Category: Creativity

Creativity, Crocks and Rejection

30/6/2015

There are two new realities and achievements in the world that weren’t in the world last year.

In alphabetical order, we have a book authored by Jennifer Bain. The book is called, “HILDEGARD OF BINGEN and Musical Reception, The Modern Revival of a Medieval Composer”.

The book is an achievement for sure. Jennifer said she tried to write the book in such a way that both academics and non-academics would find it enjoyable and instructive and Sue thinks she's accomplished that goal very nicely. (Pic of book)

Then there’s Suzi Hübler’s achievement: a brand new business she has opened up in Toronto and it’s aerobically friendly. The business is called, “HIGH JUNCTION GYMNASTICS”. This is a place where young people can skin cats, do the splits, go to parallel bars, somersault themselves silly and become proficient at gymnastics, because Suzi is an expert at teaching gymnastics. You can check out her colourful website here: http://highjunction.ca/

(Jennifer is Sue’s daughter, and Suzi is Sue’s daughter-in-law, so you can see why we are excited about both of these accomplishments!)

High Junction

***

Supposedly, if you’re a writer you’re creative. Which in some ways probably involves a high level of daydreaming and the imagining of scenarios which haven’t happened, have happened or might happen.

Writers write a lot about feelings. Usually, if the story is going to have some punch and power, then the author feels and empathizes with the characters he’s creating or writing about.
So it’s no surprise that writers are filled with strong emotions. In many cases they’re not buried far below the surface. From time to time they even seep out like oil out of the ground.
At the same time, writers deal with the fickle world of fashion, pop culture, political correctness, social perceptions, changing rules, high and low grammar and lots and lots and lots of rejection.

If you write, you get to know about rejection. And most writers aren’t cold stone stoics, so it affects them. Sometimes a rejection makes no sense. And for many writers, the rejection slips/emails reinforce their deep feelings that they aren’t any damn good. The proof is there to see.

But, writers write anyway. Now, what I do is write and duck. Like the old duck and cover procedure they used to teach students to follow if an incoming atomic bomb was heading their way. Incoming rejection coming soon to your mail box. What an attitude, eh?

I heard a story about a fella who submitted some short stories to a national short story competition. They were stories written by the likes of Ernest Hemingway. These stories didn’t even make the long list.

I once had a story on the long list, but not on the short list. Ironically, I didn’t come up short and did. Now that’s a riddle for you. Anyway, I sent the story out to three other publishers. They all rejected it and yet I’m pretty sure that stories which would most likely not have made the long list, were published in their magazines.

J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was rejected twelve times and then bought by the thirteenth publisher, not an unlucky number in this case. You want to know the reason why the thirteenth publisher bought it? I’ll tell you. Because the publisher’s CEO’s daughter loved it. How was poor Ms. Rowling supposed to know that she should have addressed her manuscript to the big honcho’s daughter?

The classic, "Lord of the Flies", was rejected twenty-one times. And you can damn well tell it was a classic because they made me read it in high school. One publisher wrote that it was “an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.”

Do you know what one publisher told F. Scott Fitzgerald when he read "The Great Gatsby"? He said, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character.” So funny!

Stephen King filled a spike with impaled rejection slips by the age of fourteen. Wow! He was prolific for sure.

My feeling is that if you are going to be rejected, at least have your writing as polished as it can be. That’s why I have an editor. Her name is Sue and she can spy a rogue, “I’ve went...” a mile away. Which, apparently, is one of my favourite illiterate-oral weaknesses. At least in a Jane Austen type of world.

Stephen King wrote, “To write is human, to edit is divine.”

***

View from our Place on Middle River, Cape Breton

I’ve started reading some poetry and short stories by Alden Nowlan. He was a mostly self-taught man, who was born in Nova Scotia. One of my favourite poems is called, “The Bull Moose”.

Here’s another one of his poems.

                                 “This is the amazing thing
                               that it is so easy
                               to fool them—-
                               the sane bastards.

                               I can talk about weather,
                               eat, preside at meetings
                               of the PTA.
                               They don’t know.

                               Me foreign as a Martian
                               With the third eye in my forehead!
                                   But I comb my hair
                               cleverly so it doesn’t show

                                   except a little
                                   sometimes when the wind blows.

                                                                    Alden Nowlan, “Disguise”

***

                                             “If you can sniff out danger and keep barking
                                     When those around you seem to doubt the cause
                                     And all they find to do is keep remarking
                                     Don’t track up the carpet with your paws!
                                     If you can lick the hand who needs you
                                     and realize it’s really no mistake
                                     When that hand that somehow failed to feed you
                                     Feeds itself the whole darn sirloin steak.”

                                                                       Lily Tuck, “Sniff”

Sue says I think like a dog. I’ve been telling her that for years. You see, I can be walking down a busy street and on the opposite side of the street can be, and has been, a man walking his dog.

The dog will stare at me like I’m wearing a tracking device. The dog’s eyeballs will hone in on me and not get his peepers off my moving form until we’re way beyond the human encounter distance of seventeen feet. (Apparently this has been measured by people who like to measure things.)

In some ways I think this places me at the dog's level of the food chain. Which could be way above the human's. This theory comes from watching too much news.

Which might be why I’m more comfortable on a log, inside or outside, rather than on a beautiful couch. A not so expensive, not so beautiful couch, doesn’t bother me quite as much. I guess my mind won’t stop reminding me that there’s a whole lot of social voo-doo comes with sitting on a beautiful couch in a living room.

Oh, and before you let your creative minds run wild, I have not yet had the desire to lift my leg and piddle on said log, nor on said less beautiful couch.

So, this Sunday, while I was in the washroom brushing my teeth, Buster was in the hallway barking. Sue, (who now barks back, but that’s another story), could not decipher from Buster’s barks, what the heck he wanted.

I stepped out of the washroom. Sue said, “What does he want?”

I said, thinking I was just guessing, that he was looking for his slipper so he could play “Fetch the Slipper”. So I found the slipper and sure enough, that’s what he wanted to do. Fetch the slipper.

Which goes like this. I throw the slipper or toss it, if you prefer that word. Buster runs and fetches the slipper. He returns with the slipper, which, for accuracy’s sake, is actually an old croc. He lets me pull the croc, thinking that I don’t know that he’s not really jawing down on it as hard as he would like me to think. Because he really wants me to wrench the croc out of his mouth, so the croc can glide through the air like an eagle and land on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge. So Buster can burst out of the starting gate, slide and slam into the fridge door, return the slipper and his drool to me and start the process all over again.

The whole game is a Buster diplomatic exercise in pretending he doesn’t want me to have the croc while wanting me to have the croc. Which I know is all a crock.

Buster Tuckered Out From Playing "Fetch the Croc"

                                             “A living room, the catholic area you
                                    (Thou rather) and I may enter
                                    without knocking, leave without a bow, confronts
                                    each visitor with a style,

                                    a secular faith: he compares its dogmas
                                    with his, and decides whether
                                    he would like to see more of us. Spotless rooms
                                    where nothing’s left lying about

                                    chill me, so do cups used for ashtrays or smeared
                                    with lipstick: the homes I warm to,
                                    though seldom wealthy, always convey a feeling
                                    of bills being promptly settled”

                                                                                            W.H. Auden, “The Common Life”

Our Pond in Spring

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Neighbourhood Watch

10/3/2015

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For some reason, I feel blog thirty-five has some kind of significance. A finality of sorts. I’m just not sure what it might be.

A wandering friend of mine once gave me a blog warning. He said, “Be careful you don’t write yourself out.” I know writers who have stopped writing their blogs altogether, or cut back to the point where their blogs are almost non-existent. I wonder if one reason is because they wrote themselves out.

One thing for sure, we’re bombarded with words. Words, words, words. Often treating them as if they have almost no value. So, with this little blog disclaimer, I plod on in the Land of Blog and present you with blog thirty-six. In which I try to write something interesting without depleting my creative urge.

In his book, ‘The World is Sound’, Joachim-Ernst Berendt included a quote from Sukie Colgrave discussing Confucious as follows: “...while words contain genuine meaning which reflect certain absolute truths in the universe, most people have lost contact with these truths and so use language to suit their own convenience. This led, he felt, to lax thinking, erroneous judgements, confused actions and finally to the wrong people acquiring access to political power.”

***

And first up to bat is this. Last week, I finished reading the whole Bible from the front page to the back page and everything in between. I will admit, however, that I did occasionally skip a begat or two, but for the most part I read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations. And I read plenty that wasn’t preached about in my church. I also found verses that would back up almost any Christian denomination and I discovered ones that would make proselytizers turn red in the face.

It should be noted that I was brought up in a strict, Bible believing family. The Bible was the word of God, and it was the final word. And, even now, I receive greeting cards from family members with Bible verses included, no extra charge. I believe, yes, I believe, they are submitted to help me find the road that the sender is presently following.

“Wait up, you guys.”

“Well then, hurry up, Larry. We told you to pick up the Cole's Notes on the Bible. How many times have we told you this?”

Now they tell me they told me. But hey, I kept wanting to stop and inspect all the interesting sights and sounds along the side of the road.

“Hey, what about all those roads we keep passing? Where do they go?”

“Read chapter and verse, Larry. It’s all in the notes you don’t have. Ignore them, Larry. Stay on the main highway where it’s safe.”

Ah, let the folks toss away. They probably do it because they really care, but it can be a tad irritating from time to time. I have a feeling that most of the verse tossers have read lots of the Bible, but I bet you that very few have read it from the front page to the back. Maybe one reason is because they’re afraid they might see more than they want to see.

***

A few days ago, we went to Sydney. Our first stop was a used bookstore we frequent on the main street. It’s called, ED’S BOOKS AND MORE and it’s owned by this fella who, strangely enough, is called Ed. Ed loves books and misses nothing. I know this because of what happened last week.

We walked into his book store. Ed said, “Hi Larry, I have something to show you.”

I was impressed he’d remembered my name. He held a book in his hand. It looked like some kind of yearbook.

“I have a school yearbook here and I think you might be in it.”

I glanced at the book and then at him. I said, “It wouldn’t be me. I went to high school in Kingston, Ontario.”

He opened the book and showed me a picture. There I was. Dark short hair, thick black glasses, and looking like I was straight out of a Stephen King movie. He had somehow got hold of a 1968 Loyalist High School yearbook. Boy, did he floor me! Ed then gave me the book as a gift.

So, as a gift back to him, I’ve mentioned his bookstore, and I’m mentioning his toll-free phone number, which is: 1-855-264-2665, his not toll-free phone number, which is: (902)564-2665 and his email address, which is: edsbooksandmore@eastlink.ca and his address, which is: 446 Charlotte Street, Sydney, NS. and a picture of Ed and his store. Oh, his store is also on facebook.

That night, I went through the book. Looked at all the class pictures. The memories rushed at me like a herd of radicalized terrorists.

Because, you see, nineteen-sixty-eight was the worst year of my life. Bar none. No death, divorce, firing, injury, bad relationship or life decision can or ever will compete with nineteen-sixty-eight. He is the winner. Hands down. The year of the big bottle of nerve medicine sitting on the kitchen table. The religious skirmishes breaking out like revivalistic measles.

Well, I have to admit, there were two female students amongst the class pictures who could have made that year a hell of a lot better. And, there was my grade one sweetheart. Yes, it started that early.

It was awfully nice of Ed to take the time to keep it for me. That’s Cape Breton for you.

***

A brief note. Grinder, my snow blower, needs a new ticker. The motor is dead.

The mechanic made a funny comment, if you can find it comical when your almost brand new snow blower has a dead motor. He said, “There were a whole lot of pieces in your motor that wanted out.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. He should write a blog.

I have just dug out two pairs of snowshoes from our tool shed.

My New Snow Blower

***

Let me see now. I think, with regard to Buster, that I left you with an image of Sue standing on the middle of an icy Gold Brook Road, with her telephone cord make-shift dog leash dangling in the air like an empty fishing line, while Buster hoofed it after a large snow plough monster.

But Buster is a Buster. No more appropriate name for him could be had and he makes us laugh a lot. Sue told me that Buster is the funniest dog she has ever owned. I think I have competition.

He also is a bit of a pain in the ass from time to time. For one thing he might be putting a bit of a strain on our relationship with the neighbours. They have a big dog and many cats. Their dog likes to wander down to our driveway and drop off unstamped, brown wrapped mail. He also likes to paint our hub caps and snow banks a peculiar yellow colour.

Yesterday, Buster spotted the big dog standing on the road, watching us return from our early morning pre-Buster’s-breakfast forced march.

Up to this point I had been able to keep Buster from heading down to the neighbour’s house. Not this time. Not with the big dog staring at us. So, Buster took off. I was worried that there might be a clash. But instead, the big dog ran to his porch. He then barked at Buster.

The neighbour came out and began to yell at Buster while she reeled her dog into the house.

While all this was going on, I was stupidly standing by my lonesome shouting, “Buster, come here!”

I was hollering at Buster, the neighbour woman was hollering at Buster and her dog was barking at Buster. Buster was oblivious. Totally.

But you know, I think all Buster wanted to do was play and sing and dance with the big German shepherd dog.

However, after the woman had got her dog into the house and then hollered at Buster some more, Buster finally did comply, like the good dog he is. But, before he complied, he lifted his leg and whizzed on our neighbour’s porch railing. Then he came to me. But he came to me with the name Buster and a Buster he was.

All the way home I would periodically shout, “That was bad. Bad boy, Buster.”

Buster, who was now in no mood to dilly-dally, because he knew he had a well-earned breakfast waiting for him at the homestead, would, every time I rebuked him, turn around, and with furious growls, make play charges at me.

It went on like that until we got home. Then I told Sue the story of big, bad Buster while Sue prepared a nice breakfast for Buster. Who enjoyed his tasty breakfast.

Meanwhile, I searched our forty-five-foot trailer for my other slipper.

Buster is Buster.

Winter Beauty Along Our Path

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Worth Fighting For

29/10/2014

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I began this blog in Kingston. My spanking new computer set up on the hotel room’s wee round table. A large steamy window to my right. An air conditioner clinging to the glass. Its rusty, damp air invading our room and lungs.

Today, we’re back in Cape Breton. The wind is shaking the trees loose from their leaves, and Grinder, our snow blower, has already had me down on bended knees with grass, wood chips and mud dampening my clean blue jeans, as I performed some emergency surgery. This involved the loosening up of his little paws to make it possible to get him started. Which would give us a fighting chance of holding off the relentless attacks of snow which use our yard as a shortcut.

These days, I find myself standing on the porch, gazing out over the huddling mountains, looking at the sky and wondering if the snow forces are already formed up and ready to rush over the mountain and plunge us into another winter battle.

And Skippy, the squirrel, is terribly quiet. He wasn’t when the wood was first delivered, but now, since we’ve returned from Kingston, we haven’t heard a swear word from him. I think he used his time wisely while we were away. I wish him a cozy winter in behind the many stacks of firewood.

Finally, because this is my twenty-ninth blog, yeah, I decided to take a little time to rant. Use a few words to spout off. Get some irritations off my chest because there are times in my life when a rant is about all I can do.

Little Salmon Lake north of Kingston, ON

TIRADE NUMBER ONE

First, I would like to say that this is not directed against all marketers, nor all those who try to help writers and me in particular, including all my friends and colleagues who give me their kind support.

However, I have had some irritating personal experiences lately. Also, I have read and listened to authors and other artists discussing this topic, so I think that my spouting off isn’t uselessly spinning towards a distant galaxy. May the force be with you, Hal.

One night, at a bar, I was talking to a fella. We got to talking about art and writing and that sort of thing. He’s a playwright and has a movie floating around called, ‘21 Brothers’. I haven’t watched it but it can be found at these establishments: Amazon, Hunes, Shaw and Cogeco and DVDs are available at HMV and Amazon. I’m planning on watching this movie and I believe it has been positively critiqued.

Anyway, he was talking about sending the movie off and the marketers getting hold of it and, well ———, I don’t want to say too much but there are a lot of sharks out there in the Marketers’ Ocean of Despair.

I’ve been exposed to the forces that be and if I’m going to protect anything, beyond my family and friends, it’s my art.

You see, my writing isn’t based upon how much I sell, although I’m definitely not against selling.

It’s not based on becoming a famous writer. Do I have to worry?

I write because I love to write. I’ll admit that I enjoy hearing that my writing is being read but that’s secondary to the actual writing.

However, like my friend who made a movie, artists are under constant pressure. Pressure from their own creativity and emotional foibles. Pressure from the marketing world where there is always a better way presented to get the readers’ attention or a more profitable place suggested where they can feed out their work. Many of these folks are willing and eager to take your dollars to help you become known and re-known.

Then there’s the occasional acquaintance who thinks he knows the best way for you to get your work known is to get it on the big screen.

For some, it’s just because they want to see you become successful, but for others it’s an attempt to own your work or at least ride on your coat-tails to some pre-conceived marketing success. I’m not sure how fast the ride would be if you hopped onto my coat-tails.

I once asked a fella, ‘What is the difference between a writer and most of the marketers and critics?’ I was actually surprised when he didn’t have the answer.

The answer to this quiz question is, ‘Writers write’.

That’s the thing about writers. They write and they’re not always so proficient with the selling part.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with searching for help. And many of us have the creativity to think outside the box and sell our work, but that takes energy. Also, there’s a certain amount of anxiety about single-mindedly spouting off about our work. Which, I think, might be wed to the sense of nurturing and mindfulness we have for our inspirations?

One piece of advice I have heard about writing is, ‘Don’t talk your story out.’ Why not? Because it can sap your need to write. The little or big story you’re going to tell gets out too early and like wine bottled too soon, it’s watery and tasteless.

The emotions and ideas must soak in time and thought and when they’re ready, and only then, can they be fruitfully and organically lifted out of our minds and placed full-bodied unto the paper or screen.

Maybe one could also say, “Don’t market your vision away.” Too much emphasis on marketing can flatten the writing energy. Some selling needs to be done, but I’m not willing to use up too much energy doing it. I’m not willing to twist and turn the mystery that drives me to write in the first place, so I can grab a chunk of readership. I like to call my marketing efforts ‘soft marketing’.

You see, I want my little bubble of magic to be sitting comfy and cozy, on a soft patch of grass, her privacy protected by a mountain of wild forest and wind. Covered by a thin veil of gentle mist, faintly perfumed with fir and spruce scent, camouflaged and chameleon-like. Suckling on the universe’s unfathomable ocean.

I want it to be only as clear as will allow it to remain a heartfelt enigma. A contrast to the eager grasping of our society as it attempts to get hold of everything that is worth anything.
Throwing out a little bafflement never hurts. So, as with a good poem you have read, you have a sense that the poem has no solid mental perimeters. An awareness, faint but present, that there’s an idea or emotion that hasn’t yet been fully plumbed.

TIRADE NUMBER TWO

Something else I’ve noticed. This may be because I was born into a rather black and white religion. It was my difficult and harsh departure from this form of thinking which instilled in me a terribly strong, tenacious need to defend my little creative piece of turf. Besides, trying to separate any artist from control over his or her art is like trying to take a bone from a hungry wolf.

And it’s because of my black and white background that I have become an expert at recognizing when my creative vision is under threat. I might even have to consider myself hyper-sensitive.

And guess what? When I hear somebody tell me that they know what’s best, that they are certain they are correct when it comes to how I should write, what I should write, how I should market, the existence of a pink elephant hiding in the back of my truck, or anything else for that matter, I realize there are a hell of a lot of black and white thinkers out there besides those who are labelled fundamentalists.

***

“Besides, what you love, you will protect.
That thou lovest well remains,
                     the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
                       or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee"
                    Ezra Pound, Canto LXXXI- libretto

***

I believe that many artists see their art as some form of commission. Maybe even as prophetic.

William Noble, in his book ‘Conflict, Action and Suspense’ wrote, “It’s pretty well acknowledged that readers “hear” as well as see words on the page. That is, word sounds and word images play in the readers’ minds even as their eyes scan the words. Some have referred to this as “the music of words.”

So, using this quote as an introduction, I’d like to quote another section of an Ezra Pound poem.

“Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
Go also to the nerve-wracked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.
Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.
Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs.
Go to the hideously wedded,
Go to them whose failure is concealed,
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the bought wife,
Go to the woman entailed."
Ezra Pound, “Commission”

Hike to North River Falls, Cape Breton

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Missing Out

19/9/2014

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I’ve spent years hiking, mostly by myself. Because I love being alone in the forest. Sitting on a rock, a log, or any piece of natural furniture is more comfortable for me than reclining on expensive furniture in places where I have to be careful about what I say, how I say it, or what I might knock over or spill. However, some couches are more pleasant than others as butt resters.

And lately, the folks up here have decided, and have spread the word around, that I’m a trail guide. Even though I’m not as familiar with this area as I could be. And I’ve met some interesting people on the rugged Cape Breton trails.

Also, I’ve never stopped being amazed at how helpful and friendly the folks up here are. They accept us for who we are and last Sunday we even received an email from a fella who said that Cape Breton was a better place because Sue and I had made it our home. Well, that nearly knocked my socks off. Both of them.

As many of you know, Sue struggles with some chronic diseases, one of which can impede her ability to walk far. But, she gave it the old college try and actually joined our group on a hike to the Uisgeban Falls. It’s a magical place and she didn’t think she would be able to make it all the way. But she did and that’s a feather in her emotional cap. The big surprise was that her post-hike pain was no different than it was before she hiked the trail. I’m sure many of you are happy to hear that.

Sue's Favourite Tree on Uisgeban Falls Trail

Which brings me to the mentioning of a new book that was recently published: the second edition of “Guide to Cape Breton Highlands National Park”. The author is Clarence Barrett, a retired Highland Park warden. His first edition was very popular. To write this updated edition, he once again hiked all 26 official park trails and then rewrote his descriptions.

If you’re travelling to Cape Breton this is certainly a book to add to your library. Here’s a link to Parks Canada’s information about the book: http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2014-08-24/article-3845394/New-park-guide-edition-being-launched-this-week/1

My old Mac

I got a new computer for my birthday. Happy birthday to me… and that’s one of the reasons that this blog is late. Excuses, excuses, excuses. But, I have been tearing my ^*%&^%$ hair out trying to get up to speed so I can just plain sit down on my asteroid and write this blog and other things that I tap out on a computer keyboard.

However, I do try to get a blog out every two weeks or so. I know folks who have a blog out almost every day. Which I’ve heard is an excellent way to keep your readership up. It might also be an excellent way to empty your idea coffers, or at least mine.

One thing I try to do is respond to comments made on my blog. If you don’t get one from me then it’s because my comments didn’t get through or my website machine wouldn’t let me. You see, I’m relatively new to the blog world and sometimes I try to respond but I can’t get it to work. I think it’s because I don’t have all the blog ins and outs down pat. So, I apologize now for any comments I haven’t been able to respond to. I tried. Really.

Oh, and if you write a response please make sure you add your email address if you think I don’t have it. It’s supposed to come to me through the website, but doesn’t always seem to make it.

Anyway, back to the new computer. Cripes, I got so used to my old Mac. It’s twenty years plus old. It’s been everywhere, man. Had lots of sticky fingers tapping and thunking on its keyboard. Had plenty of little kids playing computer games on it and it has been dropped once or twice.

My New Mac

Oh woe is me, though. It’s not easy trying to master this new computer and I will give you an example.

I am, if you haven’t already suspected, a person who uses more of the creative side of my brain than my not creative side. Surprise, surprise.

Now as you might have read in an earlier blog, I bought myself a new camera. Only a little over a month ago, I think. It’s digital with all the funny-pictures-on the-screen stuff and with knobs, buttons or cranks spotted all over its smooth, black body.

And I have, as mentioned earlier, become known as a trail guide. So this means that I get to guide hikers into the forest. And, during the hike, I take pictures so that the fella who runs the recreational activities in Victoria County, (that’s the county I live in), gets to see pictures of the hikers and the beautiful places we walk in. He often posts them or pins them to his ‘wall of shame’.

So, I go home after a hike and hook my camera up to my new computer. Sue used to do this but now this technologic fledgling, who is me, has jumped off the tree and has ever since been wildly flapping his wings, bouncing off pixels and leafy start buttons and repeatedly crash-landing into digital bushes. Over and over again.

(*&^@%#$%&!!!! I mean, Sue used to be able to take my articles from my twenty-something-year-old computer and put them into her computer and her computer would translate the ones and zeros into an understandable language and then send it out over the internet or print it out for me. Now her computer looks at my new computer’s efforts, shrugs its shoulders and spits out these nasty, impossible to understand, bits and pieces of bits.

Yesterday Sue, whose computer acumen and expertise I trust, looked at one of my attempts and its pathetic appearance on her computer screen and said, “This is scary.”

Does one have to be a mind reader to understand some of the computer jargon?

I’ll give you a specific example.

To get the pics to my computer I have to hook my new K50 camera up to Mac. I use a thin black cord called a USB cable. The next thing I do is turn on my camera. Why do I turn on my camera now instead of before? I don’t know. Because it’s says in the Bible somewhere?

Then there’s a little box that pops up on my computer which I have to click on to IMPORT my photos. I was told this was the button I had to click on using my mouse. And that’s another story. The mouse, that is.

The pix are then supposed to slide along the inside of the cord and pour into some empty picture station where a tiny zit gets them to line up and stand at attention in order of entry .

This IMPORT box did not make sense to me. So I asked Sue where the EXPORT box was.

You must use your imagination to see a vision of the expression on Sue’s face when I asked this question. But come on. I took economics in high school. I was taught that if you live in Canada and you ship products to other countries you are exporting them. If you are receiving products from other countries then you are importing them. Do you understand?

You see, my photographs are coming from my camera. My camera was here first. I figured that I was therefore from the Camera Country. Oh Camerada, we stand on guard for thee, and I was sending out pictures to the strange place called MacBook Pro. So therefore, am I not exporting pictures?

So, how the hell am I supposed to know which place is my country and which place is not my country? How can I sort out import and export if I don’t know this? For poop sake, I’m dyslexic and this doesn’t even begin to make sense to me.

Oh god, I have so much to learn about the camera, let alone the computer. Have you noticed a change in mood in this blog? A little more hesitation in the sentence structure? Words that don’t sound so appropriate?

Where the hell is the thesaurus in this new computer? Maybe it dropped out when I took Mac out of the box. I mean when I buy a hammer, I don’t want to have to spend a long time learning how to use it before I can bang nails into wood. I just want to bang nails into wood.

Then there is my stacked-to-the-throat-with-new-gizmos camera. I’ll tell you how much I have to learn about this wonderful toy.

A friend from Australia was visiting. She has a good quality tiny camera. A quick shot thing which you can carry in your pocket like a pet Chihuahua. Anyway, we were talking about our individual cameras. I think we got to talking about the flash. This is where I pulled out the manual for my camera. It’s thick.

She asked me, “How many different languages is your manual written in?”

I said, “One *&^% LANGUAGE. English.”

It’s a friggen Stephen King novel full of Cujo mumbo jumbo. Like import, export, four way controller, JPEG, RAW, Button Customization.

I have been told that I should take up writing manuals for people like me. Ha.

***

         Let’s stop and think; Let’s know and feel

         That things like these are truly real,

         Yes, think how very rich are we

          When all the best of things are free.

                                            John Martin, “These Things Are Free”

***

Texting

I do think the virtual world is amazing, but sometimes I think it’s too enchanting and addictive. For example, there have been many times when I’ve been sitting outside on the patio of a local coffee shop. I’ve sat and watched the tourists and the locals bustling about or sitting at the little metal tables, drinking their drinks and eating their treats. Many of them, and I mean many of them, (sometimes even including me), are staring at their little prissy machines. Using their fingers to punch or rub commands into the magical virtual world that is hypnotizing so many of us.

Sometimes I’ve seen young couples at tables under romantic lighting, texting. And I’m sure they’re sometimes texting to each other. Whatever happened to the touching of hands? Leaning over for a little kiss? Rubbing your footsie up your lover’s leg? Now it’s being done with pixels.

“Oh honey, ooxx.”

“Yes, baby, XXXXXOO.”

“More, more.”

“XOXOXOXOXOXOIIIIIooooxx”

And while this human interaction in all its forms are going on, I’ve watched the crows, sitting on the power lines above the street, or on the post office roof or the steeple on the church, cawing their asses off. I can tell there’s some form of drama going on up nearer the sky.

They’re making different sounds or are buzzing each other and generally making a racket. I then take a look around at the flocks of pristine viewers and non-pristine viewers and nary a one is paying any attention. Not one. All caught up in their people or virtual world. Maybe some are even looking at the crows through their virtuals or are gazing at pixel crows on Google.

Which makes me think. Gets me wondering what would happen if this natural world, to which we don’t pay much attention, just vanished? How lonely this world would be if everyone was totally focused on the virtual world and on the human world and paid no mind to the real time world of wild others.

And what would happen if it got to the point where everybody was almost exclusively hooked up? Got to the point where we would all, for example, be checking the weather on our machines or on something imbedded inside our eye balls. Swirling our fingers down the little doo-dad screens, or poking ourselves in the eyeballs to find out whether we are going to get snow today, while outside our window there is a hell of a snow storm dumping all over our yards.

Just wondering.

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.”

Chief Seattle

Sunset on the Skyway Trail

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The Path in the Sky

30/8/2014

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I’m back and hoping that you’ve all had a great last few weeks and are getting pumped up for the fall. Which you know as well as I do, is the precursor to winter.

I’ve just finished reading a wonderful poetry book written by David Woods. He’s a black author and the book is titled “Native Song”. This was his first collection of poetry.   It is an intense and passionate collection that reveals his determined and unrelenting fervour to right the wrongs that were done to the Blacks.

David Woods has also written plays and is an accomplished artist. Here are a few samples of his poems.

“It is never good to agree
to hands choking you to death.”

        David Woods, ARTIFACT (For Rose)

“Each fragment lying outside
The structure of love
Turns to monster in the late night,

Each society that discards people
Sharpens hands for killing.”

      David Woods, MACHUKIO (The Terror)

***

A few months ago I was asked to be one of the judges for a writing competition. And whew, the more I thought about this judging task, the more serious I felt about the whole venture. Me, having the audacity to tell people that their stories are better or worse than somebody else's!

You see, I’ve submitted a few short stories to a competition or two. And, I’m proud to say, I’ve never won any. Yeah, blow the horns and bang the drums.

However, I’ve come close. One story got an honourable mention and one made it to the long list on a CBC short story competition.

The thing is, I labour over the stories I submit. Rewrite and rewrite. Change the plot. Discard the plot. Start a new story. Totally change that plot. Get out my notes and check the story against lists of short story musts and maybes. On and on and on and then one day I mail the story out. Usually on the deadline day.

Once it’s in the mailbox I try to forget about it. Put it out of my mind, but still, there’s always a tiny flitting bug memory that buzzes around in the back of my consciousness. Which periodically bites me on the brain stem and makes me think, “I wonder how I’ll do in the competition?” “When will I hear from those short story writing gods?”

I also wonder who is judging my story. Is the judge a woman or a man? How old is the judge? Are they watching television and eating a peanut butter sandwich while they are reading my precious baby? Are they drinking? Oh god, no. While they were looking at my story? My story!!

Is he or she in a bad mood? What kind of life philosophy do they have? Will my story yank their chain the wrong way? Are they sophisticated, snobby readers?

So, when I was reading the stories that I was supposed to judge, I kept all those thoughts in my head. I really, really tried to read the stories carefully. And I didn’t eat anything while I was carefully reading them. Although, I did drink a cup of hot tea. And I only had quiet music on while I sat in my office with my door shut as tight as a honey jar.

Not only that, but Sue also had a read of the stories and made her own notes. Oh yes, we made notes, but I didn’t read her notes until I finished reading the stories. I didn’t want to be pre-prejudiced. (Is that a word?) Neither did she read mine.

She was as serious about the job as I was and then afterwards we sat over a cup of tea and talked about the stories and argued a bit and then came to a conclusion.

Of course, it was a subjective exercise and in the overall picture that is probably a good thing. Because writing and art are subjective by nature. As are so many of the dictates we are exposed to which tell us how to behave or not to behave, eat or talk. Much subjectivity must rule if our lives are to expand, and if we and our race are to venture out into the creative unknowns.

Writing Tips I've Gleaned over the Years

Here are a few points to remember if you are writing a short story for a contest.

1: Begin with a bang.

2: Try to introduce an element of uncertainty or suspense at the beginning.

3: Make your characters alive and real.

4: Make your story different.

5: If you have no length restrictions then try to keep your story reasonably short. Say between 1,500 and 3,000 words.

6: Have an ending that is positive, meaning one with a different turn to it. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending. It can be sad, but it should say something important.

7: Make sure you have one clear central theme or plot running through the story.

8: Try for a story that goes against the grain. Don’t always stick to the politically correct issues of the day.

9: Follow the contest rules.

10: Watch out for errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. No matter how many times you reread your work, you will miss some errors. Most writers ask at least one other person to proofread their stories.

***

I’m going to try to tie a thin thread between our time at the cottage and my thoughts on subjectivity, rules, freedom and creativity. Here goes.

We recently spent a week at a cottage. It was a large cottage. It had to be because ten of us were going to be rattling around inside its walls. And it was a beautiful cottage. Alas, it did have some problems.

For example, the well went dry. Which meant the toilets didn’t work for a time. Therefore a gigantic truck had to squeeze down the cottage road and pump thirty thousand litres of water into the parched well.

However, we still didn’t have the downstairs toilet or washing machine operating because there was a pain-in-the-ass leak down there. So the plumber had to shut the water off to the downstairs washroom until it was fixed.

This problem affected the family members who had to sleep in the basement or, to use a more genteel label, the downstairs. The downstairs was damp and probably not so comfortable for those family members and some nights the pump was running almost continuously.

There were other problems too. One family had a sick cat which had to go to the hospital and another family had a child who was bitten by a tick and she had to go to the hospital.

So you might think that I would think the week at the cottage was near to being a disaster. But in my mind it wasn’t even close. And it also proved that having lived a life that was a bit or a lot off the grid can be an advantage.

You see, even though there wasn’t plumbing for a day, there was an outhouse. And that’s what I used anyway. Even before the plumbing went up shit creek. Because I was used to using a shit-house or, if you want to be more genteel about describing it, a privy.

I remember when Sue and I moved to our trailer with the indoor toilet that we missed the outhouse. Missed sitting inside, with the door open, looking at the ants, listening to the wind, watching the clouds, smelling the flowers, feeling the snowflakes tickle our face, listening to the ice on the lake speak. Those kinds of natural earth- bound events.

So, when the two dumpers shut down, it was no big deal for us. And when the plastic toilet bowl pail in the outhouse was full, again there was no big problem. Sue and I simply went outside and dumped it in the designated place so the various family members would have a tidy place to attend to their personal needs and requirements. And she and her daughter hauled buckets of water from the ocean for washing purposes.

The privy had a Dutch door so we could sit in there, secure from onlookers, while admiring the ocean and watching the blue heron who spent time on the beach.

Antigonish Harbour

What were the other positives? The beautiful ocean. The trip to PEI. The chance for the family to better understand each other and to spend undistracted time together. Time to read and drink beer or wine or rum and coke or ginger ale or cola, etc. And the weather was good for the most part, so we all played in various ways outside. The meals created by Sue’s son and son-in-law were wonderful. We got to meet an interesting fella who helped us all realize that the world doesn’t whirl the same way for everyone. Or maybe I should say, revealed to us that the sun shines on everybody. Subjectivity. Subjectivity.

I found a hiking trail; we played games with each other; I met up with a dog named “Luka” who was kind enough to jump up on me and show me his teeth.

Luka

My new camera captured some beautiful pictures; I kayaked for the first and second time. Oh, I could go on and I’m sure that everybody else has lots of good memories too.

Of course, we all went into the cottage with a bunch of expectations. And, the cottage was reasonably expensive, so of course we wanted everything to work out. But instead there were the problems. Things broke, didn’t work the way we wanted them to and it rained one day, just like life. Lots and lots of things happen in life. And, in my mind, it’s the things in life that surprise us and disrupt our plans, or don’t follow the rules as laid down by those who have the power to lay them down, that play a large part in what moves the human world forward in a creative Wabi Sabi way. (Wabi Sabi is the Japanese art of appreciating the beauty in the naturally imperfect world.)

View of Antigonish Harbour from Cottage

***

By the way, I painted our trailer a different shade of green. We like it better.

One interesting thing, though. If you look at the picture it looks like one section had one less coat of paint applied to it. However, it didn’t. They all received the same amount. Maybe it was the rain that caused one section to look more faded. Maybe I mixed one batch better than another. Who knows, but DOESN'T IT LOOK CREATIVE?

Our newly painted home

***

             “For every evil under the sun
              There is a remedy, or there’s none;
          If there is one, try and find it;
          If there is none, never mind it.”
                               A Proverb

          “The woods were dark, and the night was black,
          And only an owl could see the track;
          But the cheery driver made his way
          Through the great pine woods as if it were day.

          I asked him, ‘How do you manage to see?
          The road and the forest are one to me.’
          ‘To me as well,’ he replied, ‘And I
          Can only drive by the path in the sky.’

                                                  Amos R. Wells, The Path in the Sky

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Cape Breton-Wow!

26/5/2014

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Congratulations to the following outstanding Cape Bretoners:

Author Bill Conall, whose latest book, "The Promised Land" won the 2014 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. His novel follows two generations of outsiders trying to fit into their new Cape Breton surroundings. See more at: http://www.zoomerradio.ca/news/latest-news/bill-conall-takes-leacock-medal-humour/#sthash.i36alvOw.dpuf

Author and publisher Sherry D. Ramsey, whose speculative fiction book, “One’s Aspect to the Sun”, published by Tyche Press, made the eligibility list for nomination to this year’s Prix Aurora Awards. See more at: http://www.sherrydramsey.com/?page_id=2094 and check out her current projects in process. Sherry is also well known as one of the three publishers of Third Person Press.

Multi-talented Leah Noble, whose blog was featured recently on the front page of The Chronicle Herald in recognition of her creativity in drawing the world’s attention to Cape Breton : http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1205722-dream-big-cape-breton . Leah is also quick to acknowledge other local bloggers.

My old buddy George from Ontario has been crashing at our place. It’s his first visit to Cape Breton and we’ve made sure that he’s seen and experienced as much as possible. I’ve taken him on a few hikes in Middle River, including one on the mountain. Sure looked a lot different from the cityscapes he’s used to! And he really enjoyed our trip around the Cabot Trail. It was wow this and wow that. An explosion of oohs and aahs. We made many stops along the way so he could record some of the incredible views, but I don’t think he’s likely to forget any of it. We finished the day with a campfire in our back yard.

We also took him to the Doryman Pub and Grill in Chéticamp last Saturday afternoon to celebrate his birthday. We were all impressed by the outstanding fiddling offered by Colin Grant and Jason Roach. It was a toe-tapping, glass-tipping time and there was a cozy feeling about the place. A nice mix of Celtic and Acadian music. If you haven’t been there, take a look at what they offer: http://doryman.ca/index.php/events . Try to get there early enough to get a window seat overlooking the water or you might be sitting at a boarded over pool table, which isn’t so bad if you are bothered by wobbly tables.

Here are some of the sights along the Cabot Trail that got George wishing he could move down here. He had a good time exploring the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, but he also enjoyed shopping in Sydney and North Sydney, eating pizza at Tom’s in Baddeck and getting a haircut at ‘Design Hair’ on Big Baddeck Road.

Cabot Trail Winding

Chéticamp Harbour

Snow along Cabot Trail in Mid-May

Clouds settling on mountains

Neil's Harbour

Grande Falaise

Such a Vista!

No matter how many times we drive around the Cabot Trail, we still find the scenery breath-taking.

View from Tom's Pizza in Baddeck

Relaxing around the campfire

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Weird or not Weird?

17/5/2014

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Cabot Trail in May 2014

I’d like to apologize for being so late with blog number nineteen. “I’m very sorry.”

And I’m aware that blogs are supposed to pop into the invisible yappy world at least every two or three weeks. Because if they aren’t out there, the magical graph which indicates how many people have read my blog, flattens out and then I get feeling like a nobody.

My excuse for being late, by the way, is that I was in Ontario visiting my family and friends.

Peach Tree Inn in Kingston, Ontario

First thing I had to do when I began to write this blog was remember how this blog-writing thing works. Because the city makes me crazy.

But not at first. I love driving into my old city haunts, rolling down the 401 and seeing the swamp on the east side of Kingston. Love seeing my family and friends.

Love the Peach Tree Inn with the big room. Two honking big beds, a large bathroom with a gigantic mirror. Now that’s some thrill, and the room has a window which nearly fills in one wall. It overlooks a gorgeous river of cars, trucks and motorcycles. With weird and not so weird people sauntering, power walking or running along its shore.

Who is weird and who is not weird? That’s a philosophical question that often tickles my thinking organ. And when I got thinking about this while I was in Kingston, I’d take a walk into the washroom and stare into the big mirror. Weird or not weird? Weird or not weird?

Then I’d be off to the little refrigerator for a cold beer. And the room had a microwave, a desk for the laptop, a table to sit around, two big drawers, a couch; the luxury was almost too much.

While in the city we visited this store and that store. This pub and that pub. This mall and that mall. Always with the gorgeous river flowing by. Rushing onward towards who knows where. And that’s another one of those weird brain-tickling questions that is hard to answer.

Then back to the hotel and to the big bathroom mirror. Weird or not weird? Weird or not weird?

Anyway, it took a few days of hurrying here and there before my brain began to curl into itself like a tired, nearly popped out baby in the womb. And my healthy Cape Breton routine of not drinking many glasses of beer a day ceased. My regular Cape Breton exercise program flabbed up. I began to do circles every few steps. Like a rat in a concrete shoe box with mechanically placed holes punched through the top.

Signs and rules. Rules and signs. Don’t park here. Don’t stop here. Don’t do this and don’t do that. Do this and do that. Scents galore. Good and bad. Tiny areas of grassy retreats next to tall buildings sprinkled with discarded dreams.

Well, you get the picture and when I finally saw the ‘Welcome to Cape Breton’ sign on the Canso Causeway, my mind and body stretched and yawned like a cat released from a cage.

Can you imagine me living in Toronto? I did actually live in Hog Town once. For eight months. Eight long, stuffy, depressing months.

***

I was reading a piece in a book edited by David R. Boyd. The book was called ‘Northern Wild’. The essay was called “The Subtlety of Land”, written by Sharon Butala.

She wrote: “Some years later, when I was an established author, I said to a Toronto reporter who had asked me a question about him, “My husband is a true rural man.”

“What does that mean?” the reporter asked, his voice full of skepticism.

“It means,” I said, “that he understands the world in terms of wild things.” I was a little surprised myself at my answer, having been called upon to explain something that until that moment had seemed self-evident, and realizing that, caught off guard, I had hit on the heart of the matter.

The reporter’s pencil stopped moving, his eyes shifted away from me, he reflected, his eyes shifted back to me, and without writing anything down he changed the subject. When I told this story to a writer-naturalist friend, he said, laughing, that for the reporter my answer ‘does not compute.’”

For me the city does not compute.

***

Flying Squirrel

I did manage to get two hikes into the Frontenac Provincial Park, a beautiful park north of Kingston. Twenty-two lakes dot this park. One of the places I love dearly. One of the few locales that kept me sane while I lived in Ontario.

My first hike was made with a long-time friend. At one point he stopped to knock down an old branch. While he was giving it a good shaking, a small animal scurried out of a hole. Scampered up the branch and sort of glued itself to a higher place. It looked like a red squirrel and it kind of didn’t look like a red squirrel. Upon further observation we decided it was a flying squirrel. I haven’t seen too many of them.

My friend took this picture of the flying squirrel and very kindly emailed it to me.

***

Orange Tape on Moose Skull

Oh yes, I think I have to make a correction. It’s about blog number eighteen. My blogs are nothing but pure accuracy and when I make a mistake I feel obligated to correct them.

In blog eighteen I wrote that I used bright green trail tape to mark my paths. That was wrong. I used bright orange tape. At least the "bright" was correct.

***

One day, a sunny day it was, with the snow slowly melting and the wind not so frigid on my face, I sat in my woodshed and gazed out at the world. At our little mobile home. Smoke curling out of the chimney. I was content in the knowledge that Sue was inside, most likely performing some computer miracle. I sat and watched and listened to the river and the host of birds who were chowing down at our feeders.

I tossed out some pieces of biscuits. Bird edible. I waited for a creature to swoop down and beak up a quick snack. The food was close to where I was sitting. This, I knew, would make the creatures nervous.

Hungry Crow

However, we have a crow who hangs around. Last night I even dreamed that he was outside our bedroom window waiting for us to feed him. He’s getting to be a semi pet. I think I gave him a name but I can’t remember what it is. I can thank the city for that. Would you know if I gave the crow a name?

This crow flew towards the woodshed. Did a fly pass or two and then landed about six feet from me. He grabbed a piece of food. But surprised me by not immediately flying away. Instead he grabbed another piece and another piece. About four or five, altogether. Looking like a hungry guest at one of those places where starvation sized sandwiches are laid out on plates for the guests to daintily pick up and swallow with a glass of fluid.

He took off, carrying his booty. He flew it to his gang, the five or six crows who hang out here.

These crows seem to get along. They seldom fight or rush at each other. Hold few food fights. Instead they all eat their own food. Like a good Christian family at Sunday dinner.

***

I’ll close this blog with a picture of one of our neighbours. He is a collector, a long-time resident and like many of us up here, a person who has managed to stave off elimination.

May the force be with him and with you.

Our neighbour

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Literary Angst at the Bird Feeders

6/4/2014

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I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby declare that as of Sunday, April 6th, I have received more than enough rain, freezing rain, ice pellets and snow.

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that my snow blower is useless. Unless I can hire a team of moose to pull it through the above mentioned precipitation. Snow blowers detest ice pellets underneath their wheels. Confound them!

Larry's Daily Occupation

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that after clearing off the snow plough’s many big dumps, along with the sky’s larger dumps uponst all the sundry acres of paradise for which I am responsible, that I have, as of now, fired myself from snow removal. I will continue to be available for minor wood splitting and spooning of sugar into my piping hot tea.

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also further hereby declare, that I was not friggen impressed by the April Fool’s joke of another snowstorm. Ha, ha, and who else is laughing?

Finally, I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby and finally declare, that this is my last hereby declaration. Which I hereby declare to be declared.

Have you read “Cape Breton Christ”, written by Denise Aucoin and published by Breton Books? I have, and although I’m not much for writing a technically proper book review, I can say that I enjoyed this book. It was a comforting and uplifting read. The thing about this book is that it’s a short novel written in the form of a poem. And I loved the ending. I won’t give it away, but I’m reasonably sure that if Christ were going to pick a place to live, he might very well decide to settle down in Cape Breton. It’s an island with a big heart. Here’s a quote from Denise’s book:

“not for one second am i about to suggest
that our baby Christ came to be born
in the middle of mabou
or bridgeport
or any other such community on cape breton island
what i am announcing is that
in the sacred and incredible act of creation
our beautiful island was immensely blessed
by the heart and hand of god
over five hundred and seventy million years ago.”

I’m not a person who has settled into many new places. So I don’t have the skills down pat on how to burrow into a new environment, while keeping the connections back in the last place piping hot and fresh. And, being reasonably sensitive, according to some observers, I worry about keeping the old emotional ties strong back in Ontario, while working on building new emotional bonds in Cape Breton.

One niggling worry is that my associations in Ontario are feeling the strain on the psychological threads of friendship that were nurtured over so many years.

So, hello to all my friends in Ontario, Alberta and Michigan.

C’est la vie, mes amis. May we someday enjoy a Gamay together at our favourite aunt’s place.

Rona Lightfoot-Celtic Piper

Life is a koan. Don’t you think? One of the biggest koans might be the viewpoints held by non-Aboriginals versus those of the Aboriginals. Whew, a tough one, and the puzzle is quite apparent up here in Cape Breton, where different colonial cultures live side by side with the Aboriginal population.
On Saturday, I was talking to an Aboriginal friend who lives off the reserve. This offers him a different set of problems from
those who live on the reserve.

So he deals from his unique perspective with the intrinsic views of the non-Aboriginals and with those of his culture who live on the reserve. If that isn’t a rock to the noggin, problem-solving puzzle, I don’t know what is. His attempts to fit the pieces together must have his synapses firing fast enough to burn down a meth lab.

I was thinking, what if this fella was a writer? He’d have lots of emotional material to put into words. Because, as you know, I believe writers need at least some chaos and uncertainty in their lives for them to have the material to incorporate into their blood and guts creations.

However, it may be difficult to write about a crisis such as a relationship breakdown, if you are in the midst of one. But once you’ve put it behind you and are trucking on down the road, well, the pen will, at some point, be ready to burn, baby, burn.

Many writers, like myself, get discouraged. Sometimes I’ll read a short story or a novel and I’ll think, “Shit, I can’t write like that. Hell, I don’t even think like that”.

Take many of the literary magazines. So many of their stories have been diced, spliced and sautéed into an urban gruel. They’re the ones that seem to grab the publishers’ attention. Put a character in a bar, a bedroom, a downtown apartment, a subdivision, a jail or a whore house on Yonge Street and your odds of being published rise. Of course, I know this is not always true, but these thoughts do occasionally bounce around inside my skull.

And hell, we live in a forty-five-foot mini home in the forest. My main conversations are with crows, squirrels and Ben, the dog down the road. Now, I’ve seen birds and squirrels getting amorous. And I’ve seen a crow eating a dead squirrel while the squirrel’s family members run up and down the branch trying to get a look at who it was that was killed and is being devoured. We suspect the perpetrator was the black cat who creeps up to our house in the early morning and waits for breakfast by our bird feeders.

Squirrel peeking through our window

And the chatter on the street is there’s a new crow in town. What is the inner angst of this rogue crow? Why does Ben choose to poop on our laneway and not on his own? Look out, literary magazines. Here comes an award winner.

But, really, there are so many good writers out there. Urban or rural. Which leads me to a point about my marketing savvy. By the way, don’t spend too much time trying to find my marketing savvy, because I don’t have a lot. And, I don’t know if I will ever get myself worked up into a marketing frenzy. Which, I think, is a problem for many writers. Because the various forms of social media, with their unlimited potential, are so powerful that writers feel they have to be involved in it all the time. If not, they worry they are going to be left behind by a massive herd of social media-savvy key-tappers. Which must have some deleterious effects on their energy to create.

Here’s an example of my marketing enthusiasm. When I was a kid and thought as a kid and didn’t look at myself in the mirror very often, I used to have a paper route. The newspaper would hold subscription drives. I hated the door-knocking, the persuading and the rah-rah sessions. I did, however, win a raincoat at one rally, but they had to draw twenty times and there were only about twenty-five carriers in the room. Plus it was a dry summer. Ha.

***

I’m also humble about my vocabulary. Which isn’t gigantic, although it’s growing. People generally use the words they heard when they were growing up. So, if you hear a lot of words when you are a child, you will most likely use them when you’re older, along with the dialect you heard.

Note, that doesn’t make a person with a larger vocabulary more intelligent, but it will open up more opportunities for them. My warning to those with a big vocabulary is to not resent having to drop your vocabulary by a thousand words so you can communicate with the likes of me. Because isn’t it the luck of the draw as to what family you have or don’t have? Just buck up and enjoy your view.

Stephen King has pointed out that a person shouldn’t wait to write until after they have acquired a greater number of words. The words will come with the writing and the reading. However, you must read.

***
Finally, what amazes me about writing, is that the creative activity involved in this pen to paper thing, opens us up to universal bits and pieces. Maybe because a writer is someone who keeps an eye out for these messages and surprises. Most writers are always on the job. Therefore they recognize more clues and bits of unusual info.

Like last week. I was travelling down Disheartened Highway 104. I was questioning my vision and my style and indulging in other downer thoughts, when I stumbled upon a Walter Whitman poem. It’s called, “Quicksand Years”. (I do this stumbling thing all the time.) Here’s the poem:

“Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,

Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me,

Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possesse’d soul, eludes not,

One’s-self must never give way-that is the final substance-that out of all is sure,

Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?

When shows break up what but One’s Self is sure?

Does this poem say a lot about what your own soul has to express? Have you stumbled on any creative aids?

Have a great week!

Cabin across the road from us

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Shack-Wacky Hype

24/2/2014

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A few days ago, I was snow blowing the long path to the tool shed, where I’ve been storing ?????. I’d started clearing out the snow before the sun had even rubbed the sleepy dust out of its corona, so it was dark, and I was thankful for the headlamp on ????. You see, the weather person had called for rain. Which meant that when the temperature dropped, the rain-gorged snow would become as hard as a stale all-bran muffin.

You may notice the question marks in parts of this blog. That’s because I’m curious to see if you readers have been paying attention to my fourteen blogs. Feel free to leave a comment with the names represented by the question marks! I also think I’m doing this weird question mark thing because I’m feeling frisky. Because I’ve managed to compose fourteen blogs, this being my fifteenth. High five! Fourteen, about to become fifteen!

So ???? was shining his light forth into the darkness, while the wind whipped snow back into my face, because it couldn’t figure out where the heck it was going. As ???? blew the snow into the air, more snow filled in the path behind me, and as I inhaled the sweet scent of snow blower fumes and mouse pee, I asked myself, “Is this hell or heaven? Did we make the right move when we up and left ???? to settle in the Cape Breton highlands? Where there are only two kinds of flies, black flies and snow flies? A place, where even when the day is sunny and bright and not a cloud hovers over my head, the snow gently falls from the sky, albeit at an angle, and alights upon my just cleared patch of home turf.” And I thought if I listened carefully, shut the snow blower off for a few friggen seconds, I might even hear the mountain winds blowing through the bare trees. And if I was really, really quiet, I might hear those tall, rounded, tree-covered mountains tee-heeing and having a great old time. For much of our snow is booted our way from the other side of those mountains.

In summary, and after a bit of time to think it over, I’ve decided that it’s not heaven but a hell of a lot of work. I’m reminded of the last verse of Cape Breton poet Aaron Schneider’s poem, “Life at Sea":

“We’ll stay with the storm,
run before it stoking
and steaming, while each day asks
what tied us to this frozen helm
horizon a great white wave?”

FYI, the snow blower is in the shop for repairs and I have to drive through a snowstorm to find out what the doctor has to say.

Skiing on Snowy Ski Trails Beats Snow Blowing!

As I said, this is my fifteenth blog. Fifteen. Not a big deal for some bloggers, who seem to zip one off every day or two. When I first started writing this blog, I was given some advice. These are the two suggestions I remember.

One fella said, “You have to watch that you don’t write yourself out.” His fear being, I think, that writers could put so much of their writing energy and content into the blog, that they wouldn’t have much left for their other creative endeavours. His advice put a bit of a scare into me.

The second piece of advice sounded more daunting. It was that I should put the blog out fairly often. Once a week at least. So I could continually be in my readers’ faces, waving some new Larry tidbit.

Holy crap, Batman. I’m not even on facebook. I can see the value of facebook, but I’m not comfortable with it.

My emails are person specific. One email per person. All personally tailored, with a bit of gossip for this guy and gossip about the first guy to the second guy; each email hand-made with person-specific snoop and chatter. Very few of my emails are generic, mass produced or consumer friendly. So, as you can see, I wasn’t prepared to pump generic tidbits into the blogosphere.

I also worried that if I became too prolific, I might be disrespecting, neutering and trivializing my emotions, ideas and teeny bits of wisdom, by semi-obliviously tossing them into the mass ocean of talk, words and images. Which scream, blare, humour, whisper or sing from anything that has a screen or a speaker. Besides, I don’t think I have an unlimited amount of ideas, news and knowledge to feed into this hungry sea which often seems to have the memory of a goldfish.

Also, I have read in more than one book about writing, that you can talk a story away. Not run out of the ideas or feelings required to write in a blog, but yap away the creative power needed to write something complex and powerful.

For example: I enter a shop. I see a small, older woman in a tiny, cluttered room. She’s selling second-hand books and clay figurines made by her husband. The store is empty. She’s waiting for customers, sitting behind an old cash register and drinking coffee out of a small white styrofoam cup. It’s not hard to tell that her business isn’t doing well. The room looks shabby and dusty and she looks shabby and dusty, but also sad, lonely as hell and a little bit desperate. I can feel her melancholy. I also sense a story bubbling up in my mind. It begins to simmer. Empathy for her plight is stirring it up.

And I know that my muse, who lives under our trailer, can feel it too. Which means he’s probably working on the story while I’m doing whatever. Like when I’m frying eggs and boiling water or clearing snow off our laneway. I think I’ll write a blog about snow clearing some day. Ha!

So, let’s say I meet this woman, and then a little while later, I get together with some friends at a local pub, and while quaffing down a beer I tell them about this lonely woman I saw at this shop. I discuss a possible story. Leak out a few plot ideas. Blah, blah, blah. My friends might offer their opinions and the story becomes muddied, mutated and mangled before I have time to sit in my writing room and keyboard it out.

The next day or so, when I sit down to write this story, guess what? The story has been partially gutted. My emotions, which were fresh and eager to be penned, have fizzled like a wet firecracker. Damn!

I’m not saying the story has vanished. It might still be there, but the fire may have been partially talked away. And as I said in my last blog, a large part of fiction writing, at least for me, comes from the gut. It’s not really a rational process.
Maybe it’s because when you leak out or pour out a story idea you partially encapsulate it or frame it. Nothing my creative muse hates more than a framed idea. Gutless, and when I invite my muse up to my writing/Black and Decker drill and saw/Sue’s files/our vacuum cleaner storage unit/office, to join in the writing project, well, he’s ticked off.

“Hey dude, you’ve already blabbed that story out. So what do you want me to do? Warm it up and send it out as second-hand crap? Go pencil yourself.”

My Office

Anyway, as you may know, I spend a lot of my time in a little trailer in the forest. Trying my best to be hip with the hype and not go shack-wacky. Maybe I should say, worrying about getting with the program, but not often actually doing it. And I don’t really want to end up doing what Salinger did. He wrote his last works and then hid them away. I guess writing them was enough for him. Where was his marketing savvy? What was wrong with him?

Sidney Cox once wrote, “Do not try to write a poem until you want to.”

Diamond in the Rough

So, maybe writing too many self-promotional words in order to get my writing out there, or talking too much about what I want to create, can mute my desire to write.

I know that as with everything in life, when you create, you’re walking a fine line. Because the diamond in the rough is super hard and yet as fragile as a spider’s web. Choosing not to run as quickly as the hare might fail to get a writer so much into the world’s hungry, obsessive gaze, but it might also be a way to save his or her writing self by keeping the flames hot.

Yeats wrote: “But when I shut my door and light the candle, I invite a marmorean Muse, an art where no thought or emotion has come to mind because another man has thought or felt something different, for now there must be no reaction, action only, and the world must move my heart but to the heart’s discovery of itself, and I begin to dream of eyelids that do not quiver before the bayonet.”

Snow-covered Lake Ainslie

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Blood, Ink and Words

3/2/2014

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“One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)
Walt Whitman

From reading the above poem, I would have to believe that Walt Whitman would have agreed with the idea that we write from the gut and not from the head.

So might Salman Rushdie, who wrote: “...the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.”

And what is my opinion? I think that emotions are at least as important as logic and knowledge. Maybe more so. That feelings are to our creativity, as firewood is to our wood stove.

And sometimes that can cause a problem or two. Because writers flirt, play, manipulate, tease and struggle with emotional material. Like a lion tamer, who tries to get the lion to do this and that while said lion growls, hisses, roars and even charges at the tamer. Now most of the time the charges aren’t carried to their final possibilities and the lion backs off. But sometimes the lion doesn’t drop his eyes and back off. Isn’t obedient. His attack is for real. Then you have trouble.

Definitely out of the cage!

Which is, as I previously said, one of the writer’s main sources of literary fuel.

If the lion gets you then you’re emotionally bleeding. A lot or a little bit, and the lion may be out of his cage. Outside your writing office. He’s free to roam wherever he darn well pleases while you try to wrangle him back into his cage. And doesn’t he just love to cuff you around when you’re trying to sleep? Like a cat toying with a mouse.

Chaos is defined in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary as: “utter confusion” or “the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe”.

Chaos is like having a truck dump a pile of building supplies onto your front lawn leaving you to figure out which part goes where. And winter is coming. And you’re low on money.

What happened to our driveway?

Chaos plays willy-nilly with our normalcy. And yet it’s what writers play with. It’s their construction material. The bricks and mortar of the story that will get the pen smoking, or in this era, the keyboard.

Hazardous Activity

I think that writing should come with a hazardous material caution manual or sign. “WARNING, WRITING CAN LEAD AN INDIVIDUAL TO A FEELING OF BEING LOST. IF EXPOSED TO WRITING CHAOS, PLEASE WRITE IN YOUR JOURNAL IMMEDIATELY. WASH CHAOS OUT WITH AT LEAST AN HOUR OF EXERCISE PER DAY. TALK TO SOMEBODY YOU TRUST. WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. GIVE IT TIME. HAVE A BEER OR TWO BUT NOT MANY MORE. MOST OF THE TIME.”

I’ve also both heard about and experienced the problems that arise when writers try to write about emotional experiences they are undergoing in the present. For example, if you’re going through a divorce, it’s difficult to use those experiences and the emotions in your writing until the sensations particular to that situation, have had time to settle and work themselves out.

Or, using the wood metaphor, until the wood has had time to dry. When it’s at its best to get your wood fire turning your stove pipes red. Otherwise, the wood is too green. So can your present emotional experiences be too green. It takes time.

Emotional chaos can come to anyone from a whole variety of experiences. A new job, the death of a loved one, a lost relationship, a new relationship, a loss of faith, a new faith, or from those places that have long been locked away. The hinges coated with rust and the door heavy with moss and age.

However, when a writer gets it sorted out and can begin to write about it, then the writing will be the real thing. The blood will be on the page and what reader can resist reading stories written in blood?

And writers have an advantage. They’re used to dealing with creative chaos. They can write it into something meaningful to themselves and to others. Get the mangy old lion cornered.

When creative or personal chaos strikes me, I look at the sky, the mountains, the trees and the ocean or lake and I see how immense this universe is. It’s easy when you live in Cape Breton to see this immensity of the universe. Then, if I’m lucky, I can allow myself to let go and be gracious about the chaos that is supply teaching for my usual rascally rabbit muse. And I write.

As they say, the tree that bends, lives to grow another day, or something like that.

According to Grinder, (whom I am going to have to wake up today, before the rain turns the snow into mush, and then the cold turns the mush into )*(&^&^%^$% ice), “The snow blower whose shear pin breaks is a snow blower who will live to blow snow for another day.” I couldn’t have put it any better myself.

Sunday Drive on Cabot Trail

And where is our soul while all this is going on? Don’t worry, it’s safe, even if it has to go into hiding for awhile.

John O’Donohue, Irish mystic and Connemara poet, wrote:
“The light of modern consciousness is not gentle or reverent; it lacks graciousness in the presence of mystery--when the spiritual search is too intense and hungry, the soul stays hidden. The soul was never meant to be seen completely.”

Tolstoy wrote in his book, Anna Karenina: “He was nine years old, he was a child; but he knew his own soul, it was dear to him, he protected it as the eyelid protects the eye, and did not let anyone into his soul without the key of love. His educators complained that he did not want to learn, yet his soul was overflowing with a thirst for knowledge.”

So hang in and believe that some day it will be a bloody wonderful story.

***

Speaking of chaos, have you been listening to some of our skilled politicians lately? The ones who seldom spin a lie, but rarely tell the truth? Now there’s a Zen koan for you.

"Cawcus" Meeting

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Creativity, Crocks and Rejection

Neighbourhood Watch

Worth Fighting For

Missing Out

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Cape Breton-Wow!

Weird or not Weird?

Literary Angst at the Bird Feeders

Shack-Wacky Hype

Blood, Ink and Words

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