Category Archives: Cogging for Kibble

In Which She Rocks, With Awesomesauce

As everyone who was not me predicted, the workshop was a success.

Avalon Naturel, the meeting space in which I gave the workshop, has a wonderfully welcoming and comforting energy. I learned that the Avalon regulars are as equally comforting and welcoming. There were, to my astonishment (and, yes, initial panic) over twenty people crowded into the single room, some in chairs around the edges, some on mats on the floor. And they talked, bless them; they responded when I tossed questions and discussion topics out, for which I was heartily thankful, because nothing kills a workshop quicker than attendees who don’t respond. Respond these excellent people did; I had people talking to me throughout the break and afterwards, telling me how much they’d learned, both beginners and experienced people assuring me that I was making sense to them, giving them new ways to think about things or the opportunity to share their own techniques and ideas. I loved it.

It went so well, as a matter of fact, that less than halfway through it I was already thinking about what I could give from my existing slate of workshops for them. I’d been tentatively sketching a pregnancy workshop, but one of the co-directors told me that the Avalonians tend to be of below or beyond childbearing age/mindset so there probably wouldn’t be much response. But the other co-director in attendance caught me after most people had left and proposed co-leading a workshop around Harvest, which got us both very excited as it expanded and evolved into two different things.

So yes: A success, and the Avalonians are going to have a hard time getting rid of me. We have an informal agreement for me to show up one evening next month for a kaffeeklatsch type of thing once the hearthcraft book is out, so people can buy the book and I can sign them and we can all talk about lots of stuff instead of just what we can cover on one subject in three hours. (I sold every one of my previous books I’d brought except one, and signed dozens more people owned and brought along with them. Good grief.)

I know I always feel better after I’ve given a workshop or class, which is part of what gets me through the prep and anxiety leading up to the event. Part of that post-workshop feeling is relief, part of it is the sense that I’ve accomplished something, and part of that is coming away with what the attendees have given to me in the form of energy and interaction and appreciation. I came away from this one feeling so much better than I’d expected to feel that I amused myself. And frankly, I just sat back and let myself enjoy it for the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday afternoon was my monthly group cello lesson, which was so much fun. I love the group lessons as a rule, but this one was particularly enjoyable. Only four out of seven students were there, and we played some really fun stuff which I essentially sight-read because I hadn’t had time to play it through after my teacher gave it to me last Tuesday (last week = work + workshop insanity + brain burnout). I and my stand partner spent a lot of time laughing, which felt moderately wicked. I pulled some very nice stuff off when the less-confident people dropped out along the way, and tripped myself in a couple of particular places every single time because I hadn’t prepared the shifts. Last night after the boy got ready for bed I set up my cello and told him a little story about a moonlit barnyard at midnight, when the barn door creaks open and two eyes peek out, and then a little chicken steps into the barnyard to move one foot, then another, and then… dances! At this point I played the Chicken Reel for him, and he kept telling the story on his own. It was fun. When he was in bed I kept working on some of those nasty shifts and working out fingerings for various group pieces, and he sang along in the dark. This morning he woke up singing again, and when I went in to cuddle him he threw his arms around me and asked if I’d had fun at my cello practise. I told him I had, and asked if he liked hearing it while he was in bed. He said he did quite enthusiastically and asked what songs they had been (which resulted in a discussion about Dona Nobis Pacem and Ave Verum Corpus at much-too-early-o’clock), so maybe I’ll do it more often. Being comfortable enough to play with everyone at home here and upstairs was a definite indicator of how good a mood I was in. I actually liked the sound I was producing, too. Wonders will never cease.

The weather this weekend certainly contributed to my excellent mood. It was so mild, and even sunny! When we went out on Sunday morning to do groceries and errands we all wore spring coats with shoes or rainboots. Lovely! So easy to move around; no huge parkas to fight with getting in and out of the car, no mitts to keep track of! We even cracked the sunroof open on the way home from lunch yesterday. And while logically I know that we all woke up on Sunday at the same time we always do, to roll over and look at the clock and see the numbers 7:24 there when one’s son trots in and climbs into bed to cuddle is psychologically very uplifting. (This morning was a bit harder, of course, as we were waking up what felt like an hour earlier, but meh, it’s an acceptable trade-off.) I spent most of the weekend going about with a somewhat silly grin on my face. It really highlighted how hard things have been these past few months for me due to a variety of reasons, some health-related, some psychological, some SAD, and other stuff going on. Doing a really big grocery order and taking the boys out to lunch thanks to the workshop renumeration helped the mood, too. So did paying off some of my Visa bill.

I had such a fabulous weekend that this morning has hit a little hard (beyond the waking-up-an-hour-earlier thing). I slept awfully last night, basically passing the entire night in a twilight half-awake state, and I’m having a very physically achy and stiff day. The ibuprofen hasn’t kicked in after an hour, so I suspect I shall have to take another. It’s one of the fibro-related repercussions of having a terrific weekend. It’s moderately unjust that I have to suffer for having a good weekend the same way I suffer after a bad one, but at least I have the momentum of the good mood to carry me.

Today: Anthology, anthology, anthology! The rest of the submissions from the first round of invitees came in this weekend plus some early ones of the second round, so I have a week of solid work ahead.

In Which She Attempts To Discipline Her Brain Cells

Dear brain:

I appreciate that you’re proud of finished the novel. Really, I am. However, the point in finishing this first draft of novel before the beginning of March was so that it wouldn’t eat up valuable energy that needed to be directed into the anthology and other things. For example, there is a three-hour hearthcraft workshop that you will be delivering to (at last count) SEVENTEEN PEOPLE this Saturday. (I pause here in order to give you the appropriate time in which to freak out, o brain.) The hour-long brief lecture you did at the Hamilton Pagan Pride day isn’t going to work for this. You need to really, really plan out a better-organised and more detailed outline. A craft, maybe? Guided meditations? Break into small discussion groups? Something. Because, really, brain: Three hours. Think of something good.

Also, I am very proud of you for doing as much work as you’ve done today on the anthology. You’re completely up to date. All info you’ve received so far has been slotted into the correct fields in the correct files, submissions have been reviewed, and everyone who has handed in their story has had a contract sent to them. You’ve done everything you can do so far. That’s great. But that doesn’t mean you get the rest of the day off. It’s been a good morning of work, but a good morning and being totally on top of things in one project doesn’t entitle you to an afternoon off the other pending things. (See above re. workshop.)

You can edit the novel when the anthology has been handed at the end of the month. Four weeks. You have to ignore it for one month. Make longhand notes if you can’t wait. But no opening the file.

You may try to cast on that damed fingering weight yarn for the wrist warmers yet again if you need a break. (Yes, I thought that would send you skittering for the workshop files in tears.)

Orchestrated Update

Look! I wrote!

New words today: 1,558
Total word count, Orchestrated: 65,567

This may not seem like a big thing to you (I do it for a living, after all) but it is to me. You see, for the past month I’ve been making the anthology my priority: contacting people (both original contributors for clarifications and new potential contributors), working things out, discussing drafts, pinging people with reminders and sounding them out about ideas, and going through the existing material to make notes about it and fact-check and such. And I’m brain-dead by mid afternoon, and there isn’t enough energy to address my own work when my brain officially notifies me about overdosing on the anthology. (Remember the whole fibro-and-shutting-down thing? Yeah, that too.)

Well, today I decided to sit down and crank out at least a thousand words of Orchestrated. I’d been dragging my heels on it because I had written myself into a boring spot and didn’t have much of an idea how to work through it. The past couple of nights as I’ve been lying awake I’ve been thinking about it, and decided to end the chapter where it was and start a new one two days later in the story. It’s moderately ironic because I’m a huge advocate of ‘just go to the next scene that you know how to write and leave yourself a note in between’, but for some unfathomable reason I just kept trying to slog along to connect the scene that was over and the next major event when they didn’t need to connected at all.

My goal was a thousand words by noon, and here we are at noon, and I have over fifteen hundred, and thank gods I’m past that stupid swampy bit that I didn’t even need to be in. There’s a substantial amount of the last chapter that will end up on the cutting room floor, I suspect. And the official new target is 70K, which means I need to wrap it up in 4.5K. I might be able to do it, too. If not, I know it will be edited down to between 65 and 70K once it’s all finished and gets tightened up in revision.

Right! Lunch, then anthology wrangling.

Not Dead

Bizet, why do you hate me so?

Actually, that exposed bit in the Overture? I sound surprisingly good. I suspect I am playing D sharps where I ought not to play D sharps, however, and am about to check with the CD. I am dragging my feet and muttering “don’t wanna” about practising that tenor/treble passage in the Carillon, though. Because Bizet and I, we don’t get along when we hit that particular point. I’m going to listen to the recording of that section till my ears bleed to internalize the theme, because I suspect that I am one tone off at that point.

I’m really enjoying this new guest conductor. You can tell she’s a cellist, because she’s chosen pieces with really juicy cello bits for us. Problem is, they’re exposed juicy cello bits, and I don’t particularly deserve to sit second chair, and these are only highlighting that fact. Also, she pays attention to us, for which I am grateful. Most of the time.

I went downtown for a lunch meeting today with someone I haven’t seen in sixish years, and it was great to catch up as well as talk about her research and her contribution to this anthology. It was wonderful to talk about paganism in an academic context; it’s something I miss. She’s sending me her Master’s thesis tonight and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

Work on the anthology proceeds apace. I’m almost done with the existing ms., and new contributions are starting to trickle in. It’s only going to get busier.

I’ve been dealing with nasty headaches over the past couple of days, too, the kind that are so bad they make your teeth hurt. No fun.

And aha, there are the flurries we were promised for today.

Weekend Roundup

Yes, hello, Monday, nice sunny Monday. How are you?

Saturday morning I had a cello lesson, which went well. The newly adjusted-and-rented 7/8 performed very nicely. My teacher feels the C string could be even better, but it’s not crucial at the moment. It feels good to be working on nuances in pieces instead of struggling with technical stuff. Except for that one shift in that one piece, which I know I can do but never happens in a lesson. My teacher made a good point: We both know I can play it, so why am I stressing in a lesson? If I played it perfectly every time we wouldn’t be working on it, would we? It’s hard to focus on the things you’re doing right when you do things wrong. I need to work on recognising the successes more than the okay-so-that-bit-wasn’t-perfect-this-time parts. And she also gave me this pearl of wisdom: The next note you’re about to play is always be the most important one. That means not dwelling on the one you just played and criticising yourself because it wasn’t as good as you wanted it to be, because it takes away for the energy you should be directing toward that next note. Food for thought. (I swear, I would be so lost in this new way of discussing music if I hadn’t done years of energy work and meditation in a spiritual context.)

Saturday afternoon HRH went out to pick up my cousin downtown, who had a weekend layover in Montreal. For dinner I tried to slow-roast two rolled rib roasts from the farmer, but it didn’t exactly succeed (see, I am not saying it failed!) for a couple of reasons. One, I doubted the slow-roast instructions and decided to roast it for two hours at 250 degrees instead of one hour at 200 then turning the oven off entirely. Two, the second roast was inedible due to the amount of gristle and sinew marbled through it. Which is a risk one runs when buying directly from a farmer who butchers his own stuff, I suppose, because it’s not regulated the same way supermarkets and pro butchers are. Anyway, the first roast was all right, just half of it was overdone to my taste. The kick-ass gravy I made made up for some of it, though, as did the nice creamy mashed potatoes and carrots half-steamed then sauteed in butter. And there was pecan pie for dessert, except the shell cracked and the filling seeped through to glue the crust to the glass pie pan, thereby ensuring that every single piece had to be pried out in several bits. It tasted good, though, and the home-made pastry was quite acceptable: very crisp and light. And we really, really enjoyed my cousin’s visit. The boy dragooned him into playing with trains and Lego and all sorts of things.

Sunday morning we met the Preston-LeBlancs for lunch at the hot dog and French fry restaurant we love for its artery-clogging deliciousness. I had an ensemble lesson later that afternoon, which was also a lot of fun because we were reviewing the early Suzuki pieces we’re playing at the Sun Youth fundraiser next Sunday.

Than last night we had the second session of the new steampunkian horror game Tal began in January, and I got another two inches of my lap blanket done (I suspect I will need an even longer circular needle to work the size I’m aiming for comfortably). I also started a knitted lightsaber yesterday during the boy’s nap. And I found the missing bamboo circular needle! It was at the very bottom of one of my works-in-progress bags under some books.

So overall a very enjoyable weekend. And I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning and ready to edit at least four more stories today, as well as read a first draft for a new contributor. Correspondence and news have all been handled, so away I go.

In Which She Talks About The Interview With Neil Gaiman

First: Part One of the Interview With Neil Gaiman is live at the fps web site! Yesterday was all transcribing and editing and formatting stuff. Later today I shall post an outtake, I think.

What was the human experience behind the published interview? Read on!

To begin with, I got to the interview site half an hour early. The STM directions were off by half an hour (in my favour, but still). I killed twenty minutes by wandering around old Montreal (hurrah for a warmish day) then showed up at the interview site ten minutes before my slot was scheduled to start. I had no idea who to talk to to check in, but a very nice lady at the concierge’s desk pointed me to a man in a blue sweater who had met someone famous-ish when he’d arrived. Accordingly I went over and waited patiently for him to finish his conversation with someone, then introduced myself and hurrah, it was my contact. Who proceeded to tell me they were running forty-five minutes late, and Neil was nowhere in sight. (Later I learned that his flight was very late, and there was a press conference to get through before the private interviews could begin.) So I said I’d come back for four-thirty and went to have a nice hot cup of tea in a nearby Van Houtte cafe that was warm and upscale and relatively empty but for a handful of people reading, like me. I had my copy of Smoke and Mirrors with me, because I’d figured if things were a bit late I could read a short story or two. Well, I read half of it, then tidied up and went back to the hotel.

Where I learned that there would be yet another forty-five minute delay. (This would be the traffic jam of waiting interviews to be conducted before mine.)

Well, at least I could see Neil this time; he was posing in a lovely overstuffed cognac leather armchair in front of some very luxurious wood panelling while a photographer snapped a cascade of digital photos. Rather than leave again I settled into a chair in the lobby and took out Smoke and Mirrors once more. (Ended up finishing it, too.) He sat down for the next interview and had a cup of tea during it, then did the interview before mine, and then the assistants put a little sample platter of food in front of him and looked at me apologetically. Good grief, the man was exhausted, and I’d been going to suggest that he eat at some point myself; I wasn’t going to make a fuss! He polished that off quite quickly (it smelled truly lovely, and reminded me that I’d eaten quite some time ago and had no idea what supper was going to be) and they brought me over to be introduced.

Looking back on it, I think what I was going for was a very human interview, rather than a right-down-to-business you’re-here-to-answer-questions kind of interview. Which wasn’t necessarily good for my end product, but seemed to succeed in making him relatively comfortable. I could not, absolutely could not, ignore the fact that he was exhausted and trying to keep up with everything, or treat him like a means to an end. He’s a person, first and foremost. And my approach did mean I lost a few minutes of topical stuff, but I’d like to think it made him a bit more relaxed and felt like someone wasn’t expecting him to perform so much as share a conversation about cool stuff. (If we’d had time I would have asked him one of Ceri’s questions: “What have you been waiting to talk about the whole tour, but no one’s asked yet?” That was a derivative of her first suggestion: “Okay Neil, you’ve been on tour for ages, and the Newbery before that. What do *you* want to talk about?”)

He didn’t look as tired as he’d looked in some of the photos I’d seen from earlier in the tour, and I was glad for his sake. The Montreal stop was so brief in his whirlwind press junket, and to be late out of Toronto and having to end up compressing all the appearances and interviews must have been beyond crushing. The grace under cumulative pressure that he demonstrated was really inspiring. My mother would say that he was a true gentleman, and she’d be absolutely right.

Our settling-in and level-checking conversations consisted of talking about his schedule, how long before he could see his daughter Maddy (one day) and before he could go home (three), talking about how he was trying to keep up with all the Newbery coverage (and was losing ground), and talking about Emru. Then we got into the interview proper, which went pretty much as the published interview reads until the assistant gave me a two-minute warning. (That happened between part one of the published interview, and what will be part two.)

At the end he asked if I’d brought something I wanted him to scribble in, and I pulled my copy of Coraline out. I’d agonised for days over this: what, out of my extensive Oeuvre of Neil Gaiman collection, was I going to bring for him to sign? My first issue of Stardust? Preludes and Nocturnes, as I first encountered his writing in the very first issues of Sandman as it was released? The original copy of The Books of Magic vol. 3, which is also signed by Charles Vess? (That got nixed because when I checked it was inscribed to Johane, who gave me her set when she moved.) The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, for Liam? (Who has been resistant to the suggestion of reading it, although he goes through all the pictures and asks what’s happening; my standard answer is, “Well, we’d have to read the book to find out.”) Good Omens? I might have brought American Gods, but t! has it out on loan. Fragile Things, although I love it, was, well, too new. The Graveyard Book? I adored it, but I didn’t want him to think I’d brought it just because it won the Newbery. Just before I left I settled on my copy of Coraline, because it was the reason I’d been given the interview, after all. He drew a lovely big picture of a ghostly rat saying “Boo” in it for me.

I wanted to talk to him about so much. I’m reading Susannah Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieu, for example, and I know he was instrumental in getting that titular first short story published, so I wanted to ask him about that. I wanted to ask him about his creative process and how or if it differed when writing for different media. I wanted to talk about the Newbery, although we did touch on it in the pre-interview bit, because for one of my favourite authors to win one of my favourite awards makes me want to ask all sorts of questions. I wanted to thank him for introducing me to Thea Gilmore and Tori Amos. I wanted to tell him that I played the cello, for some reason. And I wanted to thank him for those very many hours of joy he’d given me as an author, and how much inspiration as a writer.

And I wanted to say, “Once upon a time Ceri handed you a blank postcard at a signing and said, ‘I have a friend who is collecting story prompts and I’m surprising her with postcards from the authors at this con. Would you write a line or a thought on this to mail to her as a story assignment?’ And I got the green-ink fountain-penned postcard from you in the mail and used it as a talisman for years until I finally wrote the story in February of 2006.”

And above all, I wanted to say, “You are such an incredibly generous man, sharing what you do with the world. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”

He is such a wonderful man. I love him. I loved him as a writer before; as of the interview, I totally love the man himself as well. The world needs more men like Neil Gaiman in it.

In Which She Reveals The Even Cooler Assignment; Or, Hangin’ Out With The Dream King

Well, I’m home from having tea with Neil Gaiman.

No, I’m not kidding. Well, we both had tea, but not at the same time.

He wins the Nicest Man Alive award, hands down. I have never had someone who only just met me stare into my eyes that intently while he spoke to me, nor felt so at ease with that someone. Thank the gods for recording devices, because I couldn’t have taken notes to save my life.

I have a twenty-minute private interview to transcribe tomorrow. And yes, there will be a longer post here detailing the experience, too. Watch for the interview to be posted at fps by the end of the week!