there are several more of them as you walk down 13th Ave. I love walking around and seeing art in random places.

 Lots of churches along this walk. Always trying to save me...

Once I get downtown I get my coffee from the Atlantis and exit, though normally this is a place where I can sit and write for a while. I often come here to write papers, actually, when I find that I am too distracted by other things at home and am getting nothing done. I used to work here and know that the coffee is top-notch, and I also know which times of day to avoid this place. I get a funny feeling sometimes from the downtown vibe. People in suits everywhere, everyone's in a hurry, everyone's curt and strangely self-important... But it's interesting to accidentally overhear snippets of conversation. And there's something appealing about all the windows. Even if you're sitting by yourself there, you don't feel closed off from the world.

I feel a compulsion lately to check out the progress on the 12th Avenue construction. To be honest, I've been annoyed by this construction for at least a year now - it's making the downtown ugly, and navigation to and from the O'Hanlon's has been a nightmare. This city's plans are interfering with my beer drinking! But seriously, it looks like some decent progress is being made finally, and parts of it appear to actually be finished:

 It's hard to see from this picture, but it looks like there's some art-type stuff going on along the North sidewalk. More art! Industrial-looking, downtown art, which coincides nicely with my favourite elephant outside the Central Library on the 12th Ave side:

 This elephant has been there as long as I can remember, and I spent so much time at this library when I was a kid. Sometimes I hop onto my nostalgia train and I have to go say hello to him. It takes me right back to the days when I read Nancy Drew.

Hey, and speaking of weird, industrial-looking stuff, has anyone noticed the bizarre half-people sculptures outside City Hall? Check these out:

I think they're finished but they're not.

On my way home I stop in at Buy the Book, the used bookshop I mentioned earlier. I'm feeling a little annoyed at this point because it's windy today, and I am getting tired of fighting with my cardigan. I never button up my cardigans. I could, but that's not really how I roll. Also, my hair is long right now, and it's been blowing in my face for the last half hour. But I love used bookshops, the smell, and the feel of an old book in your hands compared to the feel of a new one. There's really no comparison. Paper is different now, books are made cheaply, all that kind of thing. In this space, I smell that old book smell, and everything is better again.

I can and have spent hours in here looking around at everything, crouched down on the ground to see all the volumes on the very bottom shelves, stretching and straining to see everything up high. The owner of this shop knows exactly what he has in stock at all times, which is amazing to me, and has climbed a ladder to retrieve something from a box for me on more than one occasion. Good people. Today it's warm in the shop, and now I feel relief when I get outside into the breezy afternoon.

I re-emerge onto the idyllic, tree-lined street where I live...

 ... and go past the neighbour's shoes.

 This is my favourite chair, btw.

I will drink coffee now. The end.

Wild Horses

I realise that this blog is meant to be about writing and stuff, and my first post was supposed to be about my spaces where I create, but I literally could not resist this image. Plus, you know, caffeine fuels all of my endeavors.

Why has this never happened to me, and where can I get this coffee?