Category Archives: Diary

Imbolc Interview

We must be coming up to a major Neo-Pagan festival – I’m on the radio again.

Yep. Going in to the CBC tomorrow to tape an interview about Imbolc, or Candlemas, or Chandeleur, or Brighnassadh, or Feast of Saint Brighid, or whatever you want to call it.

Now, it’s been a year since I’ve done an interview about my spiritual practices. You can actually dig back through the archives and read my rant about the disrespect shown to me by the last jerk who interviewed me. I did plenty of pre-interview work with the producer this time, and at one point I must have hesitated a bit too long, because she asked about my comfort level using certain words. I admitted to her that my last interview experience regarding the general topic had taught me a severe lesson and made me a bit interview-shy, and she’s assured me that nothing of the sort will happen this time. She was quite horrified at the level of immaturity displayed by the man who put me through that mockery of an interview last February and offered her sympathy, although she didn’t sound surprised. Sensational journalism attracts listeners, after all, the same way sensational journalism sells newspapers. In general, though, I have a very good feeling about this interview tomorrow morning. Mind you, forty-five minutes of the producer doing pre-interview research did a lot to put my mind at ease, and I’ve never had a bad interview with the CBC, in all the years I’ve interviewed with them. I’m always treated courteously and with respect. Mind you, I thought the same about CJAD up until last year too.

No, this will be fine. Besides, this time I know to terminate the interview if it goes in a bad direction. We’re taping, after all.

Barring major disasters, it looks like it will air Sunday morning on CBC Radio 1, which in Montreal is 88.5 FM.

The Hours

I saw The Hours yesterday. As I expected, when I walked into my apartment afterwards, my husband looked up at me and said, “Good movie?”

Now, that’s such a misleading question. Usually it means, “Did you enjoy the film?”, but the phrasing also implies, “Was it a well-made film?”, or, “Is it a bad movie?”

So I kind of shrugged and said, “It was thought-provoking.”

“But did you have fun?” he persisted.

What kind of a question is that? The movie is about death, questioning the right to define acceptable quality of life, and who has the right to limit any individual’s choice to end his/her life at any time. No, the film was not “fun”. I didn’t exactly “enjoy” it. But it was excellently directed, edited, and acted, and I could appreciate that, and appreciate the feelings it evoked from me, and the ensuing self-examination that began as the credits rolled.

I gave up. It was a quarter to midnight, and my husband was almost asleep, anyway.

“Yeah. It was a good movie,” I said.

Victory!

Well, we’re both still alive, we didn’t use copious amounts of Kleenex, and nothing valuable got smashed, so I’m calling yesterday’s NaNoWriEx session a success.

I really don’t know who Ceri has edited in the past; most of them must have been arrogant, insecure types, because she’s fantastic at offering creative, constructive advice, and helping you work things out. The point of handing a work like this off to someone else is so that you have a second pair of eyes seeing it for the first time to catch inconsistencies (which, bless her, she did) and take in the work as a whole and see how it balances.

We decided to hand them to each other with a minimal amount of editing, to see if the other reader would catch things we’d already pegged as problems, and sure enough, it was gratifying to hear her point out problems that I had already noted down to address — the resolution of a particular storyline, the use of minor characters in other places, and so forth. The good thing is she also pointed out other ways to resolve problems that I hadn’t seen. Likewise, the problems I talked to her about all seemed to be problems that she was already aware of or had anticipated in some way.

Moreover, Ceri put my mind to rest about things like my characters: she swore that every single one of them was different and an individual, and she loved them all. This made me squiggle with joy because I consider characters one of the most important elements of a story, something too many authors forget. (And for those NaNo participants from Montreal who are wondering: no, I have no clue when any of them were born, and what their favourite colours are. So there.) She also eased my paranoid fears regarding my portrayal of sensitive issues. What I wasn’t expecting was her comment that I had material for one or two more novels about these characters. I specifically did not plan a series, because so many YA novels end up as series — but it’s nice to know that I’ve created a sense of “life goes on”.

So! Back to the laptop! I have to add that penultimate chapter I had decided against in the orginal draft to tie up a couple of loose ends, incorporate her edits and word suggestions, and, well, the next step is shopping it around, isn’t it?

Reading And Watching Movies

I took this weekend off: no weblogs, no e-mail. It was remarkably refreshing after a week of driving, goal-oriented work at the computer, writing articles and revising text and sending things off all over the place. I used my laptop instead of my desktop this weekend, and only sent one message out (a submission, naturally). I didn’t even sit down and read a book to relax, but you know, I don’t feel as if I spent my weekend racing about and not taking it easy.

I lie. I did read a book. Two, in fact. Both NaNo novels of other local authors. It’s not quite the same kind of relaxing reading that I meant, though; I read these two books with awareness and a critical eye. Drat the writer in me!

Saturday evening I went out with one of my oldest friends for dinner and a movie. We saw Chicago, which was just as good the second time around. I haven’t seen the original All That Jazz, but this version was spectacular. Richard Gere is one of my least favourite actors in Hollywood, but in this film he manages to not only entertain me, but surprise me. Anything that has current stars singing their own songs and dancing their own numbers has my admiration (assuming they’re more than passable at it). We now have a standing date to see any musical that’s released on the big screen; having worked on musicals on and off together for six years or so means we appreciate them in a very particular fashion together.

It was a terrific evening. I forget sometimes why certain friendships persist even if we don’t spend a lot of time with one another, and a night out like this one renews my faith in something. I just can’t put words to it.

(Speaking of stars singing makes me think of Once More With Feeling, a.k.a. the Buffy musical, which reminds me that Alyson Hannigan and Alexis Denisoff are getting married. If you have to ask who they are, then you won’t care. Really.)

The Two Towers, Panto, And Relaxing

So I saw The Two Towers yesterday.

Maybe it was the crowded theatre with the bimbo in front of us; maybe it was the killer headache that slowly crept up on me throughout the three and a half hours of total viewing time; maybe it was any combination of things.

I didn’t enjoy it very much.

Wonderful cinema, oh yes; spectacular battle sequences; epic; stunning design work, too. Smeagol was a triumph; the Ents were perfect. And yet… and yet. There was something missing. And I’m not talking about the first chapter of the book version, covered in the first film, or the last few chapters, which Jackson appears to be delegating to the third film.

I know it’s all about war; I know it’s about the Fellowship divided; I know it’s all about despair and loss of hope and the darkest before dawn, etcetera. I found the pacing irregular, and the editing extremely choppy. I thought I went in with decent expectations. I mean, I don’t aggrandize much any more; I’m very good at remaining immune to hype, and not working something up on my own, however much I might play at doing so.

I readily admit that I intend to give it another chance, mainly because I can’t believe I didn’t enjoy myself. It must have been a fluke, a freak alignment of stars or something.

Amusing side note: my parents saved the last full-page ad for The Two Towers in the Toronto Star for me, a lovely full-front shot of Miranda Otto as Eowyn. At least, I think it was for me. I’m not sure; my husband thought she was rather attractive.

My disappointment in holiday spectacle did not carry through to the incredibly hilarious pantomime version of Robin Hood that we saw today in Toronto, thank goodness. Live comic theatre is in short supply, and live comic theatre done by theatrical professionals from the Shaw and Stratford Festivals is a real treat. Any show where the audience consists of fifty percent children, who are encouraged to cheer the hero and boo the villain, is a fun show in my books. My parents used to take me to see such shows when I was a child, and this year my mother gave my husband and I tickets to see the latest in Ross Petty’s annual fractured fairy tales.

Damn, I miss performing. I miss attending quality live theatre, but having been on both sides of the curtain, I can say that this show, out of all the live shows I’ve seen in the past couple of years, induced vivid pangs of envy that I didn’t think I could feel. I wanted to be up there. I wanted to be singing, dancing, and making people laugh. Having spent the last three days reading one of my Stratford fiftieth anniversary books from cover to cover, I was ripe for the homesick feeling; I set myself up, really.

After dinner tonight I’ll settle down with the soundtrack to The Two Towers (which is brilliant, and which stood out even through my vague feelings of disappointment) and a nice lavender bath. It’s time to relax again. Which means, of course, that I can’t pick up yet another Stratford book, or I’ll just mope some more.

Christmas At Home

Well, we woke up on Christmas morning to over ten centimeters of snow, so I feel right at home. The drive from Montreal to Toronto was surprisingly good, which should have alerted us right off the bat that a bad storm was looming. (The drive was made infinitely more exciting by four or five unmarked mix tapes donated by Tass, including a seasonal compilation marked only ‘Here I am — Rock Me Like A Candy Cane’, which featured the inimitable juxtaposition of the thrash metal rendition of Silent Night with the innocent Christmas Scat from The Muppet Christmas Carol.) After a dull brown December, though, seeing drifts of white everywhere on Christmas morning is rather aesthetically pleasing. The Weather Channel assures us that the 8 degrees C on Monday and Tuesday will take care of things, much to the grim pleasure of the Torontonians.

I love Christmas with my family; there’s always what amounts to a library under the tree, hidden by pretty paper and sparkly ribbon. The tree this year is a surprisingly effective six foot tall fig tree, wrapped with a single strand of white fairy lights, since their seven-month-old Maine Coon Cat is still at the shiny-things stage. (Despite this clever attempt to protect all things Christmas-y, he tried to climb the fig on Christmas morning, because he could see his new foam rubber ball nestled in the leaves.) As for what kind of library was under said tree, my parents each received three or four books, and this year my husband tore the wrapping off The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring, the hardcover volume of developmental art that he discovered in a bookshop not long ago, which kept him busy for well over an hour. I received both books written on the fiftieth anniversary of the Stratford Festival that I had wanted, as well as the recently released Glenn Gould: A Life in Pictures and the new Anne Rice in hardcover, to offset all of that high-brow Canadian culture. Plenty of chocolate and a new polar fleece dressing gown rounded out my major gains. I’m set for the rest of the winter, now.

The snow was still flying out there when we went to bed, and weatherpersons were predicting a final day’s total accumulation of around twenty-five centimeters. I’m glad; there’s something just odd about a Christmas with no snow. Oh, sure, I’ve had my share of snowstorms in Montreal this fall, throughout November and the early part of December, but I don’t think I could ever live somewhere where it doesn’t actually snow at Christmas. I know, I know, there will be plenty of the stuff throughout January and February. I will be thoroughly sick of it by the time March rolls around. Just think, though, about the quality of light that snow creates. One of the reasons November is usually so dull is because it’s overcast and the bright green of the leaves and grass has faded through rusts to browns. The overall effect is rather depressing. As soon as it snows, though, the light is brighter, refracting through millions of individual snowflakes, bouncing around and creating a warmer, clearer glow.

We still have to brush it off cars, and wade through it to get to the bus stop, and jam hats down over our hair to protect our ears from blowing ice and wind. I know. Overall, though, it’s not so bad. It’s the dampness that creeps into your bones and makes you miserable. There’s a difference, after all. If it would just snow for a week leading up to Christmas, then stop, I’d be happy…

Yule Party!

Woo!

Just back from the office Yule party. If I’d known that red wine would make me feel this good, I’d have started drinking it at eleven o’clock this morning when I started feeling really ill.

Seriously, though, my short Christmas Special Return to Retail — For A Limited Time Only! — was made a lot easier by my stellar boss and coworkers. (Okay, the easy-going clients were a significant factor as well. No one was freaking out this Christmas, which was good to see. I was worried; after all, part of the reason I burned out after eleven years of retail had to do with the needy clients, who were in remarkable scarcity this past week, thank goodness.) Tonight’s party, spent in the company of my colleagues, was incredibly enjoyable, even taking my rebellious stomach into account. My only regret is that I didn’t dare eat anything for fear it wouldn’t stay down; the buffet looked amazing, especially the desserts. Denied the solid food, I started off by drinking 7-Up, and flung caution to the wind after my second glass. If I was going to be sick anyway, I might as well choose to be sick in style. Oddly enough, the wine seems to have settled my stomach. It has also, however, gone right to my head, since I’ve had nothing to eat today.

Oh, well. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.