I did it again: I stayed up overnight because I accidentally rebuilt my website. I just started and kept going. I wanted to change to a new type of blogging engine, which meant learning how to make .PHP templates.
I’m proud of myself, though, because it was hard and I did it!
I’m going to a ceilidh tonight. Getting all kilted up, too!
The dangerous blahs.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006 , 4:37 PM
Apologies for my short temper and complete lack of humour lately.
Brain chemistry? Seasonal Affective Disorder? A pre-month-long-absence-from-my-UK-life-freakout? Whatever it was, I was burnt-out, had no coping resources, and just couldn’t shake it. So instead I stayed at home, slept in late, read books, read meanings into random Internet posts that I don’t see now, and ate an incredible amount of food. Somehow I’ve managed to not put on weight (probably because I only eat once a day), but this eating also ultimately marked the end of this funk: Last night I sat on the couch watching telly, and I ate so many burritos that I started laughing at myself. That’s when I knew the storm had broken.
Sorry.
My trips to Canada have this gravity well around them. I think what disturbs me is this idea of being away from my everyday life for protracted periods. I’m scared that these interruptions are going to keep my work and my life from building, because just when I’m about to do something, I end up going away. There’s no point starting anything, which, as a fairly goal-orientated person, is not a comfortable place for me.
I want to promote the last novel. I want to put together booklets about novel-writing and self-publishing. I want to start work on this new story. I want to find out if this fella I’ve met is… y’know. But I’m leaving, and none of this stuff can get done on the road, because my time in Canada is so busy, and I’m a guest there. I don’t have my time, my space, my stuff.
Invariably these trips turn out to be inspiring, fun, an opportunity to connect with people I love and to see more of the dynamic, unique culture Toronto supports. But from this side, there’s always a tearing away. Place is important to my sense of where I am in life, literally and figuratively, and this is a hard one to leave behind.
But now, perhaps because my trip is so close now and I’m not stuck in the waiting room, what I’m feeling is best summed up in the Zen expression “circle with no remainder”: it’s all one life, there’s nothing to lose, move along…
~
Patrick sent me a text message and an e-mail today to tell me how much he loved The Willies, which he’d brought along as travel reading. He confessed that he’d never managed to get into it before, but was hooked this time. (I’m always fine with that; my stuff is not for everyone.) I was thinking about that book just last night, how I’ve already covered much of the territory I tend to be preoccupied with. So with this next story, I’ve got to set out for open waters so I don’t just bump around in the harbour with old ideas. It’s scary (I’ve no idea what form the story will take yet), but it’s exciting.
I had to smile, seeing Patrick in the picture on his blog: helooks Australian in it.
Finding salivation.
Sunday, November 26, 2006 , 5:04 PM
You never think of yourself as someone who drools in his sleep. But then you launder your pillows, and you learn something: You were wrong. You do drool in your sleep. A lot.
X marks the soft spot.
Thursday, November 23, 2006 , 12:14 PM
Last year, I made everyone’s Xmas presents, crafting variations on hand-bound books for all the people on my list. But now I’ve done that, so I had a big think about how to follow my own act. In the end I decided not to.
After spending so much to set up the micropress this year, I seriously feel like getting any more “stuff” would make me ill. So I asked my family to take the money they would have spent on me and give it to charity. I did the same, and bought Oxfam gifts for them. I broke out crying looking through their catalogue, thinking about what “Meals for 100 schoolchildren” really means, compared to “Electronic gee-gaw with an obsolence shelf life of about two years”.
Oxfam also do a lovely job of sending you a little something to give the other person to represent their gift, like the fridge magnet in the “Alpaca package”, which features a really cute down-angled picture of one of these bizarre llama-like natural wool machines — one of which can provide a family with an income and teach them essential farming skills. They also have donkeys, goats (I love goats), and lots of other practical gifts like “Train a schoolteacher” or “Provide 10 people with clean drinking water”.
I’m sick of hearing about the Nintendo Wii, the Playstation 3, and whatever talking, jiggling sweatshop toy mommies are going to get into fist-fights over this year. We’ve become so disconnected as a race that we’re a danger to ourselves. I’ve been blessed with a surfeit of good fortune, and it feels like time to share it.
Many downloads.
Monday, November 20, 2006 , 7:44 PM
Despite the fact that I’ve had several conversations with my friend Kirsten about the dangers of ego-surfin (as is evidenced by Anne Rice’s public meltdown on Amazon.com over bad reviews), I couldn’t help following a link I just found in an old e-mail from an e-book website host, and discovered that the e-books of my novels listed there have been downloaded nearly a thousand times!
(*shakes head*)
The Willies has been downloaded 683 times. The funny thing is, I never hear anything from these people. I suppose downloads don’t by any means equate to reads, but one person posted a review of the book that’s better than the book jacket blurb that I wrote!
Interesting biotech story that doesn’t take itself too seriously (and thus redeems itself.)
Hugh and Simon are friends with a chequered history that leaves them separated for years, however events are bringing them back together again. On the trail of an elusive geneticist who is experimenting in cloning Hugh discovers more about himself and Simon than he would like to.
The narcissistic twist of falling in love with one’s clone is a tad disturbing, perhaps it’s meant to be.
Overall a gentle read worth a download.
Thanks, Goldfish Stew, whoever you are!
One down…
Friday, November 17, 2006 , 10:21 AM
That horrible building on the corner of the Royal Mile and George IV Bridge is being demolished. Yay!
Not-so-yay are the articles I read every other day about the Council saying yes to any developer who waves some pound-notes under their nose (the most recent attempts being another go at the Caltongate development and the Grassmarket in the Old Town).
It’s happening on a national level, too: an article in yesterday’s Scotsman claimed “Historic Scotland should open up its portfolio buildings and monuments to the private sector or they will face a future of ‘stagnation and under-use’, the Policy Institute said today.” Because we’ve seen what a great job private industry does of investing in infrastructure over, say, seeking short-term profits.
An award for “Best new building” is going to the Scottish Storytelling Centre. I have mixed feelings on this one, because the space inside is actually nice — bright, airy, and useful — but the outside is another giant concrete box with brushed aluminium fittings, and it’s bolted onto the John Knox House, one of the oldest buildings on the Mile. It’s completely incongruous.
I learnt a great word yesterday from a German friend:selbstbeweihraucherung*. It means “throwing incense over yourself” — and that’s exactly what it seems the architectural community likes to do: drop these robot-nightmare buildings around the town and then congratulate themselves for the great job they did, with no meaningful conversation between them and the existing communities in those places.
These bureaucrats are auctioning off the cultural commons for “deals”, and it makes me angry.
*There should be an umlaut over the A, but Blogger garbles them.
The weirdness of the leaving.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 , 11:59 AM
I’m in that pre-leaving-for-Canada vortex again. At least this time I recognise what’s going on. It’s tough starting new projects, I’m experiencing existential angst (Oh my God, everything is pointless! Everything I love will die. All is impermanence — except impermanence!), and I’m hating my accent, wondering why I’m not more involved with things here in Scotland. I’m casting my eye about — why, moments before I’m to leave?
Maybe it’s to anchor myself here. Maybe it’s because I want to have all the hallmarks of a life before I go back to Canada and get the Twenty Questions. (“So do you like it there? What are you working on? Are you seeing anyone?”)
In truth, this is a “lying fallow” period: I’m reading a lot, I’m making lots of diagrams and plans, my role in my paid work is changing from a gun-for-hire to more of a generative one, and I’m thinking about storylines for the new novel as I put things in my shopping basket. It’s not time for creating things now; anything I built would be a temporary structure. So on the outside, there’s no news to report, nothing going on that anyone could see. Very busy on the inside, though.
P.S. I just had a chat about all this with the flatmate-weasel. Except he’s in Australia. You’ve gotta love the Internet!
At freakin’ last!
Monday, November 06, 2006 , 11:49 PM
I have been struggling to get the next issue ofDunderheid to print for ages. Patrick was wonderfully generous and did the layout work for me. It looked great, too. There was only one problem: I couldn’t print it.
The background images to the pages were enormous files at high resolution, and all my equipment kept fainting whenever I tried to send the job through the imposition program I use, which shrinks and rearranges the pages to make a book. Or one side of the print-job would be faded out, or…
So this project that should have been a fun cakewalk turned into a black hole: nothing, not even time, could escape it!
Which highlights something nice: When I say I’m going to do a thing, it does tend to happen. So having to put a project aside, one that I’d committed to others that I would finish, was not a good feeling.
And now I’ve done it!
Bwa-ha-ha! I can do anything! Now I’m going to build a laser that can destroy the moon!*
*OK, I’m not going to do that.
I know what’s next.
Friday, November 03, 2006 , 1:50 PM
I attended a second talk by George Monbiot last night, who writes for The Guardian (no, not PEI’s newspaper, the one that used to be called The Manchester Guardian). He was speaking on climate change, and listening to the talk, something clicked.
I know what my next novel is about.
I tried to use this idea for a short story to submit to an anthology earlier this year, but I didn’t tell it right. They knew that and rejected it, and while I knew there was promise in it, it did feel like “plot logic” was forcing events along for a reason; they weren’t emerging naturally from the setting and characters.
I hate writing short stories; it’s like trying to f**k in a phone booth.
What a great feeling, knowing what I have to do next. Sure, it’s intimidating, because I could screw it up. But the even better thing is that I know that’s a lie: I’ve already got a couple of books under my belt, so that pervasive voice of worry has no foundation in fact.
I spent far too long trying to sell the last book to people who weren’t interested. And this last year has been about learning how to produce my books myself, starting the micropress. That’s all been good and right. But the whole time I’ve had this niggling feeling: I’m a writer; shouldn’t I be writing something? I knew it wasn’t time, and I know that it’s still not time: right now I need to gobble up research and ideas and inspiration.
I also want to create a workbook of my process, because I do have a process and I’ve used it successfully three times. First, it’s for me to use, as I write this next book. Then I want to share it with other people.
I’m sitting in a juice shop, sipping on a carrot-apple-parsley juice (which is better than it sounds). I’ve got my wee mobile office all unpacked and am ready to work… except I realised that the file I need didn’t synchronise with my Pocket PC. It’s still sitting on my PC.
Damn.
La Bo-homb.
Thursday, November 02, 2006 , 2:41 PM
Madama Butterfly and Die Fledermaus are coming to The Edinburgh Playhouse, and I got a circular in the post, presumably because I was foolish enough to give them my address when my mates and I went to see this company’s production of La Boheme.
This company has got its priorities so ass-backwards. What are they proud about with these productions? The singing? The orchestration? No…
Die Fledermaus: “…including two champagne fountains”!
Madama Butterfly:”…with an equisite authentic Japanese garden”!
La Boheme‘s big feature was “real gypsy dancers”, who were more like bored extras, awkwardly coming to the front of the stage once or twice to do a few moves in group scenes. Meanwhile, the Bohemian garret where the characters lived looked like it was made of mud, and in one scene it “snowed” so much that the actors were covered in several inches of plastic flakes and the show ground to a halt while the curtain dropped and the crew swept it all up, then the show could start again.
At the end of this incredible story, whose music I’ve known for a while, though this was the first live opera I’d seen… I didn’t feel a thing.
You really have to f* up to have people not cry at the end of La Boheme.
People wonder how I could have studied theatre yet don’t like going to it anymore. It’s because people cheat the audience out of good experiences. They big-A act instead of committing themselves personally to their parts, and they layer their productions with stuff instead of taking away everything that could obstruct the raw, human story in them.
People don’t care about fountains and gypsy dancers and helicopters and chandeliers, they care about people.
Samhuinn 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006 , 12:06 AM
Tonight I went to Samhuinn with some friends (Liz, Sheila, and Liz’s new flatmate Jenny). Samhuinn — pronounced sow-WAIN — is a Celtic celebration marking the death of summer and the coming of winter. It’s the opposite bookend to the vernal event Beltane.
<
p>God, I love local culture.
Getting geeky with the girls.
Monday, October 30, 2006 , 1:35 AM
There’s a trend here: My first “officially” published short story appeared in an anthology from a women’s reading series. (I co-curated a special men’s night for them.) Now I’ve got an article on Girls Gone Mobile, a website dedicated to “putting a friendlier face on mobility”. But really, I am a man!
If you know me, though, you’ll know that I am a big geek when it comes to mobile computing. I love being able to fit everything I need to work right in my jacket pockets, and that a big part of my work now relies on my being able to unpack and write anyplace I happen to be.
Most websites about Pocket PCs and other tech gear tend to focus on product announcements, developments, and — well, basically more things to buy. So I’m always eager to see articles that help people be more productive with the equipment they already have. Given the chance to add one more of these, I leapt at it, and wrote this.
You can’t make this $#1% up.
Monday, October 23, 2006 , 9:48 AM
Running a micropress is expensive.
Sunday, October 22, 2006 , 5:36 PM
I’ve had a lovely weekend, hanging out with NewFriendSmell Chris, who had a birthday, and spending time with the elder Robertshaws (Patrick‘s folks, who were up visiting). We had a lovely meal last night at The Scotsman, the old newspaper office on the North Bridge that’s now a hotel and restaurant.
I’ve also been making lots of books for swapping with others and just to make sure I’ve got spares. And I had some blank books to make, too, like one for Patrick to take on his trip to Australia, which happens very soon.
Unfortunately, my colour laser printer is misbehaving. Its printing has become patchy. It’s okay, but it’s not suitable anymore for producing the cover of a book.
It’s important both for me and for the point I’m trying to make that my products aren’t “good for something homemade”. I’d like them to just be good.
The replacement parts for this printer are expensive enough that it doesn’t make sense anymore to keep throwing money at it. (I’ve already spent so much on toner this year it’s sickening.) What I’ve done instead is buy a more economical black and white laser printer for producing the inside pages and a small inkjet printer for doing the colour covers. I’ve also ordered some waterproof paper, but hopefully the covers won’t run even on normal photo paper. We’ll see.
It’s all about refining the process, but ouch! the cost of learning. At least the pages and covers will be sharper-looking now, ’cause the colour printer was an older model, so there were compromises there from the get-go.
You can hear that I’m still in the rationalisation stage of having just barfed out a gob of money.
And now I have to figure out how to sell this big beige Volkswagen of a printer when the new ones arrive. There’s no storage room here at the cottage! If you’re in the area and want it, you can have it, cheap. The printing is fine, but not for big full-colour pages or at the ridiculous volume of sheets I’m running off. Or I’ll give it away, if anyone knows of a charity that’ll pick it up and give me a receipt.
Finding roots at the grocery store.
Thursday, October 19, 2006 , 8:04 PM
Tonight, as I was buying groceries at Real Foods, I was stopped at the checkout by an older man who’d been having a pointed discussion with the young woman at the till. He wanted my opinion, he said. Did I agree that supplements were a waste of money, that they just pass through you? Given that I had some in my basket — the first time I’d bought any in a while — I figured he was baiting me.
Okay, I thought, I’ll bite.
So we got into a mild round of “Are vitamins worthwhile?” What I’d bought was something to help me sleep, which is particularly challenging now that the baby next door seems to be trying to turn itself inside out each night by wailing, and its parents seem to be trying that tactic of not paying attention to it so it will learn to sleep through the night. It’s not working. I also bought some greens stuff and some vitamin C. The weather’s changing and I don’t want to get sick, and sometimes I eat a lot of the same thing, and could use to round out my diet a bit.
Of course, my accent is a conversation in itself, so we quickly got onto the “No, I’m Canadian” branch, which led to the matter of my name.
“Ah,” he said. “I’m Ranald Alasdair MacDonald, the 32nd chief of the MacDonalds of Keppoch.”
I’d recently read a piece about him, and the legal battle he’d gone through for over thirty years to stake this claim.
Over the next half hour, he took me through the entire history of my race. He went so quickly I could barely keep up, as we Celts swept across continents and influenced this and that. Gaelic words spiced his descriptions, and he was dismayed that I didn’t have the Gaelic at all. (I tried to teach myself from a book in high school, but it’s just not one of those languages. I got as far as basics like “the black dog” — cu dubh — but had no idea if I was speaking any of it correctly.)
It was all fascinating, and under other circumstances than standing outside the whole foods grocery store in the rain I would have liked to take notes.
Then the talk turned to how the Celts delivered Christianity westward. “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?” asked the chief.
“Neither,” I replied.
And the next bit of conversation almost ruined what had gone before. I managed to keep my defenses lowered until he said something about having a closed mind toward Christ, and I had to say, “I’m not an unintelligent person. That’s not why I don’t follow it.” He apologised, and said that he didn’t mean to imply that. And set back in on his reasoning for being a Christian and why I had to see the fact of it.
I just kept my mouth shut and let the chieftain speak, and there was no turning in my mind, nor in his, because that’s not how these conversations go. I learned that one from the Mormons, actually: Where there is contention there will never be understanding. I’ve found that to be true.
Eventually, he made a joke of it, punctuated with a pat on my chest (he’d been doing this throughout the conversation), telling me about his daughter marrying a Muslim man. “She converted for you, and that’s fine,” he told the husband. “And you can raise your children as you see fit. Just don’t try to convert me, because I imagine that you’re the same: you’d rather jump out that window than be converted.” With that, he smiled at me, held out a thumbs-up, and walked away into the rain.
Pass the parcel.
Monday, October 16, 2006 , 1:31 PM
Yesterday I participated in a panel discussion with three other self-publishing authors about “DIY Culture” — that is, culture that people generate for themselves, from scratch, often in opposition to, or just completely outside the provided culture of mass commerce.
It takes more effort to do this, and the rewards are sometimes hard to quantify, but I have a conviction that people are hungry for it, that it’s much more satisfying to engage with a world we’ve had a hand in creating than just endlessly buying things that we’ve been convinced we need by businesses, being sold the idea that our experience isn’t as good as something out there, that there’s always something wrong, something missing, and we have to pay to get the answer. Taking both approaches to an extreme, I believe one can save us while the other could kill us.
In the specific instance of publishing, this means that instead of whingeing about the state of the book publishing industry (slush piles, takeovers, editors being replaced with marketers), you just go ahead and do your own thing. There are lots of people to tell you how to try to woo the industry, and lots of people bitching about how difficult that is, but it felt great to stand up and say “Ignore all that! Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to do what you want to do!” And then we went on to show that doing it is well within most people’s reach.
The other speakers were:
Gavin Inglis, a good and funny writer I’ve heard present work at the Writers Bloc performance evenings and have wanted to meet for a while. Turns out he’s also into open-source software, which has redoubled my determination to learn Scribus, a free package for designing books — particularly after fighting with InDesign for days and days, trying to get our Dunderheid ‘zine printed before the fair. In the end, I failed, which is not something I’m accustomed to, and do not enjoy.
Helen Moore, a self-styled “eco-poet”, who treads that fine line between polemic and poesy, managing to strike a beautiful, connected, incisive balance between them. (She’s also the 8th Bard of Bath!)
Nine, who produces a good old-fashioned ‘zine using found images, very good hand-lettering, a Pritt stick, and a photocopier. Within those pages she writes with an honest, immediate force that really impressed me. Personal narrative can often come off like the blubberings of a drunk who’s sat next to you at a bar, unbidden, and has decided to tell you their troubles. But the copy she gave me is full of the strong, quiet reflections of someone who’s trying to make sense of big personal experiences, and has broken through to something universal.
The talk was about who we are, why we decided to self-publish, what we believe DIY culture is, why it’s important, and a practical description of our (quite diverse) methods of self-publishing.
I was honoured to share the platform with those three, and happy to meet like-minded people who were up to something great. With Helen I know I’ve rekindled a friendship that meant a lot to me, and I hope to stay in touch with Gavin and Nine, too.
I was equally honoured that people came out to hear what we had to say, especially because what drove them to get up and come down to The Drill Hall on a Sunday morning was likely an inner prompting about a projectthey wanted to create.
Following the talk, I gave a bookbinding demonstration. I was surprised that more than twice as many people as I’d planned came out for it, so I was short on materials. But people doubled up and, as my good friend Wendy pointed out, helped to teach each other, because they all kind of took off at their own speed. I thought things would go in a much more orderly fashion, but because I’d provided them with a handbook (which you can download a PDF of here), they just raced ahead — four tables full of people stacking and stitching, cutting and binding, with paper, glue, and thread everywhere. Before I knew it, people were showing me the books they’d made — and they were great! (Much better than my first book!)
Even more exciting was the joy on their faces as they told me all the plans they had for this new-found skill. Wow.
The Radical Book Fair is organised each year by Elaine and Tarlochen at Word*Power Bookshop. Unlike thatother book festival, the events cost nothing.
Now, I have to confess that I’ve often been scared away from Word*Power events in the past because they tend to be political. But what really impressed me about all the presenters I saw over the weekend was how positive and powerful they seemed. These were people coming back from their various fields to say, yes, the situation is bad, but they weren’t there just to complain or play the victim. They were there to rally the intelligence and passion of the attendees, and did it in a practical way.
The whole thing started off really well for me, with a talk from Chris Johnstone, who pointed out that a lot of us shut off about issues simply because we can’t process the way they make us feel. We immediately jump from thewhat the issue is, he says, to the how — trying to sort out a solution. Since that’s often not immediately possible, we shut down, turn away, or make fun of it.
I guess what I found valuable about his talk, what helped me be there for the rest of the weekend and participate in more than just my little bit, was his message of “It’s okay to be overwhelmed. It’s okay to not know what your part in this is.” As a result, I had a fascinating, engaging weekend that filled me with ideas.
I also got to hear and meet Alastair McIntosh, whose book Soil and Soul I read earlier this year and found immensely inspiring. He’s got this loopy mind that manages to tie together sociology, science, history, theology, and likely a hundred other strains of thought. Listening to him present his poems, which were essentially the stuff stuff he left out of Soil and Soul to make it more generally palatable, I thought “When I grow up, I want to be that guy.” Not doing his work (on land reform, crofting, and the like — essential to the survival of Scotland’s landscape and heritage), but just to have that ability to synthesise divergent ways of thinking.
~
I did a lot of work in the lead-up to this event, and now I need a break. It’s time to digest what I got from the experience, to relax for a bit, and to just live.
N.B.: Change of phone number.
Friday, October 06, 2006 , 6:01 PM
My mobile phone was breaking down, so I’ve got a new phone, and, with it, a new telephone number.
So please note that my number is now 07847 183 931.
Flying solo.
Thursday, October 05, 2006 , 10:55 PM
I’m single again. It’s okay: no nasty surprises, and it was done with affection and respect on both sides.
So there you go. Another chapter.
I’m good.
~
My work for The Radical Book Fair continues. I’m making lots of books, both novels and blank books, trying to find ways to package everything I’ve learnt as well as some creative content so I can share it with other people.
Yesterday’s breakthrough was learning to do this map-fold. But ultimately I didn’t learn it from the linked article. I had to stop and work it out from first principles — but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go start making paper crickets and fish and junk. I like working with paper, but I don’t like things that are anthropomorphised. Paper is amazing because it’s a package for ideas, a telepathic gift from nature. No need to turn it into a frog.
Bet you didn’t even know I was gone.
Sunday, October 01, 2006 , 8:14 PM
<
p>I just got back from a trip to the Highlands. I met some of my mates and stayed in a cottage/cabin/chalet in a lovely place called Tomich. It was a nice break, with lots of time spent doing nothing, or taking walks through the Scottish autumn landscape with all its shades of brown and green. I even finally got around to trying to teach myself to watercolour:
I smoked my finger.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 , 2:31 PM
The other night I was making popcorn — using up a commercial bag of it that I had left over, rather than making it from scratch like I usually do. The thing burned so badly in the microwave that when I opened the bag, the index finger on my left hand got cured. I mean, like,smoked. It’s days later now, and the thing’s still discoloured like I’ve been smoking for twenty years and it smells like burnt popcorn.
Kind of gross, that it’s possible to do that to part of a living body. Thankfully, I’m good at regenerating. Call me Mr Salamander. Actually, don’t.
~
I know, I haven’t blogged in ages. I’ve been busy making progress on all the various booky-thingies I want to have ready for the 15 October presentation. I won’t list them all here ’cause it’ll just sound to you like I’m bragging, and for me, I’ll just get freaked out by how much still needs to be done.
So the next lesson in my life seems to be about balancing work-work, creative-project-work, and my personal life. I guess it’s not easy being involved with someone who, as it was put to me this weekend, “could think of something to do 24 hours a day” (or words to that effect).
Having been single for so long up until now, and having once gone through a major depression over losing a relationship, that’s by design. My life is stuffed full of projects and people that make me happy. I generate the whole thing.
So where does someone else fit in? Where can someone else fit in?
It is possible, given that I’m committed to learning how to do it rather than getting so set in my ways now that I’ll never be able to accommodate anyone or make it a priority to think of relationship as another adventure, rather than as a distraction from my work.
This life is great, but I don’t want to come back to repeat the grade, and I have a suspicion that knowing how to love someone will be on the finals.
Trees are good.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 , 3:40 PM
Well, mostly good: One of the plants in front of our house is a big stinky thing that smells like curry.
Last night, Patrick and I took our recycling out to a shopping complex (because recycling in this city is barely existent), and while out there we went to HomeBase and traded in an ill-fitting towel-rack for two pretty plants that will not stink, but will flower instead.
Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding
Friday, September 08, 2006 , 9:06 AM
On 15 October* at The Radical Book Fair in Edinburgh, I’m going to be heading a panel discussion about self-publishing/DIY culture. Following that, I’m giving a demonstration called “Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding”. In preparation, I’ve made a wee take-away guide that, hopefully, makes the process simple with some illustrations and instructions.
I’ve made a printable PDF of the guide, which you can download here. It just needs to be:
— Printed on both sides of the paper.
— Cut along the middle of the page (side to side, not top to bottom).
— Stapled.
Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding: A4
Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding: Letter
*I originally put the wrong date here. The “DIY Lit” and “Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding” sessions are on the 15th of October.
Of ju-ju.
Thursday, September 07, 2006 , 3:29 PM
Pleh. Just got a rejection letter from a press in Canada. A friend of mine is an author on their roster and her book has done really well for them. Despite the fact that she personally recommended me to them, they sent me a form letter. (Form e-mail, actually.)
It’s so long since I sent the book to them (ten months) that I’ve actually had time to forget I had and publish it myself.
Coincidentally, I got rid all my old rejection letters yesterday. For a while I’ve been thinking that these letters are full of bad ju-ju that I shouldn’t have around in my space.
I did keep a few that were supportive. And in all fairness, none of the letters was particularly bad. But even when a rejection is vague it hurts. I’m not in the business of sending out manuscripts anymore, so why was I keeping them? For reference? I don’t need that.
Patrick went out and bought a vicious cross-cut shredder so he could get rid of some old documents, and he let me use it first. I took each of the letters out of the envelope I’d labelled with a skull and crossbones and dropped it into the machine, which quickly reduced it to snow.
Karen came by later and eagerly snatched up the remains, which were like a puffy tickertape afro in a carrier bag, and took it home to turn it into compost, which, she said, she will turn into courgettes.
Demolition Mom!
Monday, September 04, 2006 , 4:13 PM
My mum was in a car accident:
She’s fine, though a bit bruised, but her little Mazda 323 had its face smashed in when the car was cut off by an SUV taking a shortcut. At least the wee red car had the fortitude to flip the offending SUV onto its roof as its last act.
I shudder when I think about what SUVs usually do to the passengers of smaller cars that get into accidents with them. Happily, that’s not the case here. Mom has another red car on order, though it’s a nuisance that she has to do this, as the other one was paid off.
~
Speaking of face-smashings, some hoodlums down in Brighton attacked my good friend Tomasz over the weekend. I refuse to get all Daily Mail about the event and decry the state of our civilisation, as writers such as the keeper of Anxiety Culture point out that, contrary to the hysteric cries of the media, crime is actually not on the rise.
When things like this happen, though, to someone you love, it’s difficult not to despair about the sort of person — group of people, actually — who are capable of being so vicious, unempathetic, and cowardly as to attack a lone individual for no reason.
~
It’s silly superstition, but I worried about the triune nature of bad news as Garry drove me home on Sunday. We’d had a great weekend, driving in a big loop through the countryside around Invernesshire. I also stayed at his folks’ place (which I suspect freaked us both out a bit), but that was fine.
Then I got a call a while later from an upset Garry: he’d hit a grouse on his way home. We’d seen some the day before, a foursome of these little birds, wandering straight toward the motorway like animated, befeathered American footballs.
I assured him it wasn’t his fault, just as he looked at his front bumper and found it splattered with grouse-blood. Still, not so bad as third bad newses go.
Oh, and here’s another picture from our day in St Andrew’s, just to prove that we look nothing alike:
~
Leith Stories
I received an e-mail from a fella named Shawn. He’s looking for stories about Leith for a neat local culture project called [murmur]. Here’s how he describes it:
We’ve done it in a few neighbourhoods in Toronto and other places. In case you don’t know about it yet, we record people talking about specific geographic locations, then we put up a green ear shaped sign in that location with a phone number on it that people can call with their mobile and listen to those stories while standing in the exact spot. You can listen to some of the stories here www.murmurtoronto.ca.
We’re going to do it in Leith. Judging by the address on your webpage I don’t think you live in Leith, but I’m wondering if you know and folks, writerly or not, who would be up for going for a little walk around the neighbourhood with me while I record them talking about a few places.
<
p>He’s in town this month, so if you have any Leith stories, please contact him at shawn AT spacing DOT ca.
<
p>
I am moved.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 , 2:22 PM
I write this post from my desk in the cottage. Yes, the move is finally over.
Patrick was an amazing help. I’m deeply in his debt for all the Ikea furniture he moved and assembled. And he was right: everything did fit into the new space. In fact, through some sort of TARDIS effect, I somehow have actually got more storage here.
Cleaning up the previous flat turned out to be a big chore — yet another thing that displaced a lot of time and put me off my schedule. There wasn’t even any real payoff for it: the landlord barely looked at it when he met me there for the inspection (which really just involved me handing him the keys while marvelling at his pinstriped zoot-suit).
I also had lots of help from my friend Julia, who was visiting for the week (I know her from The Strategic Coach, and she’s “obscenely beautiful” according to Liz), as well as from…
Garry.
Yes, he exists! (It seemed like time to catch up on posting here, and a discussion of events would not be complete without acknowledging him.)
Okay, I’ve got to get back to what I was working on. It’s great to have this space with a built-in best mate who happens to own lots of fun toys, but I still have too many things to get done at specific times. A holiday in my new space would be nice.
Ooh: Labour Day!
Doing, doing, doing.
Thursday, August 17, 2006 , 10:22 PM
I’ve had a very busy week. But I’m on top of it. ThisGetting Things Done is popular for a reason.
Normally, I’ve got every project in my life floating about in my head, active, open, demanding attention. This is nicer: I just open a folder for the day and only have to think about or deal with what’s in it. Even though it means being more serious and actually doing what’s on my schedule for the day, there are far fewer things to deal with, and they’re set up in a way that I can actually act on them and have a sense of accomplishment about — well, getting things done.
So, yes, I’ve joined another cult.
But the moving thing? Easy. It’s all broken down into little steps, each of which is set to happen sometime, until it’s all done. Same with the talk I’m giving in October, the zine I’m producing, the website I’m creating, the…
Bunnies and boxes.
Thursday, August 10, 2006 , 3:59 PM
I’m going crazy. I’ve got two flats this month, and I’m trying to get myself moved into the new one, except it’smuch smaller, and I’ve got some big things I can’t move by myself. To make it all worse, I’m miserable at asking anyone for help. In spite of that, it’s coming anyway.
My new flatmate, best mate Patrick, has gone ahead and is assembling my flat-pack furniture because he enjoys doing that and I HATE it. In fact, I loathe all housey stuff. Hate it all. I don’t know why. And here I am facing the necessity to do lots of it, as well as dismantling my press operation to move it to someplace it might not fit.
So I’m like a little bunny in a box whose kill switch is about to go off. (Bunnies’ ability to die at will keeps coming up in conversation lately.)
~
I finally caved: after regularly reading several websites on“lifehacking”, or the science of organisation, planning, and other various tricks to make your life work better, I finally caved and bought the book that everyone on these sites praises: Getting Things Done, by David Allen.
I’m just getting into the meat of it, but the structure-geek in me is looking forward to implementing his system. But why it’s a pressing matter is that I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now, with two big projects at work (a company history for our new client website, and a jillion illustrations for our new team website), along with lots of other press-related projects. But it’s all so big I’ve been finding myself paralysed. (I played a videogame until 6AM the other night, which is a sure sign that I’m overloaded and feel the need to escape.)
Already, the book has helped me see some major flaws in the way I approach projects. For one, my to-do list is mammoth, and floats just behind me like some creature from a Hayao Miyazaki cartoon. But the things on it are often huge, vague, and not things I can act on.
Anyway, I bought some folders today, which would likely make other readers of the book laugh: it’s the first thing everyone does, buy a stack of folders. I guess the idea is to file like crazy and keep everything out of your head so you can just be doing what you’re doing.
I look forward to that, because I’m not there now.
I’m moving!
, 10:40 AM
I just picked up the keys from the letting agent. Patrickand I are going to share this place:
<
p>It’s considerably smaller than the Hollywood Sitcom Flat, but that gives me an opportunity to shed some of the stuffthat’s accumulated around me. I like to shed — which is why I’d make a terrible housepet.
<
p>
Video from Toronto Launch.
Monday, July 31, 2006 , 6:21 PM
I finally posted the video that Alvaro shot on his digicam at the Toronto launch of Idea in Stone.
To see it, click here, or visit the book’s page.
Glad she had another source of paper…
Sunday, July 30, 2006 , 10:00 PM
My first reader-submitted photo:
My friend Kirsten took The Willies along with her on a recent kayaking trip in Massasauga, Ontario.
Thank f*@#!
Wednesday, July 26, 2006 , 5:21 PM
…I’ve got a fan!
No, not for the book. Although I have been printing and binding books constantly for the past week. I just mean an oscillating floor-fan. It’s been so bloody hot here lately!
Scotland? This is Scotland, right?
I’ve been a bad friend and blogger, I know. I’ve not picked up my social life here since coming back because I’ve been making books and… other stuff. (Fun stuff, a someone, but I’ve told myself in the past I should not talk about those things here.)
So if you’ve ordered a book, it should be in the post to you now. I hope they don’t mangle it.
Home again.
Thursday, July 20, 2006 , 12:38 PM
Okay, I’ve been home for several days now, but it’s taken me this long to reach the “Update your blog!” part of the vast to-do list I came home with.
I’ve posted my pictures from Toronto, PEI, and Oban. Just click the image above to go to the gallery. The pics are very small — the next size up and they poked way out of the browser window. If you’d like bigger ones of any of them, just e-mail me.
And if you ordered a book from me while I was away, you’ll be happy to know that production has ramped up to full speed, and I’ve slightly modified the way I’m producing the books, so I’m happier than ever with the result.
Familiar to myself.
Sunday, July 09, 2006 , 7:12 PM
I just had lunch with my friend David Moses. We were both involved in theatre here on the Island years ago. Now he runs a local video production company and also writes for a CBC show called “Robson Arms“.
We had the best chat for a few hours, mainly about story structure. That was fun, talking with someone who’s passionate about it, too. Structure goes so far to explain why some stories work and others don’t.
I learnt a lot from him about the writing process in television, which is very collaborative. At first it sounded intimidating, this talk of “writers’ rooms” and discussions about hammering out “beat sheets”, outlines, and drafts. But as he described the process, it actually sounded kind of fun (assuming the personalities involved don’t clash).
I’m in a little café in town, where the wireless is free. A number of venues in downtown Charlottetown have that, whereas in Toronto it’s more the UK model of having to buy (ridiculously priced) time with one of the major mobile networks. Free is good. And I’m drinking a root beer, just ’cause I can. I may pop into Dairy Queen on the way home, just ’cause I can.
Diet and exercise. Coming soon.
Graham Putnam was in here when I arrived, and we chatted. I met him when he was just “Anne’s son” — Anne was a stage manager for several shows I was in here. But now Graham is one of the founding members of a comedy troupe called Sketch-22 that’s doing really well here.
Tomorrow I’m going to The Queen Street Commons, a collective office/work space created by my friend Cynthia Dunsford and several others. Cynthia is the radio personality I met last summer when I did the hellish emergency response acting gig at the RCMP. I’m looking forward to catching up with her, and sharing ideas.
Then in the evening I’m going with my folks to see thelatest show Anne is stage managing for The Charlottetown Festival. And after that, I’m hoping to meet my friend Julain, who’s an amazing singer performing in the Festival.
So even though I think I don’t know anyone on the Island anymore, it seems I do, and they’re all doing creative work and doing well at it.
The ground here, as in Toronto, is rich loam that just plucks at my feet, trying to pull out roots. “Stay, stay!” But no, it’s just a visit. And it’s getting on time to head home.
This afternoon, there was a service here to welcome the gay, lesbian, transgendered, two-spirited, etc etc community back to the church as part of PEI’s pride week. I had every intention of going, but got engrossed in my conversation. I suppose chatting with Dave about story structure has more to do with my life than a church service, no matter how well-intentioned, revisionist, apologist, or whatever it might have been.
Yesterday, I spent the entire afternoon sitting out in the backyard on a chaise longue, reading cover to cover a book my father thought I’d like. The air was the perfect temperature and moved just enough to be cooling, just enough to flip the pages. The tree overhead kept me from getting sunburnt, but let through a dappled light to read by. And later in the afternoon, a faint smell of wood-smoke drifted on the air, making me think of going camping.
The book I read was A Stranger to Myself, the recently-discovered memoirs of Willy Peter Reese, a soldier in the Wehrmacht who served several tours of duty on the Russian front. It bordered on too poetic, but ultimately I found myself feeling great empathy with this person; if I were in those insane circumstances, I imagine I would have experienced them exactly that way. One moment he would witness an unthinkable atrocity, but the next moment would present him with a vision of natural beauty or a flash of joy about simply being alive.
In several key places, though, it reminded me of one of Natalie Goldberg’s writing principles: “For every cosmic statement you make, you must give ten concrete details.”
Time to move on. It’s just kinda nice to have a bit of private time in town to just do my own thing. The instinct to do this lets me know it’s time to get back home.
Launched me over the moon.
Saturday, July 01, 2006 , 6:53 PM
I’m just waiting for Lisa to swing around Mark and Eric’s to pick me up and take me to the airport, so I figured I’d take a few minutes to catch up.
Over the past few days I’ve met or bumped into a lot of the significant players in my Toronto story. (There are still a few I missed; my apologies.) I can’t do justice to how much these meetings meant to me, and a list of names doesn’t make for good reading, so I’ll just skip ahead.
~
Wednesday was one of those peak days. You know the ones? I hope you do.
It started with a meeting between me and my editor, Cath, at her house. I’ve been writing for The Strategic Coachfor some time now, and I’m truly grateful for the arrangement I’ve got going with them. I have a lot of freedom in my life, I’ve got engaging work to do, and they treat me well. But whenever I’ve projected forward, I couldn’t see anything that gave me great confidence. The only way to grow or advance seemed to involve moving outside of my talent — putting things into words — into the business of creating those things that need describing. But that’s not my thing: I’m not a wealthy, successful entrepreneur, nor do I have anything of my own to say to that group.
Cath dreamt up the idea of something big on the fly (this is one of her talents) something that we both got excited about. We sat there on her puffy couch with a perfect summer’s day outside (the humidity and sunlight, the colours of the trees and sky all balanced to raise the setting to the surreality of a remembered childhood summer), and she described a new role: Storyteller in Residence.
The Strategic Coach has all sorts of concepts and tools that thousands of entrepreneurs have used to drastically change their experience of owning a business. Instead of entrepreneurial life being crushingly hectic, isolating, and disspiriting (when money itself didn’t make up for all the personal costs nor provide any meaning) they learned to use it as a tool for becoming more free, having more rewarding relationships and richer experiences, and many of them have developed ways to make a contribution to society much bigger than themselves.
What we don’t really have is a way to capture their experiences, which are ultimately one of our most valuable resources. Sure, we’ve got all these great ideas, but they only mean something in the context of the changes they produce in real people’s lives. So this imaginary role Cath dreamt up would involve me adding that capability to the company. What I do at work and away from work may ultimately become indistinguishable from each other.
I like that.
From her place, Cath and I darted out to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, a darkened, climate-controlled cement cathedral, where my friend PJ showed us several amazing old books, starting with a gorgeous illuminated Book of Hours (with hand-illustrated figures who seemed to have stepped from a deck of playing cards standing amidst exacting calligraphy and raised gold details).
Then PJ showed us The Wicked Bible, which has a deliberate misprint — “Thou shalt commit adultery” — planted there through act of publishing sabotage. Finally, he took a first folio of Shakespeare from a large leather box, which slid open in two parts like a cigar tube, then from its marbled paper hard cover, and opened its pages for us. Because it’s vellum (not wood), we were even allowed to touch it.
The stories behind some of these texts — “Forgeries and Mystifications”, as the Library of Congress refers to them — were good enough for a slew of exciting novels. (Hmm…)
Time ran out, and we had to take a quick taxi-ride back to the Coach offices, where Dan Sullivan (founder of the company, along with his wife) was waiting in our studio to lay down the recording of a piece I’d written for one of our publications. On this trip, I’d been present for the original phone interview he conducted with several of our clients, wrote a piece based on the call, then got to hear him make this recording.
After work, I went with Margaux to It’s Not a Deli. At first, it seemed like there might only be a handful of us there for the launch, but as we got closer to the start time (well, the later one; I suspect that I communicated two different times), more and more people poured in until the room was packed and we’d absconded with most of the chairs from the restaurant section.
The crowd was made up of old friends from all different slices of my life, along with a few people I’d never met before. The vibe in the room was incredibly friendly.
Cosgrove asked me what I wanted for an introduction, and I gave him a thin brief that would have lasted about eight seconds. When we finally started, he launched into what amounted to a stand-up routine that he just pulled from the air. It was a charismatic blend of piss-take and tribute.
We started the show with Lisa and her two friends,Caitriona and Suzie, who fired the evening off like a shot with a high-energy set of bluegrass music. Their voices blended wonderfully and their instruments — guitars, ukelele, and fiddle — resonated against the whitewashed brick walls, strumming each of us in the audience like happy catgut.
Cosgrove then came back to introduce me. I did my first reading from Idea in Stone, a rather long section from the middle of the book, but everyone got every single moment (laughter’s always the indicator). I have to tell you, that’s just about the best thing in the world for an author.
Coz did his thing some more, pulling the funny from the aether, the girls whipped us up again with some more yee-haw, then slowed it down for an a capella number.
Then I came back on to do two shorter readings from deep in the story. While writing a book, I make an effort to create each chapter as its own story, contributing to the whole, but also providing its own payoffs so that it almost stands alone. I was pleased that these selections worked that way.
When I finished and stood up from the chair, the lights in my eyes made a whitish halftone of the faces of all those people who were clapping and cheering for what we’d just done. The applause wasn’t the reward; the reward was that these people had so willingly extended their imaginations to encompass my own dreaming-time captured on those pages. And they got it. The same things that came to me now lived for them.
We had a raffle for the one spare copy of the book I’d brought, and for two blank journals I’d brought just in case (thank you, Past-Me). Then Lisa and Mark went through the crowd, pimping the book, and I sold eight right there and then, with a few more coming through the website since.
Afterward, we all hung around and drank a few beers as people drifted away. I had a photo-session with Rannie, who took the headshot photo I’ve been using forever. (Which I realise I haven’t credited on the book — bad! I will amend that as soon as possible.) Hopefully something will come of those that I can use as a more current likeness.
Several people made connections, too, between their various talents and needs, which always gets me excited: I like seeing people team up and create things.
~
I’m finishing this entry in Prince Edward Island, at my parents’ kitchen table, looking out at the brilliant green of their backyard. It’s just breezy enough, just warm enough.
Air Canada delivered me to Montreal after my flight to Charlottetown was already supposed to have left, so I got to dash the two miles or whatever it is across the whole length of Dorval airport then shove myself into a heated beer-can of a plane to PEI.
Of course, to complete the Air Canada Client Experience(TM) (“We’re not happy until you’re not happy!”), they delivered my little piece of overflow luggage, but not my main bag. So I’m wearing my dad’s shorts.
More happened in Toronto — more work-stuff, more social-stuff. But the launch stands out as one of the best nights of my life.
<
p>The thing that amazes me most is how easy it was. I’m a bit sad that it’s not easy like that in Edinburgh. It could be, though. It will be before I’m through with it.
<
p>
Gadzooks!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 , 4:08 AM
Apologies for being out of touch here and in my e-mail correspondence. I’m into the last crazybusy stretch of my stay in Toronto.
Thanks very much to everyone who’s expressed support for my book launch tomorrow (details below), including the good folks at the online magazine Gadzooks, who just posted an article about me.
(One small correction: I’m a writer for The Strategic Coach, not a graphic designer.)
Canadian book launch!
Thursday, June 22, 2006 , 4:55 PM
Please come along on Wednesday, 28 June to the Canadian launch of my third novel, Idea in Stone — a magical realist tale that stretches from Canada to Scotland.
You’ll hear two short readings from the book along with fun tunes played by some talented local musicians.
Where is the launch?
It’s Not a Deli
986 Queen Street West
M6J 1H1
(416) 532-4748
Click for Google map.
It’s Not a Deli is a cool gallery/restaurant on Queen West, and we’ll have the place to ourselves. It’s also air-conditioned — ahh!
When is it?
Wednesday, 28 June.
Doors open at 7:30 for an 8:30 start.
How much does it cost to get in?
Nothing! It’s free. And there will be a draw for a copy of the novel and some handmade hardcover journals.
~
You can get your copy of this independent, hand-bound novel three different ways:
— Order a copy at the event.
— Order online.
— Or you can download the free e-book (see the link below).
For more information or to download the book, visit this page.
Between two worlds.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 , 3:29 AM
I’m sitting on a GoTrain, which is part of a rail network that serves areas outlying Toronto. I’m not sure how far out it goes — and, to be honest, don’t care. It’s been a grim experience so far, waiting in the beige-tiled bowels of Union Station while people pressed around me or ran, while I waited to see which of the ill-marked platforms my train would be leaving from.
I couldn’t do this every day. I’m grateful I don’t have to.
I’m headed out to see my friend Robert at his restaurant in Milton, Ontario. (Well, I won’t be by the time I post this.)
I’m into the “work during the day and visit everyone at night” phase of my trip. Last night I had a beer with Margaux on a patio then rushed home to pick up books to deliver to Isaac and Gretel. I had a nice catch-up with them in their DIY project house, where they live with their two little ones, who are six years old and three months old.
Tristan, the six-year-old, came into the living room at one point, crying because he couldn’t find his bear, stark bollock naked. I envied him, because there’s nothing I’d like more right now than to be without my clothes. I hate this clinging heat and the way I can always smell my hot mammalness, no matter how recently I’ve showered.
There’s a woman sitting across from me. Her knees are a hair away from touching mine. In this weather, I don’t want to touch anyone. I wouldn’t even for a good reason.
But it’s not bad, despite the way I’ve made it sound. Yes, the heat sucks, but being here is proving to have a good effect on me.
One thing I hadn’t counted on, strangely, was the effect of being in The Strategic Coach’s workshops. I’d been thinking of them just in terms of work, but they also happen to be workshops. There’s a kind of thinking and work available there that just doesn’t happen out in the world at large. I’m good at thinking and planning, but I realise that lately I’ve been feeling fragmented and overwhelmed, and all the pressure I was putting on myself wasn’t helping me get any more done.
(My feet are on tiptoe, ’cause I’m balancing my messenger bag on my knees to use it as a desk, but my legs are starting to shake. But if I put my feet flat, I fear I’ll touch and meld into the woman opposite, whose outfit makes her resemble a dollop of lemon curd.
The workshops have given me an appreciation of what I’ve done since my last visit (learnt a whole new form of bookbinding, travelled to Italy, started my own micro-press, published a book), and this perspective fills me with confidence and pride. I’m also getting more and more ideas each day I’m in that environment about what I can do to simplify things for myself and advance my projects.
I guess where I’m getting to, gradually, is the feeling that it’s appropriate and right to be here. There’s no life I’m missing out on; this is my life, this tri-located existence. As Patrick suggested the other day in a comment, I suppose it’s a gift, getting to experience and live in three different places.
I know a lot of exceedingly cool and gifted people in Toronto, both within and without The Coach, and they’re giving me directional bumps and sparks of thought that make this trip a contribution to my progress, not a detriment.
In short: nothing’s wrong.
Although I spoke to a client of ours from Glasgow this morning, and we shared a pang of homesickness.
~
The meal at Robert’s restaurant, The Harrop House, was excellent, as always. Conversation with him was, as always, a reminder to play a big, heart-filled game, and to remember that it is a game.
Easy Sunday.
Monday, June 19, 2006 , 3:33 AM
Well that was an easy day.
Very little ended up happening this weekend. I needed to get some things, and wound up doing lots of walking back and forth across this big city in shoes that, while ethical in their materials and the labour used to make them, were admittedly cruel to my feet.
In my walks, I noticed another thing about Toronto: In Scotland, I’m struck by the religious role that football plays in many people’s lives. “It’s not like that in Canada, not even with its equivalent, hockey,” I say.
The World Cup and the Stanley Cup are on right now, and that statement is proving ludicrously wrong over and over.
Everyone in Canada is a hyphen-something, so the last few days all the Portuguese-Canadians and Brasilian-Canadians and whatever-Canadians have been driving around in cars, honking their horns, hanging out windows with big flags, and cheering to each other. The sheer numbers of team jerseys is staggering: just yesterday I saw a couple in their little patch of front yard, him watering the plants, her kneeling down and weeding the garden, both of them wearing red jerseys.
And last night I sat on the couch with Alvaro, drinking beer and watching the Edmonton Oilers play. (“Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-baaaah” — the “Hockey Night in Canada” theme played, which, when I was a kid, always meant that TV was ruined for the evening, as Dad would be watching the game.)
Hockey is so brutal, though. Less than twenty minutes in, they replayed some of the “best plays of the evening”, which consisted mainly of body-checks into the boards, each one a bone-jarring car-wreck between two cavemen. Then there are the out-and-out fistfights, which get people a few minutes out of the game.
The red card moments in football seem so mild in comparison, and the footwork and acrobatics so elegant.
I’ll say no more than that (because it gets enough attention already), except that the landscape of Toronto is altered at the moment by football.
~
This evening, Gary and Cindy came by (Lisa knows Gary from the cater-waiter/actor world, and Cindy directed Lisa’s show for last summer’s Toronto Fringe, and it directing it again this summer). Lisa, Alvaro, them, and I all sat in the backyard under a canopy of trees and barbequed our dinner. The conversation was quick, light, and lots of fun, and time in the backyard like that — it feels now like I spent the weekend at a cottage. I expected to be busier this weekend, but delivering the books I brought didn’t happen, so I wound up actually having a weekend, which was probably necessary, given the level of presence and concentration I’ll need for the time ahead.
So it’s time for bed. It’s a schoolnight: I’m going into the office tomorrow.
Note: Apologies if I’m slow in responding to e-mails or don’t manage to this week: the internet service providers here are fascistic about allowing outgoing mail routed through any servers but theirs. So I’m able to pick up e-mail, but am having trouble sending it.
Lots of heat, a bit of light.
Saturday, June 17, 2006 , 9:24 PM
Patrick and I got up about 4:30 yesterday morning so he could drive me to the airport. With this gesture, he put all the beads on our friendship tally-board over to my side.
I had a long wait, then a long flight, but it was all straightforward, and I’m accustomed to this now. I had movies on my Pocket PC and books, and a head full of tired. My big bag even tumbled out of the luggage gumball machine promptly after I got through customs.
Lisa and Alvaro met me and we went out to their big family wagon (or, theatre wagon, since the garbage can prop from her show was in the back).
“So are you happy to be here?” asked Lisa.
“Um,” I replied. In the Glasgow airport, I’d re-read a few old e-mails from when I first arrived in Edinburgh and was discovering it, and got choked up. Homesick before even leaving!
We went to their house and sat around catching up. It was cool inside, which was thankful (though now I’m sitting in an coffeeshop/travel agent/internet hotspot and I can feel sweat running down my back). Alvaro made us his amazing patatas bravas. I brought up the idea of going to Spain with them next year, and they were into that (the hearing of which will please my mum no end, as this is what she’s got in mind for our next big trip).
Alvaro had a football game on and Lisa had a catering shift, so I left and walked into town.
People in Scotland often say, “Ach, you lived in Toronto, why would you move here?” To this, I normally reply that Toronto is like a giant mall, whereas Edinburgh is full of history, etc etc.
But on the flight over I’d been reading a report about Britain changing into a country of “clone towns”, and it was undeniably familiar. How many small towns had I been through in Scotland where the same giants had passed through dropping their shop-spoor behind them — Tesco, Boots, Iceland, mobile shops — the same shops you see everywhere else.
And here I was, walking along Queen Street in Toronto, and before I reached the huge commercial centre, I passed by block after block after block of tiny, original boutique stores and art galleries and restaurants and coffeeshops.
Things are not so simple.
It’s the one thing I miss the most in Edinburgh: the independent culture. This morning I saw a copy ofToronto Life magazine. And it’s true: Toronto has a life. Living here is a lifestyle. I tried to picture Edinburgh Life, and laughed. There’s culture there, but it’s hard-won and it often doesn’t survive for long.
And I’m not talking about the Fringe Festival or the Edinburgh Book Festival, because these are not readily open to locals, except as consumers.
I’m convinced, though, that the place is ripe for a renaissance.
~
I forgot my Toronto SIM card in Edinburgh, so I had to buy a new one to get my phone working here. If you need to get in touch with me in the next two weeks, this is the number to use:
647-285-0888
So I did that, and since Rogers is giving me a month of free text messages (don’t they realise that this is the primary mode of communication in the UK?), I sent a mass message to everyone whose mobile number I had.
I met Cosgrove, Eric, and their friends Kevin and PJ at a silly gay bar called “Mask” (with a giant flouncy Phantom/Venetian mask on the back wall). It was good to see them, though familiar and unsurprising — very comfortable.
PJ has invited me to visit him at his work in the Robarts Library — a giant concrete peacock, a horror-bird gifted to posterity by the age of Brutalism. He works in the neck, which was apparently the inspiration for the library in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, since Eco taught at the University of Toronto at the time.
There was a specific reason PJ extended the invitation: the archives are currently taking care of a first folio of Shakespeare’s work!
I will find a way to get there.
There’s something at work here thematically: I’ve been reading a wonderful book called 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. Then Shakespeare in Love was on telly the other night. Now this.
You gotta follow these things when they show up.
From that bar, I went with Mark to Woody’s, that old standard, bumping into Bert along the way.
Then I bumped into Martin, a school principal who was very supportive of the play Mark and I did here, then of my first book.
We met up at the bar with Mark’s friend Joe. Then I got a response to my text message: Jordan! He came down with a visiting friend of his, and we all had a couple of pints together.
During all this, a drag show started (just to round out the feeling that I’d stepped into a gay theme park), and partway-through it stopped for a speech from the leader of the New Democratic Party, Jack Layton. It was a bit surreal.
I stepped out for a slice of pizza from my favourite place a few doors down, where they make the most wonderful cheesy cardboard. On my way back to the bar, I bumped into Sean Parker, whose past and mine are tangled together.
So all in all, the day had a reunion quality to it, like I was a guest character returning to a show. I was also reminded of what’s great about Toronto’s spirit. I know comparisons are specious, but they’re inevitable.
I waited at a junction (“intersection” here) and snapped a shot of the city with my phone. I’ll see if I can upload it here. Then I caught the streetcar home (which cost a swindling $2.75; at that price, I don’t consider it public transit anymore).
At home, I had a shower to cool down, and I had a big, deep sleep in the guest room, with a fan whirling overhead.
This morning, Lisa made us waffles and we talked more about a plan she had in mind: a book launch. She likened it to her wedding, saying that she realised after their small event here in January that other people have a right to be involved in your life. None of my Toronto community has had a chance to be involved with the launch of my book, so she started sewing together her ideas for an event, which sound great.
The trick for me is to choose to be here, since I’m here. But something like this would make this trip feel like part of the evolution of things, rather than an interruption.
The X-less Factor.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006 , 9:39 PM
Here’s a conversation I had today by e-mail with my friend Margaux. She’s brilliant and demented.
It’s not safe for work, but by now your office’s cussword filter has already picked that up and reported you.
~
Margaux:
I watched X-Men last weekend (again) and I keep wondering about the shitty mutant powers that are of no use to anyone, including the person who has them.
Sure there are the laser beams shooting out the eyes, and the ability to heal instantaneously, or — ew — to expel bits of your body in the form of spikes conveniently through your median antibrachial veins (or at least, that’s where it looked like they were coming from) for immediately throwing at your enemies.
But is there a mutant gene that, say, makes a person aware of all the fauna living on the surface of their body, or gives a person the ability to know where the ISS is in orbit at all times, or to detect possum pheromones in a 3km radius? I mean completely useless mutant powers. Evolutionary theory says there must be.
I’m kinda intrigued by the useless powers.
~
Me:
I guess the boring mutants must do the admin work at Professor Xavier’s school.
Oh wait, maybe they’re not welcome. I remember several establishing shots in the movies that called it “Professor Xavier’s School for the Gifted”.
===
INTERIOR, OFFICE. DAY. We see PROFESSOR XAVIER and a young STUDENT.
XAVIER: I’m sorry, Stevie, but you’re not gifted.
STUDENT: But, Professor, I don’t have anywhere to go! You were my last hope.
XAVIER: Yes, well, if I took in every child who felt a little different, or had a magical wart or bad dreams or whateverfuckingshit, I’d soon spend my fortune of unknown origin, wouldn’t I?
STUDENT: But I–
XAVIER: Don’t make me mind-blast you. Get a job. Move to Mexico. I don’t care.
PPCP Syndrome.
Monday, June 12, 2006 , 10:10 PM
Friday night, I went for drinks with Liz and Patrick. They admitted that they’d had a conversation about me. Apparently they’ve noticed something about me I hadn’t noticed about myself. They even came up with a name for it: PPCP.
Pre- and Post-Canada Preoccupation.
Just before I go to Canada, like now, I become distracted. When I come back, I’m a bit low.
Hm.
True enough: I’ve been flitting about like a moth lately, trying to catch up with friends before I leave, feeling like there’s no point starting anything new.
It’s weird, this dual life.
So I’m making books, ’cause the British Library requested archival copies, and ’cause I want to have a spare one in Canada but I keep needing just one more for something else.
E-book of the month.
Thursday, June 08, 2006 , 5:02 PM
Wahey! The Willies is one of ManyBooks.net‘s Books of the Month. It’s had around 250 downloads.
Now we’ll see if people actually get around to reading it
All my novels are available from the site, whose developer has formatted them for every sort of e-book-reading device, including iPods.
~
I dropped off ten copies of Idea in Stone at the Ottakar’s in the Cameron Toll mall today. So you can buy it there now (for anyone who’s just dying for a copy while I’m in Canada, away from my press equipment).
Then I did my day’s work in their sad wee food court.
~
I had dinner last night with Darling Anita in her new flat. We ate a lovely meal she made and geeked out on back episodes of Doctor Who. She also raised my confidence alot about the idea of moving in the autumn, pointing out the plethora of flatmate websites, and giving me a pleasant shock by telling me how very much less she pays a month in rent than I do.
So, as they used to say, “Dum spiro, spero”.
Weekending.
Sunday, June 04, 2006 , 10:56 AM
I went to the beach.
Patrick, Liz, Justin, Karen, and I went to Coldingham yesterday and went to the beach. We drove through the countryside — from Scotland to England, ’cause it’s that small here — where we set out a blanket, barbequed food, played with other people’s dogs, and built sand-castles.
It was exactly what I should have been doing yesterday afternoon, being out in the sun, in nature, with friends. Some activities are so simple and wholesome that I’m convinced they negate stress, overthinking, and bad karma.
In the evening, Patrick and I were to meet some friends of his in Glasgow, but our plans fell apart, so he and I went anyway. We had a pint in a pub, one of endless pubs in the city I never would have found on my own, then we went for a walk. We chatted as we passed by its range of buildings, from ornate old sandstone fascades to brutalist 1970s concrete slabs.
At one point, our walk took us along the Clyde River. Yes, the water had a faint smell, and even in the dark we could see things in it, but we enjoyed the views nonetheless, following the bank from the polished edge of the city centre to aging concrete paths from some time ago, where a pair of hulking rusted winches marked some aspect or another of Glasgow’s industrial past.
We looked across the water at a series of ultra-modern waterfront developments — two pyramids, two rectangular blocks, a giant Bic lighter, and a suspension bridge which was held up by a giant white arc curving impossibly from one side of the bridge to the other.
It occurred to me during the evening that I’ve known Patrick for five years now, and 23 to 28 is a significant period of development; he’s a different person in many respects to the one I met. Yet here we were, walking along the river, then through a derelict, spray-painted concrete bit of Glasgow back to his car, still having no end of things to talk about.
I’m going back to Glasgow this afternoon to meet my relatives John and Rosemary and go to our favourite restaurant there, the Ali Shan, where the owners will ply us with booze and give us plates and plates of tasty food.
Ack! Just two weeks until I go away. I feel the pressure to get my life completely in order.
Architect of Doom
Thursday, June 01, 2006 , 8:23 PM
Here’s the first scene from a short story I’m working on:
<
p>===
Reginald Thornybauk looked up at the building he’d designed. It stood tall and solid against the grey-white Scottish sky. The narrow sides featured coloured patches, like a pair of trainers or a dazzle-painted boat from the time before radar was invented. His eyes followed the patterns up to the top. There, from the roof, someone waved at him.
At least, it looked like he was waving. In fact, he was on fire.
The man pitched himself off the roof, and Reg could do nothing but watch him hurtle toward the ground.
Oh no, thought Reg, I’ve done it again.
Out of my tree, into the Forest.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006 , 4:30 PM
I’m sitting in the Forest Cafe, quite enjoying it here. I had a cheap and wonderful burrito, and it made me smile. Why? Because it was smiling.
This is a huge old room with tall, narrow windows looking out on a lush green courtyard between here and the stone building behind. All the furniture around me is mismatched — velvety, deep couches of all different colours and eras, and wooden chairs rescued from a dozen kerbsides. The floor is wood, but the surface is completely worn away. The walls and ceiling are equally patchy. It’s a giant rec-room, basically. Home-made art is hung around the room, painted on the walls and the front counter.
They have free WiFi. That, the food, and the relaxed atmosphere bring me back. The exuberant noise of the young people who work here and frequent the place sometimes drives me away.
~
Last week was Sloth Week. Not on any official wildlife calendar, just for me.
From time to time, I can’t produce anything. I just need to vegetate, surf, surf, surf the Internet, and give myself a break.
Happily, that’s winding down this week. I’ve climbed out of my tree, and am bothering to exercise in the morning, to dress half-decently, and to get work done on my various projects.
Last night I was knackered and went to bed early, which turned into more of a nap: I woke up at midnight and started sketching out a short story I have in mind.
~
I’m meeting neat people lately. I’ve got lots of good friends here, but it’s been exciting to meet new people, as if I’ve broken through a layer of immigrant anonymity, and suddenly I’m getting to know new folk — people like Joe and Brian, who are up to interesting things and aregood at what they do. I get a lot of energy from that.
~
I hear there’s been a heatwave in Toronto. Crap. I booked my trip a month earlier this year in an attempt to avoid that.
Ugh.
I want to see my friends there, but I don’t want to leave home.
~
FlatmateGeoff is having a mover come around for an appraisal. I need to find a place to live for September, and have no idea where I’ll go. And it’s too soon to actually do anything about it.
(I could get two other people in, but I don’t want to end up being a superintendant, and have to keep dealing with other people moving in and out, which costs me lots of money. And it seems hypocritical for me to be banging on about original culture and heritage while living in this modern space penitentiary of a building.)
Okay, Universe, I’m putting it out there: help me with this one.
I want someplace where I have a nice cozy room, where I have a separate space to properly set up my press equipment, that costs me less than I’m paying now (I just need a pied-de-terre, not a showflat), and where I can come and go with some privacy. That’s what I want.
Ceilidh tonight
Friday, May 26, 2006 , 5:50 PM
Eighteen again?
Thursday, May 25, 2006 , 12:27 AM
Someone in a message board on a site I frequent just asked if people would want to be 18 again. I said “Hell, no.” Here was my summary explanation of why I like being in my thirties:
Teens — High school in rural Canada = The Breakfast Club meets Deliverance. First year of uni. In love with best friend. Total denial.
20s — More confusion. First boyfriend. First breakup. Suicidal angst. Change of careers. Shite jobs. Total confusion.
30s — Wrote three novels. Have dream job. Moved to Scotland.
I’m staying here. Still haven’t sorted out the romance thing, which is scary. This existence has its good bits, but I don’t want to have to come back to repeat lessons.
Permission.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 , 10:55 PM
I just replied to an e-mail from a potential new friend here in Edinburgh. (I’ve been making more of those lately, and people who are into the same things I am. After five years, I think I’m getting some community here.)
In replying to him, I kept going and going, and realised I was writing a blog entry. What I wrote was in response to specific things he’d written, and I don’t want to include his text here without permission, so I’m just going to leave it as chunks, which should hopefully be self-explanatory.
~
For the past two days I’ve sat in front of the PC trawling back and forth across the Internet. I finally pulled myself away today and saw the sun, felt the rain on my face, breathed, went to the library, got work done, went to a reading tonight with friends… All very wholesome and lively.
I think I’ve been hiding out, because after the little launch I did of my book, I know I have to move on to what’s next for the project, but, not knowing what that is, yet suspecting it’s going to require more chutzpah (moxy, balls, whatever), I was sticking my head in the sand.
Also, stuff is moving inside me creatively, but I don’t know what form it’s going to take. It’s just feelings that I’m noticing, wondering if they’ve been there all along and I’ve just not been paying attention to them.
~
[About Science Fiction.]
Yeah, I don’t generally read SF anymore. People have classed my first and second books as SF, but I think they’re pretty mild examples of it. More like “What if?” stories, since they take place in — well, 1999, and 2026 — so the imaginable past and future.
~
I had a breakthrough at the Reading Room at the Edinburgh Central Library this afternoon. I was reviewing notes I’d been given in a writing workshop I attended two weeks ago — a selection from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and some of Tennessee Williams’s diaries — and loved both. I found them moving and inspiring.
In writing an e-mail to the guy who’d led the workshop, I started going on about how he knew about all these gay writers and I’d barely read anything by them, when I saw a pattern:
As a kid, I used to draw comics, but I rarely read them. (Only when my parents bought packs of them for us on holidays, which usually contained two that I wanted and one weird horror one.)
And…
I like writing more than I like reading.
Don’t get me wrong, I just finished The Time-Traveler’s Wife this weekend and loved it. Great big brick of a thing. I cried at the end, just had to. It was a bit girly — I would have explored different aspects of the story — but it was well-crafted, well-written, and touching, a healing tonic after dreck like The daVinci Code, which for me was like trying to eat sea salt as a meal. That it’s at the centre of popular culture right now makes me sad.
Tonight, I went to see Canadian radio storyteller Stuart McLean read from his new book. (Ottakar’s was hosting, and they’re also going to carry my book!)
In-between his stories, he fielded questions from the audience, and I was completely disarmed by the raw honesty in his answers. They weren’t slick or self-promoting. He talked candidly about his joys and challenges as an author and journalist, and I was especially impressed by his answer when an audience member asked what he thought about another Canadian icon, humourist Stephen Leacock (1869-1944): McLean said that he hadn’t read much Leacock. In fact, he hadn’t read a lot of anyone.
“I’m not a student,” he said, “I’m more of… a craftsman.”
I breathed a sigh of relief: It’s alright, then.
Of course I’m going to keep reading. Of course I’m going to keep trying to improve. But ultimately I can only do my work.
I was impressed by how much the leader of this workshop a few weeks ago knew about all these other authors, about writing styles and movements. But I also wondered if one might not fill up his head so much with all that that it becomes paralysing, impossible to do anything of one’s own.
~
[On having people ask to see or show you work.]
I’ve had this go both ways:
People ask me to look at their work. I insist that I’m a writer, not an editor. I can only tell them what I would do instead. Also, the idea of writers critiquing writers gives me the willies. Maybe that’s ’cause my training was as an actor, and it’s a cardinal rule that actors do not give each other direction. It’s considered bad manners, and presumptuous (that’s what the director is for).
Then there are people who ask to see my work while saying “And I’ll tell you what I think”, like it’s a threat. Wait, you haven’t seen it. Why are you saying it like you’re going to hate it then tell me, and why do you think:a) I want to hear something like thatb) that would be helpful, andc) that you’re qualified to give me an editorial critique?
I tell them to just read it like a reader. I wrote the book I intended to. If they like it, they’re my audience; if they don’t, they must not be.
~
I was worried when I started writing for a living that I would lose my energy for my other writing. But I didn’t. My own writing got better. And being able to fill in that “occupation” box on forms with “writer” feels good. I don’t have “what I do for a living” and “what I really do”. It’s all one life. There’s an integrity to that.
~
It’s way late. There’s more in my head, I think, but it won’t come out. Maybe it shouldn’t, like rice in the salt shaker.
Every flavour of e-book.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006 , 11:47 AM
The very bright Matthew from ManyBooks.net has run my novels through his giant code machine to make them available in every major e-book format, and even readable online. Each of them has already been downloaded at least a dozen times!
Here’s my author’s page on his site: Hamish MacDonald on ManyBooks.net.
Thanks, Matthew, for all your help!
P.S. Patrick told me that one of the formats works on iPods, for those of you plugged into the world of white deciduous appliances.
Yes, THAT easy.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 , 12:59 PM
A friend of a friend of a friend who found my site through somebody or another’s blog just bought a few things from the webshop.
“You’re actually much easier than eBay,” she said.
Yeah, that’s a line I’ve got to use: I’m easier than eBay.
P.S. Thanks to those who’ve left comments on my previous posts. I keep forgetting to look at them, then when I do it’s like finding little Easter eggs around my room. I know smart people.
Conclusion.
, 10:26 AM
A friend pointed out that I’d told 2/3 of the story about the writing workshop, which rather violates the principles I’d been talking about here.
The last night, we attended a short play which had been put together from oral histories about Edinburgh’s past. It was a good introduction to the highs and lows of what’s happened here in living memory. After that, the writing group read out what we’d been working on.
Everyone’s piece had some unique merit to it, and just within a day had grown stronger, as each participant had been open to feedback and incorporated it in their work. My advice to a few people had been to drop the political jargon and stick with the personal, which did have the effect of making the pieces more inviting and less of a closed-loop diatribe. And, as I mentioned before, the trick for me was to actually write something with a point. My piece was about my “army buddy” Andy, and my being his token gay mate.
Ironically, Andy texted me yesterday morning saying he was in town. We hung out, and had a great time, as he’s a very funny guy, full of great stories — one of those people like my friend Kirsten that weird stuff always happens to. Kirsten’s writing books about her experiences now, and Andy really should. Passing out at a latrine in the middle of the Iraqi desert, climbing out the window so as to not be found by a mad ex-girlfriend — it’s schadenfreude at its best!
The piece I wrote was an assigned topic, not something I was burning to write about, so ultimately I think it was kinda ehh. But after last night, I do stand by its conclusion: So I’m the token gay mate. There’s no problem here unless I choose to have one. And why bother?
On Sunday, I went on an LGBT history walk around Edinburgh. The walk was very good, because the guide, although he insisted he wasn’t a historian, really knew what he was talking about. I learnt a lot about the city, some of which was angering, some of it frivolous, some of it lusty, and some of it ennobling.
Afterward, I wondered what to do with all this information. It’s the past; things are different now. Ultimately, it’s left me with a feeling of gratitude, that I can be so blasé about it all.
Before the walk, I went to the “Remember When” exhibition that’s currently on at the City Arts Centre. It’s very well done, and I want to go back to take in some of the more involved elements, like the videotaped interviews with pro-rights campaigners like Robin Cook, and those who were vehemently opposed to scrapping restrictions on what people were legally allowed to do in private and at what age.
Soliloqueso
Thursday, May 11, 2006 , 4:44 PM
Structure is why we care.
, 10:05 AM
In last night’s session of the writing workshop, we read pieces we’d written as homework, then the instructor and the others gave their comments. I didn’t realise this was how it would work, and I generally hate that sort of thing, since I think all most writers can say in these situations is what they would have written.
My piece was just some rambling, babbling thing because I didn’t really have anything to say about the topic I’d been given. I read it, though, and the class laughed and said they thought it was funny — which I hadn’t consciously tried for, but I always get something out of being successfully funny. In writing, so many people go to dark and twisted places, which in a beginning writer can be really tedious: Yeah, black tears sprung from the bottom of your soul and fell into the pit of your blah blah blah. Why should I listen? This is what Cosgrove and I call “Dungeons and Dragons” poetry. It has no entry-point for the listener because it’s not intended for the listener. Its purpose is to sanctify the writer’s pain. But as pop psychologist John Bradshaw devastatingly claims:“Your suffering is ordinary!”
Same thing with my piece, though: I didn’t really know what I was supposed to produce from the exercise, so I just wrote random stuff. But the feedback I got just reinforced everything I’ve learnt since those early Natalie Goldberg days. She was my grade school teacher, if you will (and those lessons are fundamental to everything that follows), but my ‘university’ teaching came from John Vorhaus.
Vorhaus’s books on writing (Creativity Rules and The Comic Toolbox) place a lot of emphasis on story structure, because structure makes a story rewarding for an audience: “We started here, and we wound up here.” It means that there’s a point to why we’re hearing about this moment in the character’s life. The instructor of this course calls it “the liminal moment”. Joseph Campbell referred to it as “The Cosmogonic Round”.
Basically? “Beginning, middle, end.” So while cherry blossoms are essential, there’s got to be a context in order for them to matter.
So in addition to doing some work and making some books today (to fill orders — thank you!), I’ve also got this piece to rewrite and make into some sort of story.
Achoo!
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 , 11:56 AM
In a break from reworking a piece, I’ve been reading a page on MetaFilter about how to deal with close-talkers. Some people chimed in with a Hamishesque “Just communicate” (which I probably wouldn’t actually do in this instance), while others give descriptions of various body-fu moves to make it more difficult for a person to get closer. But then someone recommended a brilliant bit of “social engineering”:
Sneeze!
~
The launch on Friday was a hit. Well, according to Flatmate Geoff: I’d run myself down so much that by Friday night I was feeling pretty poorly and had come down with some kind of bug, so I wasn’t completely present. But lots of neat people came over, and they were great at striking up conversation with each other and keeping the party balloon in the air, so I’m taking Geoff’s estimation as the final word on the event.
Then I went through to Glasgow on Saturday for a weekend fling with someone charming and hot whom I’d met the previous weekend, and I learnt a few lessons:
A) Hamish can’t keep his yap shut and sometimes this costs him relationships.
B) Really, really, dating people significantly younger than me doesn’t work. Really. (Am I listening yet?)
C) While the above may be true, perhaps I don’t need the person I’m with to be like me. My personal expectations and the boundaries of my self don’t have to extend around a partner. Or do they? Are my ways becoming set?
~
Last night, I attended the first evening in a three-part writing workshop that’s part of the “Remember When” project, which is a public display about the history of queer folk in Edinburgh on at the City Arts Centre next to the train station.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the evening proved to be quite valuable. The instructor is an American who studied at the University of Edinburgh. He was on fire the whole night, burning with ideas about the history of queer writing, and about the importance of personal narrative.
I used to write every day, piles and piles of stuff, journalling away about whatever was going on in my life. When Cosgrove and I were first becoming friends (meeting through a poster I put up in a community centre about a writing group I wanted to start), I chided him about only writing for product, only when he had some purpose that he was writing a poem for. “You have to write about everything!” I said.
I don’t write like that anymore. I suppose blogging has kind of taken its place, but there’s lots I don’t say here. And I also dismiss a lot of personal writing as needless indulgence. There’s only so much time, and if all that writing’s not leading anywhere, what’s it for? But here it is time when I might be starting another book, and I find myself missing a thread of personal importance that would make me go with any one idea. Starting with product is working backwards, and inevitably leads to creative paralysis.
The instructor last night mentioned Augusto Boal, who did theatre work in South America with the politically oppressed to help them find new solutions. In PEI, I was invited to take part in a workshop based on Boal’s work, and in the course of that workshop, the instructor introduced me to Natalie Goldberg. And Goldberg was my entry-point to writing — writing about everything, capturing the raw material of my own experience and honouring it as “enough”.
But here I am these years later, and I’ve developed an identity and a body of work for myself as a writer. I’ve got a style, I suppose. But this session last night made me take a few steps back, looking both at the history of people who wrote from a perspective different than “normal”. I struggle with that, because I don’t want to be a “gay writer”; I think that’s needless ghettoisation, or even an implicit request for critical lieniency. On the other hand, though, there’s a point where all this blending in is a denial: This difference did make growing up difficult. My perspective today is still not the same as most people’s.
Of course, this can move along a continuum over to the realm of victim politics. After reading pieces he’d cleverly wrangled us into writing without preparation or forethought, the instructor gave us writing assignments that would deepen what we’d written, or give us a different perspective on it. One of the lesbians in the room (so many angry piercings, like a bass after a lifetime of “catch and release”) had written a diatribe about gender this and inclusion that — all very articulate, with a composition style that crackled with its political precision. But that was the problem: it was so rehearsed, received, formulated, and filled with LGBT(XYZ…) jargon. The instructor’s assignment to her made me want to hug him: “Write a piece about someone who’s a stereotype, and write it without any anger.”
Of course, this hearkens back to theatre school, and acting a character from an honest place, not commenting on him. I suppose I’ll probably be familiar with most of what we do in this course. But so what? That’s not the same as actually doing the work and applying those ideas. This is what The Strategic Coach is all about: these entrepreneurs are already smart and successful. Yes, we give them ideas and tools packages in an original, clever way. But the thing they consistently thank us for most is providing them a space where they can think, because they’re usually too busy to have perspective on what they’re doing. Same thing here.
I was very careful throughout the evening to not play my “professional writer” card. It came out during the introductions, but I wasn’t there to challenge the instructor; I was there trying to get to Beginner’s Mind and learn something. I have nothing to prove, and even less desire to come across like an arrogant prat. I’ve worked too hard on this indie publishing thing to start going there.
This was part of my motivation for going to the event, to see who else on the Edinburgh scene considers themselves a writer, or wants to be. The workshop participants ranged in age across three generations and various styles of “gay” (or whatever), sitting at folding tables around a small white room with a projector connected to a laptop casting images of Whitman, Williams, Wilde, and all the other bent Ws on the wall. Some of the others said they were there just to explore an idea, but several said they hoped to be published. (And said it in exactly the way one would say “I hope someone asks me to the prom.”) So maybe I can offer something there.
My other motivation was to scrub away all the style and the expectation to produce, and get back to capturing original details, since that was what made me first fall in love with writing.
Sure enough, walking home after the event, I found myself looking through the pink cherry blossoms on Princes Street, up at the beige castle walls and the white moon beyond, feeling a gentleness in my soul, a patient satisfaction that this is enough.
Launch Day!
Friday, May 05, 2006 , 1:00 PM
Today is the official launch of Idea in Stone. For all the details, you can read or download the press release.
Several websites have been kind enough to give the book a mention, including these two, which have lots of great information for anyone looking to do something like this:
The DIY Publishing and DIY Poetry Web Ring
Especially meaningful are blog-features from my great friends Cosgrove and Liz (Liz’s even has an interview we did!):
Thanks everyone for all the support you’ve given me on this project. If you’re in Edinburgh, feel free to drop by my place tonight after 7PM for a little celebration.
Idea in Stone book release!
Monday, May 01, 2006 , 8:37 PM
My third novel, Idea in Stone is officially released this Friday, 5 May, 2006.
You don’t have to wait until then to download the free e-book or buy a hand-bound paperback copy!
And if you’re going to be in Edinburgh, come along to a wee shindig at my flat anytime after 7PM! No pressure to buy a book; it’s just a chance for me to share this achievement with the community of people I care about (if you’re reading this, that’s you). Friday is also the fifth anniversary of my arrival in Scotland!
Beltane 2006
, 7:48 PM
For the fourth year running, I attended Beltane, the fire festival atop Edinburgh’s Calton Hill that celebrates the end of winter and the coming of summer.
Due to its nature as an event with lots of glowy fire in lots of pitch-blackness, my pictures are rubbish. As an event, though, it was a great success: something of the people, for the people, that’s lots of fun. I love seeing an event of local culture getting stronger and better supported with each passing year.
P.S. Beltane is something of a fertility rite, so I caution that some of these pictures are not safe for work.
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p>Also, please note that the comments and the discussion on externally-linked sites are outwith my control, so read those at your own discretion.
ScotRail song.
Friday, April 28, 2006 , 6:46 PM
Hello, Thursdaylings!
Thursday, April 27, 2006 , 1:16 PM
Hey there. I’ve not much to report: been working away, day and night*, putting together a press release as well as doing work-work. Phew! I’m almost finished the e-mail series to accompany The Laws of Lifetime Growth. The book has even enjoyed some time as a #1 bestseller on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca!
Oh, and there’s now a copy of Idea in Stone available through the Edinburgh public library system. I regularly donate books to the library when I’m finished with them, but I was beaming like an idiot yesterday when I gave them that one.
~
I’ve added a comments feature to this blog. Forgive me if I forget to check them at first, as I need to get used to this extra form of communication.
~
I just answered a query I got in response to the DIY press article I wrote for NoMediaKings.org. Someone in Texas wanted to know what glue I use for perfect-binding. It’s Bostick’s All-Purpose Clear Adhesive. It’s pretty potent stuff, and every time I’m leaning over a book I think, “I probably shouldn’t be doing this.”
Maybe there’s a market, though, for the huffable novel.
* I must watch this tendency, because I came down with a cold while I was in Italy. I hate how my body knows when I’ve got time off and chooses then to get sick. I’d love to find a way to buffer myself against this before travelling.
Idea in Store
Thursday, April 20, 2006 , 7:36 PM
My novel Idea in Stone is now in stock at Word*Power, Edinburgh’s radical independent bookstore.
Thanks to Flatmate Geoff, it’s now gone through anotherseries of copy-edits. One great blessing of being a DIY publisher is that each copy can be a slight improvement over the previous one!
Apologies to those whose copies contain typos. If you buy a copy between today and May 5 and find a typo in it, I’ll buy you a beer!
Practice.
, 8:39 AM
I made a couple of wee hardcover books yesterday, just to keep my hand in, and ’cause I was inspired by all the paperies I saw in Italy. I bought the paper that I used for the covers while I was there, including some hand-made marbled and block-printed sheets.
Despite the fact that I conduct so much of my activity using digital equipment, there’s nothing like a book in your hand, or writing on paper.
I don’t know why I’m fascinated by seeing and making miniatures.
Three fingers bad…
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 , 8:31 PM
I’ve been drawing cartoons since childhood, and the whole time I’ve been participating in a wanton act of illustrative anatomical ignorance. That’s right: I’ve been drawing characters with three fingers! It’s just not on because human beings have four fingers. (Well, except for my late grandfather, but there was a war involved in that.)
So I’ve made a pact with myself: I will draw four-fingered humans from now on. I started today with an illustration I did for the e-mail newsletter series I’m writing for work:
Now when we get into mice and dogs who wear trousers, it gets a bit confusing. I don’t see that coming up anytime soon, though.
~
I went to bed early last night, having taken some time to unwind first. It was really worth doing, and I had a restful, quiet sleep because of it. I popped out of bed this morning and dashed out to a cafe, where I wrote two versions of an article and drew some illustrations to go with it. Then I came home and cleared away a bunch of niggling grown-up life-admin stuff. Good day!
~
I got an e-mail from my folks last night, telling me they’d arrived back in Charlottetown. I miss them
Finished roamin’.
Saturday, April 15, 2006 , 7:29 PM
[snip snip snip]
I posted a bunch of stuff over the past two days, but I’ve just removed it. I’m not quite sure how to articulate this, but there are times when I’ve post thoughts, then afterwards they just feel like too much blather, words that didn’t need to be said. There’s stuff that circulates around my head, but that doesn’t mean it needs to get posted here. I feel a bit overexposed when I post stuff like that — not in a publicity sense; more like a photograph.
I’m not trying to be stingey with details, shut anyone out, or be reclusive. And it’s not that things have to be big and important to be posted here. It’s just that sometimes nothing needs to be said.
~
Like Italy…
I’m not going to write about it. That was part of the point of taking a break: no writing. Also, it was about being with my folks and our friend Olivier, not gathering material. That’s just for us. It was a perfect getaway, and made me love my parents even more, if that could be possible. Olivier was also the perfect guide — a role he naturally gravitated to, for which we were grateful.
I took hundreds of pictures, though, which you’re welcome to look at, if you want.
Life around the flat.
Saturday, April 01, 2006 , 5:54 PM
I went out last night with Flatmate Dave and his mates Erol and Frank. It’s been really easy to stay indoors lately; although winter is essentially over, the last two or three weeks have been real soul-suckers. So I gave myself a shove and left the house. Gotta hang out with Dave while he still lives here, too, though we both agreed that we might do more social things together when we have to make a conscious effort.
We didn’t do anything big, just went for dinner and to the Regent pub, but wherever we went we ended up chatting with strangers, which I always love. And there was no smoke! I’ve stepped into some Bizarro Scotland where the air indoors isn’t blue, and I like it. I keep rediscovering places I would have liked, like the back dining room at The Elephant House.
Tonight I’m off to a party where I’ll just know one person, my mate Arthur, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m feeling ‘on’. Arthur is a bookbuyer at Ottakar’s (at least for now), and suggested that they could carry my book. That would be cool. The launch is on 5 May, and I still have a lot to figure out about how I’m doing it. But tonight there will apparently be a bunch of writery, publishery people at the party, so perhaps I’ll get some good suggestions from them.
The lovely thing is that I don’t need to schmooze anyone, since the path I’m on now is an autonomous one. I like that.
~
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p>I need to pack tomorrow, ’cause I’m off to Italy Monday for nine days. I can’t wait!
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Copywriting for the bro’.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006 , 3:57 PM
“Winston’s greatest pleasure in life was in his work. Most of it was a tedious routine, but included in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem — delicate pieces of forgery in which you had nothing to guide you except your knowledge of the principles of Ingsoc and your estimate of what the Party wanted you to say. Winston was good at this kind of thing.”- George Orwell, 1984
When I read that this afternoon, it felt uncomfortably like what I’d just been working on.
Answered calls.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 , 9:09 PM
This afternoon the police came by my flat. It’s okay: they came because I called them. More specifically, I’d called the Environmental Health line because of the noise the upstairs neighbour has been making for the past few weeks.
The policemen were charming, friendly, and surprisingly sympathetic and unjaded about my situation. Not only did they make me feel ‘heard’, they took action right away, leaving an official notice upstairs (because of course the neighbour was out and the flat silent when they arrived), and calling the upstairs landlord. Not only did they do that, they then called me to report back to me about their actions. I felt very well taken care of. Here’s a cheer for the Lothian and Borders Police!
And my friend Phil McLean has offered to take my picture. He’s one of the “Dunderheids” with whom I’m creating a collaborative zine-book. I met with two of the others, Sheila and Sergio, tonight to pick up the pace and talk about what’s next.
Lots of good, creative stuff going on these days, despite the dreich weather. I’m getting a bit run-down, though, and can’t wait to meet my folks in Italy next week.
I also had to sew three different things today — not books, but regular things, like the elastic on some boxers, a shirt-cuff, and the edge of a little travel bag for plugs and cables. I’m not sure what that was about, thematically.
Two requests.
Monday, March 27, 2006 , 8:53 PM
I need…
— Someone to take a new headshot of me. I like the one I’ve been using (the hallway one on the Photos page), taken by my friend Rannie Turingan. But that was six years ago. The one on the right is just a little low-resolution snap from last summer. Mom says the old one makes me look like Austin Powers. (Several people have mistaken my shirt-collar for some sort of ruff.)
— Someone to kill my new upstairs neighbours, who like to listen to crap boom-boom-boom music real loud. Who likes this music? And why do they always move in next to me? I end up having to be Bad Serious Neighbour who goes knocking on the door.
Ethics and androids.
, 10:02 AM
I’ve just switched to Smile.co.uk, an online bank that specialises in ethical banking. This means that, unlike my previous bank, they don’t fund activities like arms trading, predatory lending, and projects that generate excessive environmental damage.
Only one thing about them makes me uncomfortable:
Headquarters of Smile.co.uk banking:
Headquarters of Tyrell Corporation, makers of homocidal androids:
Do-It-Yourself Publishing
Wednesday, March 15, 2006 , 11:10 AM
An article I wrote appears today on Jim Munroe’sNoMediaKings.org. (Jim’s site is an excellent resource for indie authors, ‘zinesters, and filmmakers.)
In it, I explain everything I’ve learnt since 1999 (whendoubleZero came out) about producing your own book. Since August, as you’ll likely have read about here ad nauseum, I’ve also been learning how to literally produce books myself, first by learning how to saddle-stitch and bind hardcover books, then moving into creating perfect-bound paperbacks of my work.
~
I found a great site the other day by a man named Bob Baker, who offers creative types (authors, musicians, craftspeople, &c) ideas for marketing themselves. You can find it here.
Yes, he sells books on the site, but it isn’t one of those yeechy ‘zillion-pages hyping one secret product’ websites. There are actually lots of good free articles there.
~
The Scotsman ran another article about Edinburgh being named the “UNESCO City of Literature.”
If you’ll pardon my English…
Horsesh*t.
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p>This venture was spearheaded by a literary agent, and aims to promote Edinburgh as one of the world’s focal points for literature. This is already true of the city. But while the project dredges up the bones of Burns, Stevenson, and Conan-Doyle, and sidles into the limelight of JK Rowling, Ian Rankin, Iain Banks, Alexander McCall-Smith, and others…
Okay, they’ve talked about promoting literacy, but so far the project, which costs the city something like £200,000, has focused on bizarre schemes like putting an already-established writer in a mall to write about the “culture” there, and on predictable industry obsessions like securing an awards show (folks, art is not a competition).
So what’s an independent to do?
Ignore it. Get on with your own thing.
In producing my work, of course I hope to gain some more readers for my books. I’d also be thrilled, though, if authors and potential authors got religion about putting their own work out there. We creative people need to understand that we don’t need permission or validation from businesses to justify ourselves as artists. Editors and critics do not make a thing art or not-art, even though we’re thoroughly subscribed to that idea as a society.
Where are the indie authors in Scotland? I want to find them. I want to join them. And if they’re not out there, I want to help create them.
Actually, the piece was about Scottish PEN leveraging the UNESCO moniker as an opportunity to make Edinburgh a haven for writers in exile. Great! Turn a bit of PR puff into something that could actually be beneficial to people who need it. But what those writers are supposed to do when they get here, I don’t know.
Snip.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006 , 4:17 PM
Stopping for directions.
, 12:41 AM
Big, fat day off.
Sunday, March 12, 2006 , 10:02 PM
In typographic detail.
Saturday, March 11, 2006 , 12:17 AM
Hamish sat at his desk, wondering whether to change the format of his books. It had been a long work-week, with lots of projects coming in from his main contract, and with much of his spare time in the evening spent printing and assembling books. If I make them a folded A4, there’ll be less trimming. Ah, but then I can’t print the covers at home ’cause they’ll be too big.
He looked at the text on his screen. Something isn’t right about this, he thought, looking at the open file for his novel. Whenever a character thinks to himself, I always put the thought in italics to separate it from the rest of the text.
Oh, nuts, he thought to himself (or something worse than that). When I set up a stylesheet in Word, it removed some of the italics. But not all of them. Aw, crap. Oh no, and it indented the first line of the first paragraph in a chapter. I always have the first paragraph flush-left. Why do I do that? I dunno, that’s just how I learnt it was supposed to be.
He’d had a nice dinner out with friends and came home early, partly because he’d eaten so much he felt like an anaconda who’d swallowed a pig, and partly because he wanted an easy night spent reading before turning in early and getting a good, long sleep. Instead, he printed out two manuscripts and made two books, happy that he could do that again, after refilling his toner cartridge that morning, which involved his hands doing a minstrel show with the impossibly fine powder, then his having to solder a new chip into the old cartridge, which was designed to commit hara-kiri when it was empty so the owner would have to pay the swindling price of a new one.
In the end, the cartridge worked fine, but the books weren’t coming out so well. He’d got a guillotine a few days ago, and was still learning how to use it to shear off the sides of books so they were smooth. Sometimes this worked beautifully, but just as often it produced a slightly weird result — an odd angle here, or a crushed corner from its vice-grip there.
These are hand-made, that’s part of the thing, he thought. I should really leave them alone as much as possible.
Shut up and re-work this typography, then go to bed.
And no more stylesheets in Word.
It snowed in Edinburgh today.
Friday, March 03, 2006 , 5:22 PM
Oh Happy Day!
Thursday, March 02, 2006 , 1:21 PM
YAY! I got a machine this morning that’s a bit of mailroom/direct-mail equipment designed to fold pages. Right now, it takes me about an hour to fold the pages for a book. This device will reduce the time to a matter of minutes. I had to fiddle about with its measurement settings for a while to get it to fold my small book-sized pages instead of letter-sized pages, but I knew it would be possible because the same machine is sold for both North American 8.5″ by 11″ and European A4 pages. And I did it! While making the final adjustments to it, I made the innards for a blank book in just moments. Yay! This will allow me to be prepared for much larger numbers of orders. I’ve yet to decide what I’m going to do for a launch, publicity, or to even articulate what my intentions are in doing this.
YAY! Last night I did up a cover for my friend Kirsten’s play that she gave me ages ago, and she loved what I produced. (She’d grabbed clip art to represent the characters in this murder-mystery spoof-cum-better-murder-mystery — she knows what sells in the summer stock, but still wanted to do such a play her way. The clip art worked as a sketch, but even better was having a custom illustration and proper type treatment!) This is just one of a bunch of long-outstanding tasks that have been nibbling at my attention and are now done.
YAY! While running errands I picked up some trousers I’d had mended: my two pairs of khakis which I mostly-liked, but was always uncomfortable about ’cause they had kinda big stove-pipe legs. No more! Now they are proper jeans-sized legs. About the same price as new cheap trousers, but these are good ones made by children. Yes, they’re Gap — I felt awful at the time but needed ones for work post-haste two summers ago, and I didn’t want to go buying more of them now since it’s probably the same story for any shop in town. So these will last and I haven’t sent an extra pair of trews through the world-net.
YAY! When I got home I found a cheque from the City of Edinburgh Council in my mailbox, refunding £125 for Council Tax from my last flat. I thought I’d already got and spent that!
YAY! The outstanding Council Tax and phone bills for this flat are now sorted. No more huge mystery bills hanging in my imagination. (£94 for electricity since August! Outstanding, particularly considering how generously I use it here in my factory.) [Boo! Flatmate Dave is moving out; Flatmate Geoff and I have to replace him by 7 April.]
YAY! I’m up to date on my work and will be able to meet my deadlines now in my usual fashion. The Production team offered to take over the design bit of a project I’ve been working on so I could focus on my writing — as I should be doing, since the company is all about individuals focusing on their specific talents, and web/PDF/whatever design is something I have some ability but limited energy for. This is a huge relief, because I was starting to catch on fire from the stress of doing the whole thing. I finally stopped and asked for help, and I got a firetruck full of it. You’d think I’d remember to do this by now.
YAY! I have time and space tonight to work on a short story and hopefully produce some books to test out my new process.
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p>So as you can gather, it’s something of a Yay-Day.
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