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No, that wasn’t my lunch order today, it was the decision I made about what to have at my book fair table.

Turns out, that’s a lot of product to make:

• ten of each of my novels
• ten big, medium, small, and tiny hardcovers
• ten cereal-box notebooks
• ten waterproof paper wallets
• ten perfect-binding presses
• ten perfect-binding press construction/instruction guides
• ten Quick-and-Dirty bookbinding guides
• plus a zillion magnetic bookmarks

Phew!

Some of these are fiddly to make, too, especially since I can’t justify charging much for them — like these teeny books I made yesterday and today:

The thing is, though, people really like the little books. They draw attention — which I figure will be even more important than usual if I’m down in London, where the crowd will presumably be a lot bigger and there’ll be a lot more vendors.

The economics of the micropress don’t work, I realise this. And “ten of everything” has been stressing me out. So my approach for today, when I’d finished my copywriting and had some spare time, was to just do the thing in front of me and enjoy it, rather than thinking about getting everything done at once (which, of course, does not work and throws my amygdala into lockdown mode).

As a result, I had a lot of fun doing these, and went slower, so the result is better.

You could swallow some of these books and not be harmed.

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…The text messages from our first two years together, bound up into a book.

Big moments, little inanities, a history.

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Conclusion of the DIY Book Process: Finding the people who love to read the things you write.

For a couple of weeks, I was spending all day on the computer doing my copywriting work, then my evenings weekends making a website for a friend — which took about twenty times longer than I first anticipated. I don’t do this work anymore and I forgot just how much “scope creep” happens with these projects.

It was exhausting me, and I was growing increasingly upset about the fact I wasn’t getting to write fiction, like I said I would do in the new year. That upset goes hand in hand with a kind of panic and that awful voice that says things like, “You haven’t written a book in almost three years. You can hardly call yourself an author anymore!”

So, on top of the burning sensation in my eyes and that egg-scrambler-to-the-brain feeling in my head from the computer, I had this creative guilt to contend with and the gasping feeling that my life was slipping away and I had nothing to show for it. (Whether a person has to justify his existence by producing art is a whole other discussion.)

To turn the tide on this, I booked last week off work, since I had several days of paid vacation still in the bank with my client. I had a whole week just to play and create!

The theme of the week was “Digital Sabbatical”: I was turning off the distracting, attention-grabbing, time-devouring machine, and devoting the time to reconnecting with my creative purpose and, hopefully, getting some work done on my new novel.

Of course, I ended up spending the whole first day working on my friend’s website and cleaning up various other details. “Okay,” I thought, “this is just what gets sucked in first to a vacuum of free time.”

The next day, I went to the pub in town where I often work — a giant upended stone rectangle with WiFi and cheap lunches. Except I didn’t bring my computer.

Instead, I brought along my various handmade notebooks and pads, and a copy of Creativity Rules “” an old favourite guide to story structure and writing in general. Flipping through its pages, then sinking in for a deeper read, I was reminded of the endless possibilities of creating something straight from my imagination. And the author said something about recording reality.

I’d drifted away from this, but it’s why I first got started writing: I did a theatre workshop back in Charlottetown and my director recommended a book to me called Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg. I picked it up and was instantly mesmerised by Goldberg’s exhortation to “say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist”.

Viewing the world through the filter of “How would I describe this?” was like gaining a second sight: I noticed things more. I savoured them. I felt more alive.

I filled books with ideas, moments, noticings. I’d leave a party in the middle of it to record some impression that came to me. Eventually, this led me to writing a play with a friend, which led me to writing books. The danger with this, though, is becoming ever more focused on product, because having that to show and getting public reinforcement is pretty compelling. But that’s all far down the river from that first moment of finding and making.

Then came the computer-space, which, for me, is the opposite of that loving attention to what-is. It hooks me into searching, searching, never quite settling. Skimming. Grabbing. It’s frenetic, and, while informative, it’s the antithesis of the creative state, which starts with resting, noticing, listening, and bringing forth.

So in my pub-session I made lots of notes and outlines and thought about the structure of a short story I wanted to write. I had to get it finished before the end of the week because I wanted to submit it to a competition.

“Wait. Submit? I thought we didn’t do that anymore.”

Yeah, that’s what I first thought when someone sent me the details of this Scottish story contest: “Art is not a competition. And I’m my own publisher; I don’t hitch my expectations or sense of validity to anyone else’s agenda.” As designer Bruce Mau says in his Incomplete Manifesto for Growth: “Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.” I don’t find them healthy or helpful, either. Pursuing this stuff leads to second-guessing, thinking about outcome and being pleasing. Those are the foundations of writer’s block (in fact, every atom of that wall is made up of “What will they think?”).

I have this exercise I do. I call it “Weekly Review at the Imaginary Diner.” In it, I go to this diner in my mind situated in the middle of a desert. I sit down, say hi to the waitress, maybe order something, and then I wait as three people come through the door (the bell rings) and join me. They’re three people I respect and admire who represent the areas of my life I want to have some breakthrough in or make progress in that week. I talk to them and get their advice.

Oh, it’s all made up. I know that. Yet things often come out that I wouldn’t have thought of. It’s akin to the work I do with my subconscious when writing a book (my subconscious is a lot cleverer than I am).

So, about this contest, one of the figures said: “You are afraid of doing writing that isn’t ‘right‘. You like to do things right. But there’s no agreement here about what is ‘right writing’, so you’re confused. There’s a competition in front of you, which normally you shouldn’t take part in, but on this occasion I’m saying you should because it’s a chance to practice finding what you want to write, writing it, and sharing it without caring about outcomes. You’ve become used to sharing only when you can control the outcome. Just shine in your own personal heaven.”

So Wednesday I brought my typewriter downstairs and… accidentally wrote the first paragraph of this story I had in mind. Then I did some other stuff and accidentally wrote the rest of it. Just like old times: it was already there; I simply had to uncover it and write it down.

I edited it the next day and sent it in. Then I went to the pub and did some research for my next novel. This book has been stumping me, because I’m not sure what the story is, or if there even is one here for me. Normally there’s this point after a certain amount of thinking and research where a definite story breaks off like an ice-shelf and floats free, but my mind isn’t committing to anything here so far.

After writing this short story and enjoying that process so much, I entertained the thought of just doing that for a while. Giving myself permission to not have to write the book, weirdly, made me want to keep working on the book.

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Thursday night, the fella and I went to a talk by a local historian. It took place in an upstairs room of my beloved Wick Heritage Centre — several joined-up houses stuffed from floor to ceiling with artefacts from the town’s past. They haven’t been able to get the right to call themselves a “museum” because their installations can’t be removed to be articled or put on show elsewhere. Of course they can’t: they have ten thousand trinkets, two skerry fishing-boats, and the huge, mounted plano-convex lenses of a Stevenson lighthouse in there!

We got the last two seats — at the back, behind a cloud of silver-haired audience members. They dimmed the lights, and the speaker, Harry Gray, gave a slideshow of rough old black-and-white photos as he told us about the “gutters” — the women who used to work along Wick’s piers, processing the red herring the fishermen brought ashore.

As Mr Gray spoke, the audience-members cooed like eiders and muttered the names of the people in the photos in unison with him as they appeared on the screen.

When the talk finished, the Centre’s volunteers came around with biscuits and our choice of orange squash or ginger wine. I took the latter, and it was delicious — fiery sweetness in a tiny plastic cup. A woman in Staxigoe Harbour makes it (she was sitting next to Craig), but I didn’t get a chance to buy any.

I still feel completely alien here, and I wish I could at least get rid of my accent, but it’s great to have the chance to do these things and experience flashes of this place from a time when it seemed more… whole. That said, hearing the stories of these women’s long, painful, severe workdays made me appreciate how very, very easy life is now by comparison.

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This week I’m back to work, back here with the computer on. I made the mistake Monday of reverting back to a usual work-day; I flipped the machine on first thing in the morning and found my attention scattered and my time sucked away. (I do this, I know; it’s not the machine’s fault, but it sure does seem perfectly designed to facilitate this inattention.) As a self-employed person, this always goes along with a frightened feeling, because I need to produce work consistently.

So my task now is to find a balance that preserves this nourishing feeling of being in touch with my inner and surrounding worlds, yet still make use of the digital tools available, which open up so many possibilities (like being able to produce my own books and teach others how to do this).

As always, I come back to structure. Drifting in front of the computer is a recipe for losing my day and feeling stressed by it. So, in that spirit, it’s time to send this, shut off my connection to the Internet, and plan my day.

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Canadian author Yann Martel just ended his campaign to get Prime Minister Stephen Harper to read a book — not his book, any book.

I have to say, I didn’t particularly care for Life of Pi, but this line from anarticle about Martel’s effort has got to be my quote of the year.

I can’t understand how a man who seems never to read imaginative writing of any kind (novels, poetry, short stories, high-brow, middle-brow, low-brow, anything) can understand life, people, the world. I don’t care if ordinary people read or not. It’s not for me to say how people should live. But people who have power over me? I want them to read because their limited, impoverished dreams may become my nightmares.

Of course, Harper can’t really be expected to reflect, because his kind don’t have reflections.

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Lots of people tell me they’ve got an idea for a children’s book, and ask me about how they can “get” it published.

A friend just asked about this on Facebook, so — based on what I know and have heard — this was my answer:

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I think it’s important to make a distinction here between self-publishing and “getting published”. In the former case, you do everything and pick up the costs, in the latter, once you’ve finished the book, everything else is up to other people.

I self-published my first book in the sense that I wrote it, did all the layout design, then got a press in Toronto to do the production work.

For the next three novels, I did everything myself — writing, layout, printing, and binding.

Kids’ books are a funny thing. A lot of people think they’d be easier to get published because they’re ‘lighter’ (not so serious, so subject to critical analysis, or whatever), but in fact they’re far, far harder to get a publisher to commit to, partly because of competition, partly because the production costs of making a full-colour, hardcover book are so much higher.

So that’s my wet-blanket view of the industry, which is that it is really, really difficult — especially now — to get a publisher to buy a children’s book.

…BUT…

If you’re talking about self-publishing a children’s book, that’s something completely different. The only restriction you have here is what you’re willing to pay.

I produce all my own books, so I couldn’t tell you who could do this for you locally in Ontario. But this is the next question to ask: what kind of book run are you looking at?

Here your choices are either traditional offset, where you pay a lot up front and then receive boxes and boxes of finished books, and you can do whatever you like with those. Or you can take advantage of “print-on-demand”, where the books are produced as you need them. The unit cost is much higher, but your initial outlay of cash is considerably reduced.

Search around for “PoD” or “print-on-demand” and you’ll find lots of people offering these services. Lulu.com is the most well-known, and is generally well respected.

Beware the “authors’ services” companies — or “vanity presses”, as they used to be called — who will make it sound like they’ll do everything for you in exchange for cash. Some of them are downright predatory, and will charge you way over the industry norms, and never deliver on their half-promises of “getting into every bookstore”.

LightningSource is the company that Lulu and similar services generally use to do their production, but to approach them you have to have your manuscript completely ready to be printed. No hand-holding there. But a much lower price.

From there, you move on to issues like distribution (making the book available for bookstores to buy; you need a distributor because most aren’t equipped to deal with individuals) and marketing (letting people know this book is there to buy, and what’s special about it).

I hope that gives you something to go on for starters.

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…Or, “Why I Sold My iPhone”.

 These days, just about everyone you see on a train station platform, in an airport, or even crossing the street is staring into their palm. We’re hardly ever where we are anymore because we’re busy checking in with our digital devices.

I feel safe in saying that 95% of the things I looked up mid-conversation last year weren’t of any lasting use to me. When travelling, I either spent ages trying get a signal and wait for something to download, or the roaming charges were so prohibitively expensive that I didn’t dare use data on a foreign network.

As a self-employed person, my attention is very important, and I’m growing increasingly angry about how easy it is to have vast beaches of time slip through the hourglass while browsing and… checking in.

“Checking in” gets to become a twitch reflex. Any spare moment can be filled with checking the news (“Get angry about something you can’t influence”), reading about the latest technologies (“Your thing is obsolete; here’s a new one to buy”), or following others’ social media conversations for no particular reason. True, connecting with other people is nice, and I like being in touch with folks from hither and yon, then and now.

Still, though, there’s something toxic-feeling about it. “Checking in” feels an awful lot like checking out, like when you shake your head and realise you don’t really know where the last half-hour has gone. And reading someone’s updates isn’t like sitting across from a person, having a coffee together.

When I was a kid, I used to spend all day drawing. My God, if I swapped my browsing-time now for drawing-time, I’d have a whole other career!

At the end of so many days now, I lament the lack of anything to show for my time because I spent so much of it interacting with the computer. And life feels so different, so much healthier, when I lift my head, look around, talk to real people, do my own thing instead of following what zillions of other people are doing.

I grew to hate my iPhone, and when I was in Canada at Christmas I refused to interact with it (“C’mon! Look it up! Check something! Fill your time with me!”). Instead, I asked people on the street for directions. I engaged with the world instead of fumbling to get out and squint at my little sliver of tech.

Last week I sold it. Used, with a screen full of dust, it still sold on eBay for more than a month’s rent.

My solution isn’t exactly the paragon of virtuous disconnection, because it involved a lot of purchases, but the things I bought feel like they get me out of the constant stream of connection and consumption: they do what they do, that’s all they’re meant to do, and I won’t need them to do more. (The iPhone, on the other hand, was designed as a portal for consumption — buying songs and apps, each new year’s model fixing annoying features of the previous one.)

So here’s my setup:

1) My day-planner. A while back, I switched from using software for my project management and scheduling. Digital appointments got lost in synching, and I had to make an effort, to dig, to see anything or enter anything.

I can physically tell where I am in this, and I can order my thoughts it my own natural way. Plus I made it. It’s mine in many ways.

2) A proper camera. I’m a crap photographer; I accept this. I haven’t got the eye. Still, for years I’ve been pursuing the convenience of “converged” devices that do everything, and my experience is that, in the end, they do a bit of everything, but badly. All the phone cameras I’ve had too rubbish photos.

So I got myself a real camera. And it’s shockproof, waterproof, and dustproof. Hallelujah to that last item, ‘cause all my stupid smartphones got dust under their screens.

3) A phone, just a phone. I got a phone designed for old people. It does calls and text messaging. That’s it. I will never expect or need it to do more.

I was considering John’s Phone, a really stripped-down phone — just buttons on a rectangle — but then I saw a picture of one in situ, and it’s a brick, bigger than an iPhone. I’m happy that killed it for me, because, in practice, not having text messages would have been a problem. That’s how most of us communicate here in the UK, unless we really, really have to make a call.

4) An iPod. Yeah, I know, this seems contradictory, but I do like to listen to music while I write or walk, so I didn’t want to lose that — and I didn’t want something that was about buying content or reconfiguring it overmuch, so the new iPod Nano was perfectly suited to my needs. The screen and the capacity aside, this is basically like my first MP3 player. My needs in that regard won’t be changing, so this should do indefinitely.

5) A typewriter. I’ve been toying with the idea of using a typewriter for a while, and I finally took the plunge. Will I actually write novel-pages on it? I’m not sure. But it feels great to write on this, and I love the idea of a single-purpose thing that doesn’t have any other tasks running in the background for me to switch to.

When it arrived, it had some problems. At first I was gutted, thinking I’d have to send it back, but then it occurred to me that this is a machine. I can flip it over, I can open it up, and I can see what it’s doing. And if it’s not working, I don’t have to throw it out — I can fix it.

First I fixed the space-bar, and was overjoyed to see the carriage moving along as it should. Then, yesterday, I fixed the bell (actually important, otherwise you get stuck at the end of the line mid-word). I even managed to get the model paint (or whatever it was) off the hood.

So now I have a brand-new East German typewriter from 1959. And it has a deliciously bad industrial smell, an oily smell like the workings of a streetcar.

Technology can be great: It’s enabled me to do work I love without having to be on-site to do it, being able to print my own books has changed my life, and my husband’s family was able to participate in our wedding via Skype — stuff like that. But it can also be an insatiable life-stealer, so this is all one step toward getting that in balance with the things I want to be doing.

I want to get out more. As a publisher, like. So I went looking for indie publishing events in the UK and discovered there’s quite a bunch of them.

In case this list might be of use to anyone else, here’s what I’ve found so far.

If you know of any others, or have any insight (either ‘yay’ or ‘nay’) about any of these, I’m happy to hear about it.

• Brighton Zinefest, 19 February
• The Bristol International Comic & Small Press Expo, 14-15 May
• The London Art Book Fair, 23-25 September
• London Zine Symposium, 17th April
• Alternative Press Fair (was November last year)
• Leeds Zine Fair (was November last year)
• Artists’ Book and Independent Publishing Fair, Walsall (was in November last year)

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At last, I’ve put up a gallery of pictures my nephew, Andrew MacDonald, took at my wedding.

I’ve been wrestling with getting this post up, partly because I feel like I should try to describe the day, or share our ceremony and vows.

But I’m not going to. It was a space, a moment. And it was ours. Lots of people I love couldn’t be there, but the Internet can’t fix that.

My mum, on the other hand, stayed up late a night or two after it was all over and wrote a wee diary about the event. This is just one more giant feather in her cap, because she’s the one who organised the whole event. I could never thank her enough for the perfect day we had.

So, without further ado, here’s a link to the photos:

And here’s my mum’s account of the story:

Joan’s Journal of Hamish & Craig’s Wedding
December 28, 2010

It was too bad the weather turned so nasty yesterday as the day went on — which had Craig commenting that at least it made it “a white wedding”! Ian delivered Hamish & Craig to the Inns on Great George around 1 p.m., where they took their overnight things and changed into their wedding clothes — new hand-made MacDonald and Cameron kilts and “all the “go-withs” — and met up with us at The Loft at 2:30 p.m. We then hooked the laptop up to Skype to include Craig’s family members who had gathered together in Stirling (Scotland) to see the ceremony. Before the formal ceremony, Craig and Hamish had us share a drink of prosecco — like champagne but with a bit more fizz and a nicer flavour.

Everything went without a hitch and the soft lighting and dozens of little candles lit the place perfectly. Seven covered chairs with dark fabric and burgundy chiffon ribbons around them were set up in a semi-circle in the far corner of the room facing where the ceremony took place. Hamish had also made what looked like a little program booklet for everyone, but was lovely romantic readings. The “service” (non-religious) and vows were written by Hamish and Craig, other than the required words for the marriage vows, and they exchanged silver wedding bands they had hand-crafted for each other. Both of them and Ian and Ellen, who read quotes from relevant pieces of their own choice, got a bit choked up and I think we were all a bit weepy when it was over (including our only non-family guests and best friends, Rob and Jean Robinson).

After the ceremony, we went downstairs to 42nd Street Lounge for some picture-taking and a toast, with the grooms drinking out of the quaich cup I had bought them for that purpose. We toasted with a dram of single malt scotch with a splash of water — I always said I hated whiskey, but it was actually quite nice. Then we went back upstairs for a fantastic dinner, with more wine and toasts. Then back down to 42nd Street Lounge while they dismantled the dinner table, etc., for the Open House. We started dinner about 4:45 p.m. with the idea we would be finished 6 p.m. — wrong, we were just finishing up around 7 p.m., the time the Open House was planned to begin.

Fortunately, there were no patrons in the Lounge, and about 7:10 p.m. Hamish’s oldest friend here — Tina Mill (the person assigned to show him around school his first day in January 1982) and her sister Lana arrived, immediately followed by our whole Trivia gang en masse, which pretty well filled the Lounge. With drinks in hand, very shortly after we went back upstairs to The Loft and the party began with most people coming and staying for the evening — we finally got everyone out by about midnight — by then it was mostly the friends from Ian’s teen-age years, who are a bit like our trivia gang, hang out together any chance they can, especially since some of them are just home for the holidays, and with whom Hamish has become friends over the years too.

It really was a totally magic day, full of emotion and love — the room added to the magic with the candles and very dim, soft, lighting, and Hamish and Craig had put together a CD of appropriate music for the occasion — which soon faded away as the conversation level rose.

Regardless of the dreadful weather, the room was soon filled with people who didn’t seem to have trouble interacting among themselves and with “the grooms” and everyone seemed so happy to be sharing the event — some meeting Craig for the first time, and some meeting Ian and Ellen and Andrew (grandson/photographer) for the first time also.

The tartan trimmed wedding cake was lovely — also trimmed with edible dark red roses that we thought at first were real, they were so perfect. The top tier was taken off before they cut the cake, for the boys to take back to Craig’s family in Stirling, where they will be staying over New Year’s en route back to Wick. The cake was dark, rum-soaked(!) fruit cake with marzipan in the middle and covered with smooth fondant icing and everyone commented on how delicious it was.

Also commented on was the table centrepiece of purple and white heather, thistles, evergreens, holly, and three lovely yellow roses, with two tall white candles in the middle. The men’s boutonnieres were small sprigs of thistle and heather and Ellen and I had a white and pink orchid with sprig of white heather.

We had booked a room for the newly-weds at The Inns on Great George last night and when they arrived, they found it had been upgraded to a two-level suite with king-size bed, jacuzzi and all the trimmings. Our friend, Rob, had arranged for a bottle of champagne to be waiting for them, so they got the royal treatment.

After we picked them up today, we all went to the Merchantman for lunch and a nice family time together. Since everyone arrived last week, Ian and Ellen have been up west to take her Dad and brother out for dinner and a visit, shopping, and gadding about with their buddies, so we haven’t spent a lot of time all home together.

Hamish and Craig leave Thursday, December 30th, and Ian and Ellen will be here until January 2nd.

Apart from a jump in the household from 3 to 7 and normal routine turned completely upside down, it has been a dream-filled time that we will treasure forever. It is very obvious that Hamish and Craig intend to spend the rest of their lives together and we couldn’t ask for a more loving, sensitive son-in-law. We used to feel sad that Hamish would never be allowed the opportunity for the married life Bryson and I have shared together — and now it has happened.

That’s my wedding planner/mother of the groom/mother-in-law of the groom wedding day epistle for any friends who might be wondering how things went. Hope you can feel some of the excitement and joy of the event our family and friends here shared.

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A key part of my working process, I’ve come to realise, is setting the stage — creating structures around getting things done. So starting 2011 was difficult when I knew I was missing a key organisational element: my day-planner!

While, yes, I realise these can be bought for about 95p, crafting these things for myself is an important step. Happily, I’d made something like this for my brother’s Christmas present, so I already had the page templates done. Unfortunately, I miscalculated the number of pages, so it’s an orca of a thing which, it turns out, has enough pages for two years. Ah well!

Calendar pages:

Pages for ideas (there are also pages for things to follow up on):

And, of course, pages for project design:

Let the year begin!

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