But what do you want?

Posted on May 20, 2013 by jackie

Around the time that my annus horribilius began to wrap up, I got a call from an old friend. She wanted to let me know that she, too, had driven into a personal hellmouth.

Welcome to Sunnydale! Image via the Buffyverse Wiki.

Her problems are far more serious than mine, and they’re way beyond anyone’s ability to just get it fixed. I’m generally a person who can offer advice and a plan, who can be a sounding board to identify issues, etc. In other words, I can help you build narratives that anticipate consequences of proposed actions. Hey, writer’s brain, right? It’s good for something.

But these problems are way beyond me and my tale-spinning, and the best I’ve been able to offer is the occasional distraction. And since I can talk the leg off the proverbial donkey, I’ve tried to distract my friend with conversation.

Epic life problems, I’ve found, do lead to interesting discussions about what the f*ck we’re supposed to be doing with our lives, about powerlessness and free will and fate and purpose – all that good, mid-life-crisis stuff, where life and death and the stuff in between all stops being an academic exercise over beer and starts being painfully, scarily real. Wait, what? Death? I thought that was something that only happened to guys in red shirts!

Turns out, not.

We never see it coming, do we? Image via CNet News.

We’re not there yet, either of us, but we have talked about it. We’ve talked about being lightning rods for suckage, too, and about how elusive control is, about randomness vs Some Big Plan. As Roger Ebert once observed (and I’m paraphrasing because I can’t source the quote) – people who don’t read think that life is something that just happens to them. People who do read know that it’s all a necessary part of the dramatic narrative.

At one point my friend told me about a theory that she’d heard about, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.

Apparently you can just tell the universe what you want and BAM! It’ll cough up. It’s like the Secret (no link, I’ll pass on that one), only sanctioned by a major religious group – so I guess you don’t talk to the universe, you talk to god.

“But stuff like ‘good health’ and ‘happiness’ and ‘world peace,’ right? Not ‘hey god, I want a pony,’” I said.

No, you can demand a pony, and god will deliver.

At first I struggled with the idea as a parent. I’m a little appalled that god would reward demands for random stuff and not tell you to remember that kids are starving in Africa, so eat your damned peas. I also had some qualms about the whole ‘gimme’ thing from a theological point of view – my own religious training comes largely from Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, and a bunch of Christmas specials. They all place a fairly heavy emphasis on service rather than entitlement (reinforced with a lot of tear-jerky sentiment, I might add).

But as time passed, I realized there’s a certain logic to it, too. Never mind the pony (except for my friend Lisa B, she can have All The Ponies), and the winning lottery ticket and such. If you decide that you want something, you will tend to create the circumstances to make that thing happen, right? It’s like deciding to be a doctor or an artist (or a writer, ahem). You don’t say ‘okay, now I’m a doctor’ and thus it is so. There are certain steps you have to follow – go to university or buy paint or find a FRIKKIN AWESOME mentor. So if you decide that you want to buy a house, you open an account, you stop with the lattes and you get there.

Fine, I’ll accept the theory.

Next question: what would I ask for? What do I really want?

(Let’s pause for the obvious free-association moment, just get it behind us, shall we?)


Spice Girls – Wannabe by starboymcfly

First of all, I’d be totally afraid to ‘ask’ for anything. Partly it’s because my own luck has been so utterly shit-tasitcal lately that I’d be afraid to tempt fate with any demands. Partly it’s my own neuroses about being perceived as a selfish, entitled bitch (ah, patriarchy!).

Then I found myself oddly stumped. What do I want? It’s a real question.

I decided it would make an interesting exercise, so I sat down with pen and paper and tried to make a list.

Here’s what I found out.

After all that’s happened, I don’t want much. Because really, life is pretty good.

I want to write full-time, but not so much that I’d demand it from the universe. I want my Kiddo to be happy and healthy, to have a rich life with lots of love and very little pain. I want to be quiet now, after years of drama and upset. I actually do want world peace.

And right now, if I had to put a wish out there? I want my friend to be okay.

 

 

Posted in Musings | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Writing Course: Freewrite

Posted on February 25, 2013 by jackie

I’m in the middle of Caitlin Sweet’s Master Class, a novel writing course. I’m learning loads, and am really enjoying myself. No time to blog, though, sadly. 

Caitlin continues to be the queen of freewrites. I’m kinda pleased with this one, so thought I’d share it until I have more time to put together some serious bloggage. Remember, it’s rough and very first draft, so please be forgiving.

Enjoy!

Freewrite: “Red rain is falling” (inspired by Peter Gabriel)

“There he goes again,” said Jessa.

“What?” Mickey looked up from his worktable, where the latest holograph of the M2 mega-project were displayed.

“Red Rain,” said Jessa. She gazed out the window wall at the top of the adjacent building.

“What, again?” Mickey shook his head in disgust. “It’s really not entertaining anymore.”

“What’s not entertaining anymore?” asked Samir as he walked in. He carried a tray of steaming mugs of white tea over to one of the hard surface tables and then went to stand next to Mickey.

“Red Rain is falling,” said Jessa. “It’s four o’clock, and he’s on his way down, as usual.”

Samir handed Mickey a cup of tea, then went back, picked up the other two cups and crossed the room and joined Jessa at the window. “Here,” he said, as he flashed his handsomest smile, but pretty Jessa was too engrossed in Red’s fall to be impressed. He suppressed a disappointed sigh and tapped the smart surface of the glass. A small command panel appeared in response to his touch, a lovely set of buttons and dials rendered in rainbow hues.

“New interface?” he asked.

“Yeah. More subtle, don’t you think?” Jessa finally turned to look at him, her own smile dazzling poor Samir. “And it’s invisible unless you’re standing right in front of it, so it doesn’t ruin everyone else’s sight lines.”

Samir fiddled with the dial. He opened a large section of magnification, then scanned down the 200-storey building across the street. Thomas “Red” Rain was now about two thirds of the way down. They could see his unconcerned, wind-burned face, this time turned up to the sky so that he wouldn’t be anticipating the actual impact.

“You guys wanna finish this or what?” asked an irritated Mickey from behind them.

Samir walked away from the window, but Jessa stayed to see Red through to the end. He was the designer responsible for much of the city’s infrastructure safety programming, including the smart roads and sidewalks. Whenever the city was ready to install an upgrade, Red would shut down the street below and test the software himself. He’d jumped off the roof of the adjacent tower every day this week, always at four o’clock sharp, apparently not satisfied that his landing was suitably comfortable.

Jessa watched until the angle of his descent took him out of the window’s ability to see Red. She reached out and tapped the interface closed, then turned back to her own work.

Posted in Writing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Drive, She Said

Posted on January 5, 2013 by jackie

Just lately, I really miss driving. Not travel, not vacations. I miss driving.

Cars have become like grocery stores or big box DIY places in my mind: They’re full of mysterious potential. As I wander my local food mall, I think well, I could make something with fennel, if I knew what it was or cared. When I’m shopping for paint or a hammer, I feel like I could build a table and benches in the corner or my apartment, if I bought all the tools and learned to use them. When I tag along behind Tao as she forages for yarn, I imaging that I could make a quilt, or paint a landscape, or scrapbook something, if I wasn’t cursed with carpel tunnel and my reading vision wasn’t failing (cursed old age).

If I had the time. If I had the money. Those places, they’re like lottery tickets, parting you from your cash with a perpetually unfulfilled promise of a ten-fold return in creativity and satisfaction.

And now cars, they’ve taken on that weird unrealized potential feeling. I could go to Ottawa and see a bunch of museums. I could drive to Vancouver, it can’t be that far away. I could travel the entire length of Yonge St in Ontario (from Windsor to somewhere mysteriously North in Quebec). I could make a video of my adventures and add a funky soundtrack:

At the End of Yonge St from Fixinmytie on Vimeo.

I stand on the street corners and watch as folks zip by, and have oddly tactile memories of being in warm, cozy cars on cold, snowy days. It’s an odd little act of defiance to sit in a heated box, warm and dry, with  your coat off, on days with weather so bad you think some deity is out to wipe the human race off the planet. You have to wear extra sweaters, of course, because the car never gets hot enough to really keep the chill out of your bones. But still, there you are, thumbing your nose at the elements as you get where you want to go despite their best efforts to keep you at home.

I find myself longing to go away. I want a road trip, one long enough that I’ll have to stop at a roadside station that sells bad fast food and crazy trinkets like super-dark sunglasses, t-shirts with igloos and beavers, or shot glasses that sport a Canadian flag decal – nothing says ‘Canuk’ like a couple of ounces of tequila, after all.

These sensory memories have begun to hit me when I’m in the oddest places. Tim Horton’s, for example. The smell of donuts and over-boiled coffee seems to have become the official scent of long drives. When I go out for a bagel at lunch, I find myself  flashing on that conversation we all have with ourselves when we’re standing in a Tim’s in some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. You tell yourself that you won’t see another pit stop for a couple of hours, so you ‘treat’ yourself to a double-glazed fried dough delight to tide you over til dinner. It’s only once in a while, right? Just on road trips…

I miss that lovely moment when you press the ‘pause’ button on the player of your life and just go. The destination doesn’t matter, really, although extended vacations where that ‘pause’ button stays down are lovely. It’s that enforced wait that I miss. The drive there, that’s all delayed gratification and anticipation. The drive home, that’s all afterglow and contented tiredness. When you’re in the car, you have to sit still, you have to make do with whatever entertainment the scenery or your audio system offers. Driving requires your attention, and so your mind is forced to focus on the task at hand. All the anxieties and fusses of your life must be at least dialed down if not shut down altogether. Driving, for me, is meditation.

Back when Tao was a baby, there was a sort of urban legend in the mommy circles about a late-night TV show called Night Moves. The show is nothing but a hand-held camera that wanders Toronto while jazz music plays. Never, ever would I be desperate enough to watch such a silly show, declared the pregnant me, who’d never experienced 3:00 a.m. feedings and still slept the sleep of the righteous. But, of course, Tao had different plans, and I found myself addicted to this ridiculous program.

 

I didn’t understand the appeal at the time. I was obsessed with trying to figure out where the camera guy was, but otherwise the show seemed absurd. Now, though, I see something different.

I see someone else who liked to get in their car, and just drive.

 

 

 

PS – the title of the this post was obviously inspired by Stan Ridgway. Seems, though, that Mr Ridgway and his record company don’t like to share content on the Interwebs. No video to embed! I therefore offer you some of my favourite writing zen music instead:

 

Posted in Musings | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Story: “Spiked”

Posted on December 24, 2012 by jackie

Hello all -  I offer this short, silly little piece for your pleasure and entertainment. Built from a free-write exercise I did for Caitlin Sweet’s class back in the spring. 

Happy Holidays! All the best to you in 2013, and thanks for reading. xo

~*~

Len rolled off the sofa onto the floor with a boneless thump, and yelled: “Beauty visits once a year!”

“What the hell?” Moxie giggled.

When Len’s only response was a loud, choked snore, Moxie heaved herself out of her chair, then stopped with a startled gasp as cold Euphoria sloshed out down the front of her shirt. She held the bottle up to her face, blinking owlishly, and wondered how it had ended up in her hand. Where had it come from? It was a mystery. Moxie giggled at her own drunken forgetfulness.

Oh well, since it was already there, better drink it. Moxie tipped the bottle and downed the last swallow, then added the empty to the tidy row of dead soldiers that she and Len had carefully lined up on the dorm room’s battered old coffee table. Twelve down, twelve to go. Half way. Moxie wins the math prize! Let’s celebrate with a drink!

“Len!” she shouted at her snoring friend. “Round 7!”

Len didn’t move. Fine. Taking matters into her own hands, Moxie reached down and fished another bottle from the cooler, then stopped. Wait. Where had the beer come from? Len’s car was in the shop, and like all the other over-fit jocks that Moxie’d ever dated, he was way too lazy to haul a case of beer all the way across campus. Maybe Len and his crack-y roommate were home brewing again? Bad idea, the last one had resulted in a one-week suspension from the university.

Moxie was about to prod Len awake to ask him what was what, when another muffled cry sounded from under his armpit:

“Bad news is the best medicine!”

“Dude, you’re makin’ no sense!” Moxie yelled back, but Len was gone again, another bone-rattling snore his only reply.

“‘K, maybe this isn’t good.”

Moxie dug a toe into Len’s rib cage  hard, but the young man didn’t move. His breathing began to sound labored, even to Moxie’s inebriated ears. A small beam of fear pierced the Euphoria-induced fog in Moxie’s brain. Maybe she needed to at least roll Len onto his back.

She slid off the sofa and knee-walked over to her friend. She tried shaking him, then planting her shoulder against his bulk. Unfortunately, the college co-ed was twice her size and weight, and completely unconscious. Moxie couldn’t budge him.

“‘K, this is bad.”

“Silence makes the heart grow fonder!” Len agreed.

Moxie burst into tears. Great, whooping, braying tears. Moxie, never very good at the whole problem-solving thing, wailed in helpless, drunken misery that echoed and bounced off the walls of her dorm room.

“Strike while the head wears the crown!” offered Len in sympathy.

Someone pounded at the door. “Shut up, you assholes!”

Moxie snuffled loudly, then crawled over to the industrial wooden door and turned the doorknob. “Betch, is that you?”

“Don’t call me Betch, d’you mind? And what the hell is going on?”

Moxie flopped back onto her butt, turned around, pointed at Len and wailed, “He’s talkin funny and he won’t get up!” Fresh tears burst forth.

“A rolling stone is worth two in a bush!” Len’s voice now sounded choked. The skin on the back of his neck was turning red.

“Holy crap, you two, what the hell?” Betch walked in and seized an empty bottle of Euphoria, her face appalled. Betch turned around and waved it at a damp and disheveled Moxie.

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO DRINK THIS STUFF.”

“Oh yeah,” Moxie mumbled. Now she remembered. Len had showed up and wanted to take a tumble, wink wink, but they needed to loosen up a bit. Moxie’d suggested stealing Betch’s home brew as the quickest remedy.  “But Betch, it tastes so good, an’ Len, he said if you left your door open you totally would be okay with us helping ourselves, he really likes it, an it just like feels awesome…”

Betch sat heavily on the edge of Moxie’s bed. “How much have you had?”

“Me? Only one.”

There was a long silence as the both stared at the dozen empties on the table.

“Did Len drink all the others?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t remember. Um, Betch? I think he’s stopped breathing.”

“Moxie, listen to me. There’s just no way to put this simply. Euphoria is a stupid, terrible, privately-funded experiment in treating depression with liquid happy combined with a DNA re-sequencer.”

Moxie stared at her, jaw agape. “What?”

“Dr Tomas, he got this money, see, from a pharmaceutical company. And they wanted to create a happy pill that worked by changing your DNA to eliminate the gene that causes depression. But nobody knows what that is. So Dr Tomas lied to them, and told them he could figure it out. At first it was cool, he built this little nano-bot that could climb into your cells and insert foreign DNA and your genes would just start re-writing themselves.

“But he still didn’t know what gene does what, so he just started randomly adding shit to people without even caring about the results. Your DNA will just… change. And then he couldn’t get volunteers, see, so he…”

“… put it in a beer?”

“Right. And the more you drink, the faster it works.”

“So what’s in my beer?”

“I dunno.” Betch looked terrified and sick. “But I think…”

Moxie started to scream and point at Len’s unconscious form. The terror in her screams was huge, enough to tear the very fabric of reality. Betch closed her eyes, and, gathered all her strength before she turned around. What looked suspiciously like a giant chicken feather had sprouted out of the reddened, thickening skin on Len’s neck.

Posted in Random, Writing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Mona Stopped Talking

Posted on October 13, 2012 by jackie

Like the title? I thought of it a few years ago for a short story.

I poked around a plot outline for a while, but nothing gelled. I had a concept: Mona is a loud person with a loud personality. People love her, but they also find her exasperating. She talks all the time, filling any silence with stream-of-consciousness patter. She’s funny, but she’s also blunt, uncomfortably so. And then, one day, Mona stops talking and suddenly everyone else is forced to fill the silence with their truths, their opinions, their thoughts. How do the people around Mona react? What will they say now that they can’t hide behind Mona?

However hard I tried, though, the reason for Mona’s sudden retreat, which was obviously the key to the story, remained a mystery to me. The real problem, of course, is that I’m Mona. (Random aside: the author is every character, it turns out. It’s the only way to draw real people).

I’ve met lots of other Monas in my time, people who are compelled to talk and talk and talk, to drown out whatever’s going on in their brains that’s painful or stressful or sad. I once knew a woman who literally narrated every moment of her waking life: ‘picking up a pencil, or maybe I need a pen? No, a pencil is okay because then I can erase my mistakes. But this pencil is too short, I wonder if I have another pencil, maybe I should go get a pencil from so-and-so…’ It was maddening, but I never complained. She was a kindred spirit.

So I had a vague idea of why someone would chatter. I just didn’t know what kind of event, or revelation, or whatever, would make them stop. Without a technical, narrative ‘why’ (and rather than explore my own compulsive blabber), I abandoned the story. I forgot the whole thing. Until today.

About a month ago, I hosted a post-separation dinner party to thank a few friends who’d helped me through the end of my marriage. Poor Tao escorted me through the prep and cleaning, made sure I was okay, hugged me lots and was generally awesome. My friends, all a huge support during the breakdown of my marriage, all very kind and understanding folks, were ready and willing to have a good time. They came, the food was served, and…

I didn’t talk.

I wanted them to talk to each other, so at first I just stayed out of the way as they chatted. They tried, but they didn’t all know each other that well, and they quickly ran out of steam. I began to introduce topics, to do that Bridget Jones thing and say “Sally, Suzie likes music. Suzie, Sally likes to dance. GO.”

via jezebel.com

But it all felt strained to me, and I felt like they were all waiting for me to be, well, me: loud, funny, smart-assed, sassy, whatever. I think the word I’m looking for is PRESENT.

But I was present. I just didn’t have much to say. Why didn’t I have anything to say? I ALWAYS have something to say.

Panic.

That was the first panic attack of September. The month devolved into what I know now to be a rather sizable breakdown. It was long overdue, and not nearly as messy as it could have been. As it leaked into the first week of October, I realized I’d just have to wait until the damned thing spat me out on the other side.

I’m better now. I finally realized that my friends are far too understanding to be fussed that I wasn’t Hostess of the Year, and that calmed me down quite a bit.

Except that I’m still not talking.

I didn’t talk much when my family was here for Thanksgiving. I listened to them talk.

I did better today with one of my best friends, a comfortable, gentle woman who loves me and was content to let the conversation meander. It was an immensely soothing afternoon, and I’m grateful for her automatic, unending support. As we hugged goodbye, I thought, “Mona stopped talking.”

On the heels of that memory, I realized that maybe I’m starting to understand why Mona stopped talking.

Mona stopped talking, because she was fine.

Posted in Musings | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Aftermath

Posted on September 28, 2012 by jackie

When I stand in the shower, I can almost pretend that nothing’s changed.

The bathtub, you see -when the curtain is closed and the hot water is beating down on my neck – is the only place in the house untouched by the massive upheaval caused by my pending divorce.

The living/dining area is totally different. There’s a new dining room table. The  furniture has been rearranged. Bookshelves no longer line every wall, overflowing with Hubby’s impressive library, the one that covered philosophy, politics, religion, literature, science, economics and more, the one that allowed me to bask in a sort of reflected glory.  Now only my books are on display, mostly pop-fiction and a collection of history books that shows a (probably unhealthy) obsession with the Tudors, and witchcraft.  My video collection takes up more room than my library.

The marriage photos, the family groupings, the snapshots of the last 20-plus years, they’ve all been packed away. Tao’s beautiful face now beams from every frame, as a merry baby, as a sober high school grad.

The kitchen reflects the change in the household cooking habits. New dishes in the cupboards, red (Tao’s favourite colour) instead of blue (Hubby’s preference). New cutlery to replace the stuff Hubby took. No microwave, but a new rice cooker. Fruit and vegetables are everywhere now. No bags of chips. No microwave dinners in the freezer. Fresh herbs grow contentedly in a row of newly acquired pots decorated with sunny butterfly motifs.

Tao moved into Hubby’s office, painted it and turned it into a lovely, soothing bedroom. Breezy curtains have replaced the heavy closet doors. The windows are open all the time, sunshine pours in.

Her old room is her office now. Gone is the teenager’s bedroom that I sometimes crept into late at night, to peek at my ever-more-grown-up baby’s face, peacefully asleep. Sometimes I wept a little with pride, and nostalgia for the toddler who would demand “carry me UP, Mommy, carry me UP!”

My own room had new furniture, too. A new chest-of-drawers, new sheets. It’s otherwise the same, but different. Lonelier, perhaps, emptier without the hope of cuddling and passion and tenderness.

I miss being married.  I miss the fact of being married. I had a companion, someone in my life who knew me intimately, both sexually and spiritually. He chose to be with me, an adult choice to bind his life to mine because loved me. I miss the pride of success that came from each successive anniversary: 15 years! 20! Each time, we congratulated ourselves on the hard work we’d done to beat the odds.

There’s a confidence that comes from being married: go ahead and smirk, all you young skinny people still in your prime. You’re trolling online dating services while I have someone that loves me at home – I win!

On a more basic level: I am not alone in this universe. Someone loves me.

I miss the smell of him. I miss the heat of a warm, masculine hug. I miss sitting on the sofa with someone who remembers the things I do, who has the same context when watching TV, or the news, or discussing, oh, everything. I miss the shared history, the ‘remember whens.’

There’s a comfort that comes from weaving your lives together, one that I miss terribly.

And so, I stand in the shower, the curtain pulled and the hot water pounding on the back of my neck, and let myself pretend for a moment that it’s, say, March 2011, back before our lives unraveled, and we fell forever apart. Hubby’s somewhere in the house eating soup, or reading a book, helping Tao with homework. The house looks like it always has. And when I’m finished washing my hair, when I step out of the shower, he will sneak in to hug me while I’m all warm, and smile, and life will be as it always was.

 

 

Posted in Musings | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Fictitious Writer

Posted on August 5, 2012 by jackie

I’m writing a novel! It’s true.

Well, sort of.

I bombed through three chapters of what feels like solid narrative, gleefully congratulating myself for finally embracing my Inner Author. I have a story to tell! I am the shiz!

And then….

Garbaggio. Nada. The fiction machine came to a grinding halt.

So instead of actually writing a novel, I found myself announcing to anyone who will listen that I totally plan to write a novel and work has begun and I’m very excited and yes, I will autograph their copy when my (as yet unwritten) novel is published. Because it totally will be. When I write it. Fo sho.

All this announcing, it’s pretty much just like writing a novel, except with way more italicized bluster. Really.

After a while, though, my Inner Terrorist started to point out that I really hadn’t written anything at all, and maybe the well was dry, and I should just give up and become an alcoholic recluse. Or a cat lady. Or, you know, something productive.

Instead, I emptied out my email archives and bumped into an interview with Lois McMaster Bujold I’d sent myself ages ago:

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my very favourite writers. I’d actually considered including her in my Accidental Heroines post: every night for months I retreated into LMB’s universes, where strong women solve every problem thrown at them by capricious gods and/or fate with grace, dignity, and a hot boyfriend by her side. They were the perfect escape from a crazy time and just plain saved my life.

Video evidence that Ms Bujold will write an idea out, and then wander away to read and research and think until inspiration strikes again? PHEW. What a relief. Plus, bonus: I might have something in common with Lois McMaster Bujold. That totally makes me a writer!

I therefore flipped the bird at my Inner Terrorist. I went away and did something else for awhile. I cleaned my house (cough – picked up laundry off the floor and then ate a cookie – cough). I swam. I tried not to fret. I failed at not fretting. I fretted.

And, I did the thing my little dilettante brain loves to do best: I explored the internet.  I searched random words like ‘demons,’ and ‘Eleusinian mysteries’ (thank the nine muses for Wikipedia). I paid careful attention to my RSS reader because it’s always full of smart, educational stuff.

Like this:

Pixar’s Storytelling Rules Illustrated in Lego via io9 and Emma Coats

And just like that, the creative dam broke open and ideas began to flow again.

I have a character that I really like. She is a key figure in the story I want to tell, important not only to the narrative but to the theme, to the point I want to make.  For the last few months, she’s just stood there as the action happened around her, exuding all the personality of that stick of old gum you find in the bottom of every backpack. Sometimes – actually, most times – she’d start to cry whenever someone startled her by talking to her. I mean really, this girl, she was killing me… because she was passive and malleable.

Not any more.

Because two lightning bolts shot out of my brain today after a week or so of chewing over this one teeny bit of writing advice. One, my character is actually quite awesomely subversive and up to all kinds of stuff. And two, I will be writing my novel from multiple points of view so that I can let her speak for herself.

Cool.

PS: thank you Emma Coats! You rock.

Posted in fiction, Musings, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Accidental Heroines (for Caitlin & Jenny)

Posted on June 24, 2012 by jackie

Shortly after my father died, my marriage of 23 years abruptly ended.

I’ve thought a lot about whether I should blog about it, and if so, what I should say, and who would I say things about, and who’s privacy deserves respect. The conclusions I’ve finally come to are: no, nothing, nobody, and everybody’s.

I do, however, feel I should thank my wonderful, kind, supportive, sympathetic and non-judge-y friends, all ready with a cup of tea and a shoulder to cry on.

My family has been beyond awesome, especially my mother and Tao. Thank you.

Thank you. I quite literally would not have survived without you. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

***

I do want to tell you about two women, both strangers to me, who also rescued me during all this chaos. They’re my ‘accidental heroines.’

Writing is a powerful thing.  It shows us that we are not alone, that we share common experiences, that someone else understands our pain. Each in their own way, these two women have saved my life through their writing. I’d like to tell you about these ladies, if only because it’s a good reminder that pouring kindness and positivity into the universe is never a wasted effort. We forget that we can help someone we don’t know simply by being in the right place at the right time, with the right story.

I am immeasurably grateful to both these humans, and hope someday to repay them, if only by following their lead.

Jenny “The Bloggess” Lawson

To appreciate the absolute awesomeness of this woman, take a moment and read this. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Jenny Lawson has some very, very serious problems and she still managed to write that, plus a million other frikkin’ funny things that made me laugh, no matter what was going on in my life. For that alone, she gets Props of Awesome.

But then there’s this:

   

Somewhere in the weeks before Hubby moved out, University of Toronto emailed me and told me that they were offering their Fantasy Writing course online. I’d wanted to take the course before, but didn’t have the money or the courage or the time. That was doubly true in March; and besides who the hell takes a writing course in the middle of separating from their husband? And so I put my pointer on the ‘delete’ button and…

… thought wouldn’t this be a good time to be furiously happy?

I had the furious part down. I needed something to remind me that there would be life after Hubby’s departure, that I’m not defined by my role as Wife, and that I have a whole new life to explore. Maybe, I thought, I could be happy.

And then Jenny (in my head, she’s a friend) hit the trifecta of life-saving-ness when she posted her mantra in April: depression lies.

I’ve repeated it to myself countless times over the last few weeks, and for that alone I am forever in Ms Lawson’s debt. She threw me a lifeline in the middle of one of the blackest periods of my life.  She didn’t aim at me personally, but she knew I and many like me, were out there and needed to hear it.

Depression lies: Depression told me I was nuts to take on something with deadlines, that required brainwork and creativity right in the middle of the incessant chaos that has been 2012. Depression told me I’d regret it, waste my money, and end up even more depressed. Also, I would be told I’m a shit writer who’s wasting my time. I should give up, go back to the couch, and back to watching endless re-runs of CSI whilst eating myself into an early grave because that’s all I’m good for.

Well, fuck you, depression.

I enrolled.

And met the instructor, Caitlin Sweet.

Caitlin Sweet

Here’s the thing about Caitlin: she can write. She doesn’t just wrap marketable sentences around marketable plot, which is fine and dandy but oddly unsatisfactory, the difference between brand-name packaged frozen cake and those lopsided piles of chocolatey, over-iced love your mum made for your birthdays. Caitlin can actually word-paint. She can draw you in, and make you smell, taste, hear, feel her worlds. She’s very talented in a way that makes me not only fan-girly, but downright jealous.

So the first time Caitlin told me that I could write, I began to cry. Good thing it was a virtual course, or could’ve been a real messy situation for everyone.

via Astro Nerd Boy’s comic strips

Caitlin spent 10 weeks telling me that I know what I’m doing, and so I spent 10 weeks dancing around my now-empty apartment, whooping with joy.

Plus, Caitlin is nice. She created a warm, safe space that I could visit and hide in whenever things got really bad. I could be someone else, for a bit, someone who set their problems aside and created something good. It was awesome.

I was furiously happy.

So thank you, Jenny and Caitlin. You reached out to a stranger and pulled her out of the darkness without even knowing you were doing it.

You guys rock.

And remember, Interwebs: it’s never bad to be kind. We forget that we can help someone we don’t know simply by being in the right place at the right time, with the right story.

11:09 p.m. ETA – erf, typos. I promise, kids, I’ll edit more carefully in the future.

Posted in Musings, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Writing Challenge: The Page-A-Day Novel

Posted on April 29, 2012 by jackie

One of my favourite places to visit is Neil Gaiman’s journal. He’s sort of abandoned it lately, spending most of his time over in his Tumblr space. Both are great, both are wonderful sources of smart writing advice, but I admit that I find the journal a more satisfying read, if only because the posts are longer.

Anyway, recently Gaiman posted about interviewing Stephen King, another great source of smart writing advice (as well as being one of my Major Influences). Gaiman starts his blog post with a quick tribute to King, and this jumped out at me:

“I think the most important thing I learned from Stephen King I learned as a teenager, reading King’s book of essays on horror and on writing, Danse Macabre. In there he points out that if you just write a page a day, just 300 words, at the end of a year you’d have a novel. It was immensely reassuring – suddenly something huge and impossible became strangely easy. As an adult, it’s how I’ve written books I haven’t had the time to write, like my children’s novel Coraline.”

I was gobsmacked.

One page a day gets you a novel? How hard is that?

The answer is: not hard at all. Also, it’s impossible.

It’s not hard to write one page. I can do it, sometimes in as little as five minutes.

But if the muse is not speaking to me, if the lightning has not struck, one page can be the biggest frikkin’ writing mountain I’ve ever climbed. Just these last two days, I tried to write 1000 words. I did it, but by all the gods it was like pulling taffy. Brain taffy. Stiff, sticky, miserable brain taffy. I’m still traumatized.

image via instructables.com

Still… one page. I could do one page. That’s do-able.

I even have an idea. Several, in point of fact. And I’m thinking that it’s time, now that spring is here, to revisit my poor, abandoned 2012 Goals, and commit to a single effort: the 365-day novel.

So here it goes, kids. Starting May 1, 2012, I’m gonna write a page a day. And I’m not even scared.

Much.

Image via attemptedwriter.com

Posted in Random | Leave a comment

New Writing Course!

Posted on April 24, 2012 by jackie

About time for some good news, don’t you think? And here it is: I’m taking a new writing class!

I wasn’t planning another course, (they’re pricey, and I’m not wild about the online learning experience overall), but University of Toronto teamed up with the New York Times and emailed me a notice that they’re now offering a full slate of writing courses including – yay! – Fantasy. How could I resist? The timing was… serendipitous. <sly grin>

The interface is much better than the one UofT was using last time, so I’m not spending most of my time being annoyed with obtuse online-ese. This second group seems friendly and engaged, and it’s much easier to move around the forums, too, so hopefully we’ll get some good conversations going.

Most importantly, it’s doing what I’d hoped it would do – it’s getting me writing again. After my father’s passing and a whole lot of family drama (think nuclear fall-out), the writing just was not happening.

The first writing assignment was truly painful, and it was pretty simple: write an outline. From the sounds of rusty gears clashing, you’d have thought I was asking my poor brain to calculate pi.

But as I begin week 2, I’m limbered up and finding writing truly pleasurable once again.  I had a lot of fun with the first free-write and am so pleased with the results that I’m thinking I’ll finish the story. I want to find out what happens next, and when I get that feeling I know the writing’s going well. It also makes me happy in a way that nothing else does.

The goal of the course is work through the process of writing a short story from beginning to end – so, we started with an outline and hopefully in 9 weeks I’ll have something publishable. Fingers crossed! And if not, well, I’m happy to be back at it again.

One note about my fiction: according to Clarkesworld Magazine’s Twitter:

Publishing a story on your blog counts as first publication. Many publications (CW included) won’t buy them.

Which means, sadly, that I won’t be able to post anything here until I’ve established that no one out there wants it. So while I’m always and ever grateful to everyone for reading along, I’m afraid you won’t see much in the way of original fiction from me for awhile. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

Image via weeklyphototips.blogspot.ca

Posted in Random | Leave a comment