Category Archives: Writing

Slowly But Surely

Ah, the first cold I’ve had in months. I so have not missed being sick. The general ache, the out-of-it feeling due to the sinus pressure, the boxes and boxes of tissue….

Thursday night I had a dynamic pair of students in a workshop, which was an enjoyable switch from the usual silent note-taking type. Friday night I got to make a flying visit to the first Montreal NaNo coffee gathering and met some terrific new people while re-acquainting myself with terrific people I’d met last year. And, as a result of a highly amusing misunderstanding, I have resolved that my story will have a psychic ferret involved in it somewhere (you just had to be there). (And I called Tal insane. Ah, well. There’s a reason we’re related by choice.)

It was a lovely Thanksgiving weekend (apart from the cold, of course, which ensured that I couldn’t taste my in-laws’ wonderful harvest feast to the degree it deserved), with a nice gift at the end: Salem, my favourite local cat-who-is-not-mine, ate about 30 ccs of food after refusing to eat for a period of days. Sure, it took three of us to hold her (including one and a half animal techs), but she ate; she even ate willingly after being force-fed a bit of it. Then I got to cuddle a corn snake while I watched the new trailers for Matrix Revolutions and The Return of the King.

This afternoon is a legal presence at the Palais de Justice (no worries, it’s all good), and then an intimate get-together at Hurley’s to celebrate a few different milestones achieved over the past three months.

(Palais de Justice, for our non-Quebec-resident readership, is the fancy French term for the city courthouse. It does not, in fact, have anything to do with a superhero team. More’s the pity.)

Slowly but surely, I’m getting my mind back into the writing mode. I managed to get my printer working again (using the popular kick-it-hard method combined with replacing an ink cartridge) and printed out the existing copy of two half-finished stories, then took them to the Second Cup with me Friday afternoon to edit and add to them. Re-reading work that I haven’t touched in months is a remarkably good carrot to use when I’m stuck; it’s often better than I remember it being. Must stop drinking lattes and mochas while doing it, though. Herbal tea all the way!

Real

Oh my sweet gods — I have a contract.

It’s full of legalese, and I just read it in shock, so I’ll have to try again tomorrow. But —

I have a contract.

I keep having this awful feeling that eventually they’ll figure out who I really am, and take it all back in horror. I mean, they’re using me as a selling point. Me, for heaven’s sake.

Tomorrow. It will be different tomorrow.

I Lied

Okay, so I was wrong about the vanishing thing. I worked late on the publishing stuff last night, and I needed to be online for it, so I posted a few times.

The cool part is that I finished around eleven, when my husband arrived home to switch on the TV and discovered, completely by accident, the very first episode of Angel, season five. Swoon! I have a new TV date!

Coming Soon To A Mailbox Near You

My contract with the hitherto unnamed American Publisher is in the mail.

What? Oh, that sound? It’s my Ego tap-dancing joyously to the tune of “I told you it was real”, as performed by my SuperEgo.

When I have it in my hands, signed and returned, All Will Be Revealed. Just like the penultimate song in a Savoy operetta. (The ultimate song is, of course, the finale, which is just a rehash of the major themes previously heard during the show.)

The Congress of Autumn’s Hands

The Congress of Autumn’s Hands will now come to order.

Left Hand: We have several grievances to bring against Autumn. The first is that in a two-month period where she was not required to attend rehearsals for chamber orchestra, being trusted instead to keep up her level of skill independently, she picked up her Violoncello (hereafter “cello”) only twice.

Right Hand: Honestly, is that kind of attitude towards your art going to get you anywhere? I ask you!

Left Hand: As a result of this shameful, neglectful act, the return to the regular orchestral season was fraught with unnecessary difficulty on the part of the hands.

[Exhibit A displayed: a close-up of Autumn’s left fingertips]

Left Hand: Here we see the lamentable state of the fingertip pads. The act of producing a variety of sound from the cello, as with any stringed instrument, naturally involves altering the string length, known as the “stopping” of the string. This “stopping” is achieved by pressing down the string with the fingertip. The deliberate choice to ignore her commitment to practice during the summer session has produced the gradual loss of callouses acquired over the regular season. A callous is formed by repetitive use of the fingertip, enabling the area of flesh to accomplish more without succumbing to pain and inflammation.

Right Hand: Unlike last night, you slacker.

Left Hand: Our second grievance involves the length of the fingernails on the left hand. By not trimming these, efficiency of fingertip use in the act of stopping the string has become severely compromised.

Right Hand: And just let me add that your shabby treatment of the bow hand extended to forgetting to stretch before playing, as well as not trimming the thumbnail so that you could actually grip the bow correctly? Your bowing during the Presto of the Schubert Second Symphony was crap.

Left Hand: Grudgingly, we must admit that your vibrato was pretty good, despite the aforementioned faults. And you were promoted to second chair, so you must be doing something right.

Right Hand: Legs? Lower back? Anything you want to add while we’re here?

Legs: No, we’re good, thanks.

Lower Back: The new chair she sat in really worked for me. Although they were temporarily relocated to another room, so I don’t imagine it will last.

Left Hand: This, then, concludes the Congress of Autumn’s Hands. Please take our grievances under advisement. If matters necessitate, we will be contacting you again later on in the season. By the way, nice sight reading. Although you really ought to recognise a B flat scale when you see one.

Red Letter Day

Six thumbs up for Ceri’s apple pie. Not too tart; not too sweet; not too gooey. Perfect pastry. Her Nanny would be proud.

My husband enjoyed another piece for breakfast and says it was just as delicious the morning after.

Over tea last night the topic of ancestors came up, and I was thinking about it this morning. It’s always such a pity that by the time we’re old enough to appreciate the stories and the knowledge that our grandparents possess, they’re gone. It’s some sort of comfort that my spiritual path involves honouring my genelogical ancestors, and my spiritual ancestors as well. I have a connection to the past that extends past the living face-to-face exchanges, and I value it greatly.

I also have an adorable black kitten who actually jumped up on my lap for a cuddle when I got home this afternoon. And I was initiated into the mysteries of making perfume waters at work today. I even labelled them, and they look just like the ones on the shelf. I am terribly proud of myself. I picked up my beautiful, pristine, luminescent copy of Neil Gaiman’s Endless Nights this afternoon as well. So, all in all, quite the red-letter day.

Now, if I could only get news of how the submission of my contract to the publishing board of the US publisher went today, my happiness would be complete.