Hey there you

Heyo there.

I may not be posting here much, but I assure you I am alive and kicking. I have been posting most often on the Mama Blog, because it's for Mama things and I don't have a whole lot else to talk about these days. Which in and of itself I guess is a whole thing.

We moved in January, and I love our new home. I commute to work each day, which is tiring, but we live in the country and it's peaceful and quiet and OH SHIT IT'S ALMOST BUG SEASON. I'm sure we'll be fine. I love being itchy.

I have not been running enough. But a little is better than not at all. I love running in our neighborhood. Again, it's peaceful and quiet, and there are enough routes to keep things interesting. M loves it too, and even with my earphones in I can hear her doodling and deedling the whole time.

I have not been writing at all. Except the blog, which is something I love to write, but not what I want to be writing, you know.

Work is amazing. Things are very different than when I left, but still fantastic.

I can't really complain. Except for the fact that there is not enough time for anything. Ever. There is always something that has to be sacrificed. Such is life.

Things I should be up to but am too scared to start

Last night I had the pleasure of viewing a documentary film called Fortunate Son at the Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinema.

Generally, I miss out on this type of thing. I am a self-professed hermit and even though I love events like this, I'm also lazy and crowd-phobic, so I usually skip them. I know, I suck. However, this film was made by the husband of a friend, and I felt like I really really wanted to be there to support them.

The film is beautiful - I know he will do well with it, so if you happen upon a viewing of it, you have to see it. It is moving, poignant, thoughtful...just everything you want a documentary about a family to be, but that they rarely are.

Anyway, I left the theatre feeling the way I always do when I see a really great piece of art. Inspired, and also disappointed. People I know are doing beautiful, fantastic things, and I cannot seem to get it together. BUT, and this is a big BUT and revelation to me, his film made me realize one of the reasons so many of my projects stall.

I am terrified of offending anyone.

The whole time I was watching this amazing film about Tony and his relationships with the people around him, I felt my insides cringe for him - for putting it all out there, the beautiful moments and the ugly ones, even though it could hurt the feelings of the people in the film.

I know I write fiction, but I have realized that I am completely preoccupied by writing characters that are not too similar to people I know, or scenes that are not to familiar, for fear that someone will think they see themselves in it and get upset. Does this make sense? And this quasi-obsession generally ends in me abandoning the project because I don't feel invested in it anymore - it doesn't feel authentic or honest.

So I'm going to work on it. And hopefully it will help me move forward.

A post NOT related to the Insider

So, aside from all the baby building brouhaha, there is some more pretty big news around these parts. I submitted a story to the CBC/QWF Quebec Writing Competition way back in ....mmmm, maybe April or May? In August, I found out that out of a field of about 300 entries, I had made it into the top 30.

Last month I found out that I actually made it to the top 13, which means my story will be officially published in an anthology coming out next fall! My first publication! They told me a month ago, but I wasn't supposed to make any announcements or anything until after the gala that they held last week.

I can't really explain how happy and excited I am. When we sold the business our intention was that I would work part time for a year, and see how far I could go in this writing thing. I got out this submission, and one or two others before we found out I was pregnant, and then writing sort of got put on the backburner again while I wrapped my head around everything. I started to feel...not resentful, but definitely anxious that my one chance to give this a shot was lost, and now with a baby coming, and the subsequent child-rearing that is generally associated with birthing, I would never work up the steam and nerve again.

But this, this is a great start. It gives me a little confidence, and definitely some motivation. Like crack, I think, knowing your words will be in print is a bit addictive.

Week #1

So, it's nearly the end of the first week post-business. I will be in a car for the better part of this weekend for another fantastic whirlwind trip to NB. Goodness I hate car trips more than I thought possible. Anyhoo, thought I should give you an update on how life is going so far.

It's great. I've been doing some work at home, and doing a few more hours at my vet clinic job. I really am loving that so far, and I feel really lucky that the timing worked out for that. Last night the most adorable puppy came in and we got to play with him. I had to resist the urge to grab him and hightail it outta there.

The new business owner seems to be settling in nicely. I have barely heard from her, which I take to mean she is getting along just fine. At least I hope so. I hope she isn't just scared to ask me questions.

We're going to NB for Eric's niece's christening. I have no idea what this entails exactly, but I do know that I will have to enter a church, so if you don't hear from me, it's possible I spontaneously burst into flames when I walked through the door. It will be our first time meeting her, so that's pretty exciting, and extra exciting that she is 7 months old now, so I'm pretty sure she can hold up her head and stuff. Yay.

The Big Thing

Alright, so everything is official now, which means I can safely spill the beans without putting any bad karma out into the universe and jinxing everything.

We have officially sold our business. It took us a while to decide, then took a while longer to get organized, and actually took barely any time at all to find our perfect buyer. She's great, and is much more business-minded than I am, so I think she will be much better suited to growing the business than I was.

I am actually having a lot of mixed feelings. I feel happy - we are gaining so much freedom to travel, or hang out, or whatever without worrying and planning and organizing.

I also feel sad. I would have 100 pets if I could, and owning this business kind of allowed me to do that. I took a lot of joy from the dogs and cats I saw every day. They helped me through some pretty tough moments, brought my blood pressure down when I was stressed. So that will be hard, leaving them. I know they don't care who walks them, or visits them, as long as someone shows up but I always like to think they love me as much as I love them. I will helping out during a transitional period, but will be outta there by the end of May. And who knows how much helping she will actually need me for.

And then begins a very big year for me. I'll be working part time at a vet's clinic and getting started on what will hopefully be my permanent vocation, writing. Finally. It's exciting and terrifying all at once. I have some goals, and have taken a workshop to get me back into it. I may take another one in the fall, we'll see. I am feeling inspired, and also a bit overwhelmed. There are so many possibilities to succeed, but also so many to fail. I guess all I can do is get to work and see where it takes me.

Fast food "literature"

It's the weekend!!!!

Aren't you glad you only have one more week that you have to endure of this??? (actually 10 days, but I was trying to make you feel better).

Last Friday, Oprah featured an interview with Stephanie Meyer. I was excited to see the interview. I do not read those books, I do not watch those movies, I am not a fan of vampires in any way shape or form. BUT I am a fan of writers who are making a living at writing, and I want to hear what they have to say about it.

So, I tuned in. And then I barfed. And then I promptly jumped off my balcony and died.

I have been letting it settle for a week, because I was feeling physical hatred towards this woman last week, and I figured that was probably a bit strong.

I was hoping to hear about how she had always wanted to write, always written short stories, poems, the like, always wished she had the time to just do it. Kind of a la JK Rowling (whom I also do not read nor particularly like, but whose story I find fascinating and inspiring). But no, this is not what I heard at all. Not even a little bit. No, she had a dream, and then she wrote it down, and then she sold it. The end.

I realize that talent is something you have or don't have, and all that jazz. But speaking as someone trying to get myself going into this field, and having gone to school to learn how to hone my skills, to think critically not just creatively, and to beat a dead horse until it's fresh, this is extremely counter-intuitive, and also feels like she's telling anyone who is struggling at this, working at this, and putting in a great deal of effort that it's all been a waste of time.

Again, having NEVER read her work (nor am I planning to) I have had several people tell me it's the concept, not the writing, that has sold, and, to quote my friend Sarah "she doesn't know her ass from her elbow and writes on a level basically equivalent to a sixth grader" (paraphrased a bit at the end there). It is very discouraging that this is the kind of writing that makes millions of dollars for the author. This is the kind of writing that sells.

Then the question becomes, do you stay true to the artist in you who knows what they want to create, or do you sell out and write the easy crap that people appear to want to read so you can cash in?

Obviously I know the answer, but I'm also thinking that I could probably think of a clever pen name to fill out some financing in the meantime.

Disconnected

I started crying five minutes ago because I was watching eTalk daily (stay with me) and they were talking about this week's Giller awards.

I didn't even know the Gillers were this week.

Who am I? What has happened to my interest, passion, and ambition for literature and writing? I have been reading All the Pretty Horses for two months now and McCarthy is a god to me. I bought 7 summer novels and four of them haven't left the shelf.

More importantly I haven't written a thing in longer than I would like to admit.

My biggest fear is that I will never do this. But I am getting closer to the point where I will be ready to admit it to myself that it's not going to happen. And if I was enjoying what I was doing instead, I may feel differently about it.

But for now, it is embarassing and it is heartbreaking.

Like Beethoven composing deaf....

Hey, did you all know I want to be a writer?

Yup, I sure do.

I went to school for it and everything, and every once in a while I sit down with an idea and put pen to paper and start working. And it feels good. It feels comforting and complete, and correct. This is what I should be doing - I fought it for a long time and am finally resigned to the fact that this is my calling, my vocation, my purpose. But it does not pay the bills, for now, so I usually do it in between shooting cats with insulin, sifting through cat litter, and trying to scoop doggie diarrhea off the sidewalk. Which I also love. Of all the jobs in all the world that I could have to pay the bills while my creative juices be a percolatin', I would not choose another.

Anyway, one of the things that stalls my writing is the following. I will get a great idea, that I am so into and so committed to and I start working it out and writing. Then I will start reading a book. And that book has a similar premise. Not the same, I am not plagiarizing via ESP, but very close. And then all my ideas seem not so fresh. Not so great.

Case in point:

As my Advanced Prose project, where we began working on a novel, I wrote about a girl who died, but was able to watch and connect with her earthbound family members and loved ones. I was really into the idea, the characters, got great feedback, it was really quite lovely. Then I graduated, and set it aside, and wasn't sure if I would come back to it. And recently I've been thinking about it again.

Until I started reading The Lovely Bones. Which is about a girl who dies, and how she is relating to her grieving family.

I'm sure that no idea is really truly fresh. And if it is fresh, it may be experimental, and I am so not experimental. So I'm sure I will always come across ideas that are similar to mine. But I just don't like to be confronted with the similarities as I'm working on the project. It makes me question everything that I add to the project from there on out.

So, to write, do I need to avoid reading?